Charming Child With Umbrella

Backstory. Every character needs one. See that charming child with the umbrella?That picture has a backstory.
That’s me. Being my marvelously behaved self. It’s Easter. I haven’t a clue how old I am. My guess is four or five. I didn’t like dresses. I didn’t want to look at them. I for sure didn’t want to wear them. I lived in overalls, tennis shoes and a baseball cap. Girly stuff was for the birds. But my mother was my mother and she wanted her daughter to be a Southern Belle.
Can you see the little ball of white sticking out of my fist? That’s my gloves. Didn’t want to wear them.
See that hat? Did I hate that hat! It was straw and it circled around and the crown was open. I called it a horse’s hat.
My mother and I were having a screaming fight out in the yard.
“You will wear that hat.”
“No! Only horses wear hats like these. I’m NOT a horse.”
(Yes, I’ll bet my mother and my neighbors were thinking I was at least PART of a horse.)
“Put on those gloves!”
“No!”
And so it went. Finally we had to go to church. My mother said she was getting a @#*%#*@** picture of me in my Easter outfit before we went to Mass.
I made my mother cuss before Easter service. I think I drove her to cursing quite a few other times.
But I didn’t wear the gloves.

Easter Egg Hunt
That’s me again. Probably no more than four and already a known terror. I have an older brother who is a really nice guy. But, see he was born sweet, and had long eyelashes and dark, curly hair. And he was sweet. Did I say that? I was whey faced and had frog fuzz hair, and well, not too attractive. So, I was in last place for looks and disposition. I think, early on, I realized this, and if I couldn’t out sweet my brother, I would get attention another way. Sheer cussedness.
If I’m remembering correctly, this picture was taken at a church Easter Egg Hunt. The child that found the most eggs got a prize. I saw no good reason to search for the eggs myself. That was wasting time. I followed the shouts of “I found one!” and then took the eggs away from the finder.
One part of my family is Italian and I think I had early Mafia syndrome.
I believe that some child tattled (that’s geezer speak for narced) on me and I had to give back the eggs and the prize.

College Days

That’s me in college. I attended Stephen F. Austin State University, but they might not be willing to admit that. This pic was taken in summer school. We went to class at early-thirty every morning and were through with that “larning” stuff by noon. Generally, we then high tailed it for the nearby lakes. This picture is following an afternoon of water skiing. That was my lucky straw hat. It had been dunked in the water as often as I had, but, I wore the darn thing anyway. The cigar. Now, someone in the group had a cigar for some unknown reason. We all agreed cigars stunk and she should pitch it. But she dared someone to smoke it all the way down to a nubbin. There wasn’t a dare I could refuse at that time, so I fired it up and puffed. They took my picture. Please note, the unmade bed, the bongos, the Raggedy Ann doll and Snoopy in the background. And I thought I was all grown up—a woman of the world, smoking a cigar. Notice the attitude isn’t much different from the Easter Egg hunt picture.
Don’t you know my parents were proud? Pursuit of higher education—it’s a wonderful thing. Especially during summer sessions.

What's In That Tiger's Tank?

That’s not a stuffed tiger. He’s real and very much alive. When we were in Edmonton, Alberta at the big mall, the zoo had some of their animals there for photo opps. You paid about twelve dollars and you were kind of shoved onto a big block and a baby cat was thumped into your lap. This tiger flapped one of his big paws and I felt like someone hit me with a pillow with a brick inside. I felt the tiger’s tummy rumble and I thought that odd, because I didn’t think tigers purr. The picture was snapped and the tiger was whisked out of my lap just in time. Let’s just say that after he was deposited in his cage—there was a lot of clean up involved.

A near miss.

Or would that be a near hit?

Anyway, a tiger’s fur is unbelievably soft and dense and he didn’t try to chew my face off even once.

Good kitty.

                                This is how we looked when we went for our walk

                                around the lake.  Kind of like a circus parade.

Smile When You Call Me Ethyl

That would be me, probably in my late thirties. I’m in my classroom. Note the picture next to me. The whole things says YOU KIDS WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME YET. Yep, that’s the first thing my students knew aboutme. Set the tone for the year, don’t you think. I taught remedial reading to ninth grade students that read below level, I also taught speed reading and vocabulary extension to college bound students and Creative Writing to kids I hadn’t already terrified.
I had fun teaching. Honest. There were a few times, I thought I’d barbeque a student or two, but we all survived. I had an unusual way of teaching. I don’t believe in power plays. Those kids could eat me for lunch if they took the notion to do so. So I tried to use humor. One year I had a student listed in the role as Augustus. I asked if he preferred Augustus or Gus. He shrugged and said I could use either one. I told him that it wasn’t a multiple choice question. He told me to call him whatever I wanted. Okay, I told him, I’m calling you Ethyl. He nodded with that “yea sure you will,” nod, shrug thing. I not only called him Ethyl from then on, I told his English teacher that if he told her to call him whatever she wanted-to call him Ethyl. He did. She did. He thought his planets were out of line until he snapped to the fact that his English teacher might know his Reading teacher. Thankfully he was not insulted but thought the whole thing was funny and told his other teachers that he allowed only “cool” people to call him Ethyl.
Another kid I taught spied a cricket in the classroom. He told the class that he would eat if for three dollars. They anted up. Rob asked me if he could eat the cricket. I said sure. He ate it. The class ( oh and my dear yes, me) groaned LOUD. Then Rob started spitting and ran for the hall. “Hold it,” I said. “Where are you going?” He said he was going to get a drink of water. “No can do,” I told him. “I agree you could eat the cricket. I didn’t give you permission to leave class for a drink.”
Okay, I finally let him go, but we had a discussion about asking the right questions and getting the right answers before one proceeds on a course of action.
I taught almost twenty years and the kids were funny, annoying, bratty, scary sad, loving and almost all totally amazing. I keep in touch with quite a few and they are still amazing.

Bunny Cat

I wrote a play called The Legend of the Cream Colored Cat. It was directed by Rex Poland and produced by Brazosport High School. It is a retelling of the legend of how the Siamese cat got his crossed eyes, crooked tail and dark markings. The cat in the middle is the main character and he looks whitish because that’s before he gets the dark feet, tail and face. My husband thinks the cat looks like the Easter Bunny. There’s a critic in every crowd. I’m the only adult there and my son, Josh is kneeling under me. The other kids were friends of Josh’s that I took to the play. They attended because I promised them cake and soda afterwards. I got many lovely letters from children about the play. It toured to all the local elementary schools. It was a wonderful experience.
Okay, so none of that is very humorous, but I wanted a picture of me when I was thin. So there.