25 THINGS

In spite of my advanced age, I was invited to join Facebook, and upon doing so I found a bunch of my contemporaries there, admittedly somewhat buried among the teeny-boppers. I have to admit not understanding very well what I was to do, but little by little I’m learning.

Yesterday I was “tagged,” which mean IF I WANTED I could list 25 things about myself that others probably didn’t know. The person who tagged me, though young enough to be my granddaughter, was actually a real genealogical cousin whom I have known for many years, and she told 25 things about herself. I decided to participate, as actually it would be killing two birds with one stone – not being a spoil sport about the “tagging” request AND providing fodder for today's entry on HOT COFFEE & COOL JAZZ. Some of you may be reading this twice, but that’s the price you pay for ever asking me to write!

So here I am.

1. As a little kid I was very afraid of sirens and fire engines, which spilled over into fire drills at school. In either kindergarten or early first grade the principal took me into her office, stood me on a chair, and had me push the button to start the bells ringing for the fire drill. She assured me there was no fire and talked to me while we watched the children come out onto the sidewalk in front of her office. It helped me get over being so afraid but still, for another couple of years whenever I would hear a siren I’d go put my back up against a wall.

2. In first grade I wet my pants in school, a very humiliating experience.

3. I was and still am basically a shy person. I don’t mind giving a genealogy talk before 500 people, but I nearly die if I have to go to a cocktail party where I don’t know people.

4. One of the most foolish decisions I made was dropping out of college to get married.

5. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 24 years old.

6. I hate cleaning house.

7. I gave up smoking when cigarettes went up to 26 cents a pack!

8. The biggest mistake I ever made was believing everything my first husband told me.

9. In college I roomed with a very athletic girl, a real tomboy. She excelled at every sport she played. One year we both took an archery class, and at the final out on the archery field I whipped the socks off her. I got a medal for it, which I promptly lost.

10. I tend to forget secrets I’m told, which is a very good trait, I think.

11. If I hadn’t had little children at the time of the Civil Rights March at Selma, Alabama, I would have been down there marching.

12. I did not think I would survive after my divorce, and I certainly didn’t think I would ever find anyone who would marry a 40 year old woman with 4 teenagers. Luckily I did, and I did.

13. I am not crazy about flying.

14. I lived in Turkey for 19 months and would move back in a flick of a gnat’s eyelash if the opportunity arose.

15. I had four children. The youngest was born in January and my oldest didn’t even start kindergarten until September, so I had four pre-schoolers at home for 9 months.

16. I did substitute teaching for one year and loved it. In one first grade class that I was in for a long time, there was a clingy little “teacher’s pet” type girl who really got on my nerves. Her hand was the first one up, she was the first one in line, she tried too hard to be the good little girl – and I remembered that this is exactly how I was when I was in elementary school.

17. I don’t like to go to the Laundromat. I don’t like to go grocery shopping. I don’t like to have the TV on all day. I don’t like County-Western music. I don’t like bigots.

18. I do like genealogy, cross-stitching, reading, writing, cooking and Capt. Jack Sparrow!

19. When I was a teenager I disobeyed my parents one night by not coming home after I got off work, instead meeting some friends that I knew they would disapprove of. When I arrived home at midnight, I found my parents and two cops in the living room waiting for me.

20. For many years I worked for a temporary agency as a secretary, and the strangest place I ever worked was for a company that made smells.

21. I am not a very emotional person, but I do not go to movies about children or dogs because I cry my eyes out every time one of them runs across the screen!

22. From the time I was four years old I was thought to have a heart condition of some kind. In those days there wasn’t much in the way of tests that could be done to see what the problem was, so I spent my whole life being watched by doctors and limited in what I could and couldn’t do. In the early 1980s when diagnostic tests were more sophisticated, it was determined that I had a tiny hole in my heart in a non-critical place that had never closed up entirely and that was the strange sound the doctors heard. They all assured me that I never did actually have a heart problem. Of course I was pleased, but I felt very empty for not having a real reason to account for all the things I was denied growing up.

23. I have a “thing” about not having a pen in my purse when I need it, so I carry a whole bunch of pens in an old long fabric cigarette case with a clasp on top. I just counted to see how many there are right now and there are eleven. This stash of pens is like my security blanket.

24. My most precious possession is the “Baby Book” my mother kept for me until I married and moved out of the house.

25. I have always wanted to own a hen.