Here is a piece of advice to all my young friends. I am speaking mainly to anyone who reads this post who is just now starting into sixth grade... and if you have a child or grandchild starting sixth grade, please, pass this on to them. Go out and get a pack of 3 by 5 cards. Each day of your school year - and you can include the summer months as well - write down something that happened during the day. You need to write the date on the card, write what you were wearing and who you were hanging out with. Don't make this a chore, just jot down something that happened. Maybe the teacher cancelled the math test, someone slipped on a banana peel, or your slip fell in the floor (this happened to my baby sister and thank God she was in the girl's bathroom when this wardrobe malfunction occurred - she just stepped out of the offending garment and threw it into the trash can!) My daughter suggested that jotting down daily memories would be a good thing to do at any age and I agree but let's face it, between sixth grade and graduation, most kids are a hormonal mess! So the cards would write themselves!
If you are going to school for 180 days during the year - that's 180 stories in a year's time. Now over the course of these 6 grueling years, you'd have over a thousand stories to pick through for an amazing book, play or movie about those wonderful, full of enchantment, days. Trust me, whether it's a book, play or movie, it will be hilarious!
How do I know? Well, I've just been reading my sister's recently published book - My Adventures with Earl by Margaret J. Hyler. In one of the early chapters, she mentions taking her neighbors to Atlantic Beach in Morehead City, NC. This story triggered a memory of when I went with them to Atlantic Beach. I was between the ages of 12 and 15. My parents had let me come to Yanceyville, N.C. for a visit and that is when I found out that - surprise! - we were going to the beach! The problem was that I did not have a bathing suit and it wouldn't have mattered if they had told me in advance - I never owned a bathing suit during my entire childhood. (Long story).
JoAnne insisted that I wear one of her suits. She chose a baby pink, bikini - with ruffles on the top and on the bottom! Big ruffles! I go from being a modest, mountain girl to Ann Margaret - beach bunny! JoAnne is 11 years older than me, so as you might expect, her suit was a little too big on me and here's where this post goes a little PG - 13 ... it was that time of month! GAWD!
To make matters worse, I didn't have the supplies I needed because I didn't know that we were going to the beach. And since my parents didn't have a lot of money to keep 5 girls in "supplies," my grandmother had shown me how to make homemade supplies by folding toilet tissue. There I was, on this beautiful beach, in a bikini that was too big, so getting it wet would have made things worse, not just because the suit would expand but because those tissues would have been bunching or dropping out or worse, STAINING!. I had to settle for - teenager, on the beach with big ruffles on my butt and big ruffles on the form fitting cups that my flat chest had no chance of filling. Ah, good times!
My 3 by 5 card would read - Date: 1965 / 1968. Wearing: Over sized, pink, bikini with BIG ruffles. With: JoAnne, brother in law, baby nephew and monthly visitor. Where: Atlantic Beach, NC.
Trust me, when you get some years on you, this stuff, even if it never makes it into a book, play or movie will be better than gold.
P.S. Here's another little detail that I forgot to add in the above story. I was wearing my underclothes under the bikini bottom.....talk about your shorts in a bunch.... yet, a girl has to have something to pin her "supplies" to.
