I Miss My Innocence

In 7th grade, I remember walking into what I believe at the time was Payless Drugs (now Rite Aid) and I saw this green/black shirt & short outfit that I really wanted. If I remember correctly, the shirt and shorts were black and there was green trim on the edge. I remember that it stood out to me and I really wanted it, even though it wasn't the "in" clothing of 7th grade. My parents bought it or me and I think I wore it once or twice.

In Kindergarten, or maybe it was 2nd grade, there was this guy that would come to the school and he would give us art lessons. We'd go out onto the patio, where we would paint and I always remember him saying that we wanted our lines to be "even steven." To this day whenever I hear the word even, I think of that guy and that phrase.

There was this cute boy in 3rd grade, named Shaun. I went to school with him all through elementary and part of high school. Anyway, I was at drinking fountain during recess one day and he came up next to me, as I was getting a drink of water, and kissed me on the top of the head. That night, while taking a bath, I apologized out loud to Shaun, saying that I had to wash my hair and I really didn't want to wash his kiss away with my shampoo.

An old friend of mine and I would always try to find "mysteries" to solve. We would walk around my neighborhood, or hers and try to find things out of the ordinary and come up with a case and suspects. Her place was always more exciting, though...she lived out in the country.

One of my favorite things to do was go out into the backyard and play. I used to love to make up songs as I was playing. Often times I was playing make believe and I would just start singing, like you would see in a musical. They were always made up on the spot. There's one in particular that I sorta of remember. Well, not the words, but after I was done, I thought it was my best made up song and my best singing job. It was a song about tennis.

I loved playing school. I would set up my stuffed animals or I would just have make believe students. I would teach, then play student and take a test and then I'd be teacher again and grade the papers. When I was little all I wanted to do was be a teacher.

I remember watching TV with my grandma...if it was a week day, we always watched Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Saturdays were special, though. We'd watch TNN (The Nashville Network), where they'd show new and old country music shows. There was this guy named Ralph Emery, would had a talk show and he had a puppet named Shotgun Red. My grandma bought me a stuffed Shotgun Red and I loved it.

My grandma really liked gospel music and old country music and we'd always listen to it. Sometimes we'd both just lay in her bed with the tape player going. Sometimes, I would listen on my own. I remember one time I was listening to Lee Greenwood's I'm Proud to be An American or was it Merle Haggard's Okie from Muskogee? It was one of those...I was listening to the song and I remember crying and looking up to the ceiling and asking God to please not let my parents die someday.

I used to think L.A. and Los Angeles were two different places.

Recess was very important in 4th and 5th grade: Hopscotch. For hopscotch, it was always very important to find the right size of broken popsicle stick to use as your marker. If it was too big, it wouldn't go as far as you wanted because it was to heavy. Too small, it wouldn't have enough weight. I think I found the best size to be about 2 inches long.