WHEN I WAS TEN...

WHEN I WAS TEN…

I began my first diary.
I accidentally knocked my two front teeth out in a swimming pool.
I wanted to run away from home.

I played four-square at school with my new best friends.
I swam in my friend’s swimming pool in the summer. (That’s where I knocked my teeth out.)
I learned about fractions in math.

I had old Mrs. Brown for a teacher.
I lived in a Spanish style house ten blocks from the Pacific Ocean.
I learned to groom poodles for show and was paid fifty cents a dog by our neighbors across the street who had four show poodles.

I tried not to stare at the ugly cauliflower ears on the man next door who used to be a professional boxer.
I was an avid Mickey Mouse Club fan and watched the show every day on our black and white television that sat in the corner next to the fireplace where I saw my first potato bug. YUK!
I had my second Christmas without snow.

I took a picture, with my new Brownie camera, of my Dad sunbathing in the eighty degree heat on Christmas day in southern California.
I laughed at my Grandad, who was visiting from Washington where it was always cold and snowy at Christmas, as he insisted on wearing his long underwear “because it’s December”.
I joined the Girl Scouts.

I won a dance contest in my Girl Scout troop dancing to the song Rockin’ Robin.
I started growing boobies.
I thought Elvis Presley was disgusting.
My favorite mouseketeer was Annette on the Mickey Mouse Club.

I dreamed of taking ballet lessons like my friend Abigail.
I played with our blue parakeet , Honey Bunch, who bit me and never learned to talk.
I kept a little tapestry suitcase tucked under my bed, packed and ready to go in case of emergency.