…a wanna be tomboy…. I wanted to be tough but I wasn’t. I remember pretending to turn my ankle when we played hide and seek because I could never get to base without being tagged. No one wants to be it over and over again. Thinking back on it I’m not sure it was a problem with speed as much as it was timing. I’d find a great spot to hide and stay there… everyone else would run to base and I would be last to emerge. Clearly, I needed a lesson in strategy. I’d just get so caught up in finding a good spot and forget the rest.
…an entrepreneur… I sold things to the neighbors. My most popular product was potpouri. I would go through the neighbors yards and pick flowers. Mix them all together in a bucket. Then, I’d sneak in the kitchen and steal my mom’s scented oil… dump WAY too much in the bucket, portion the concoction into sandwich bags, load it in my wagon and head out door to door… sold those flowers right back to their owners and I’m not sure they knew it. How’s that for resourceful?
…a chicken… I ran with the boys…but I was more like a groupie than a buddy…we’d get the old tires and plywood from my garage and set them up as a ramp in the middle of the road. It was for jumping with our bikes. I never jumped it… but I could do a mean pee wee herman all the way down the street.
…a jerk… My next door neighbor was my best friend. Her name is Bonnie but our 4th grade teacher couldn’t say Bonnie so, that year she was “Bunny”. One day we decided to turn her room into a tent…What that actually meant was I turned the room into a tent and she sat on her dresser waiting for me to finish. I was almost done when all of a sudden she decided I was not a satisfactory tent maker and ripped the whole thing down. Naturally, I was not happy with this and proceeded to sock her in the eye. She screamed and I was shown the door by her very angry mother. Things were never really the same after that day. I haven’t socked anyone in the eye since then but no one has ripped my tent down either…
…a superstar… we had a band and we rocked out. I played Fisher Price Keytar and sang…lead vocals! Yeah Baby! We set up the garage as a stage… curtains and everything, filled the driveway with chairs and forced our parents, friends, and innocent passers by to listen. Luckily, the first two dynamics of our audience loved us and we thought we were AWESOME!
…an extrovert… In more recent years I learned it is thought that children with imaginary friends aren’t necessarily lonely.. they are just extroverts… Willy Woe and Craytha were my imaginary friends. They lived under the dining room table. Craytha wore a terquoise and cream argyle sweater (not that I knew what argyle was when I was 5 but I knew what her sweater looked like… and I now know it was argyle). Willy Woe had stringy hair and was always dirty and smelled like a wolf. She played outside a lot.
…a rule breaker… The park where dad took me to climb “the cliff” was around the block and across a busy road from our house. Mom would NEVER let me ride my bike to the park… well past the age when all the other kids my age were able to ride over to the park. But dad didn’t really know that. One Saturday afternoon mom went somewhere and I stayed home with dad. Everyone was heading over to the park. I knew I wasn’t supposed to go but I wanted to. So, I asked dad if I could go… and he said, “sure. be careful and watch out for cars”. I hopped on my bike and got out of there before he could change his mind or ask me if mom usually let me go. When I got home mom was already back and had been driving around looking for me. See, at the park there are several entrances to the Bartlett drainage system. Technically I guess I wasn’t at the park the whole time b/c we rode our bikes through the drainage canals for at least a mile before turning around. Lucky for us it didn’t suddenly rain that day and this is exactly why mom didn’t let me go to the park. In spite of my irresponsible behavior, I was allowed to go to the park after that. In fact, we rode all over Bartlett after that and I was the only one who didn’t get in trouble the time we crossed Stage Rd (HWY 64).
There are a hundred more stories like these. Events which shaped who I am and how I view the world. I’ll add more later…right now it’s time to go to bed 
