Me in 1988. Here’s a little backdrop:
Born in July 1979. Grew up loved in a SE Ohio parsonage across from the town park, with three older sisters.
Sometimes I fought with Tyana, the youngest of my siblings. But that’s because she wouldn’t let me play with her Jem doll and because she said things like, “You’ll understand when you get older.” (She’s 21 months older than me.)
When we played together, I always had to be the boy. Tyana was the queen and I was the king. She was Wonder Woman and I was Superman. She was the waitress and I was the cook.
I always thought it’d be nice to be the girl sometimes, but my role as the youngest sister was understood and thus (unless I’ve forgotten) I don’t think I ever complained.
I loved He-Man but Tyana and I were forced to stop watching it when I was in kindergarten. (He-Man wasn’t acceptable in the framework of our highly-religious upbringing, because he claimed to be a “Master of the Universe.”) (My parents meant well.)
We still secretly played He-Man and She-Ra in the basement. But only in the daytime, because it was dark and scary down there, and there were crickets. (Usually dead ones, over by the washer.)
I loved Rainbow Brite but it went off the air too early, so I mostly remember the character through coloring books.
I colored her pictures with hand-me-down crayolas that were stored in a 1970′s peanut butter tub. Most of the crayons were broken and I could never find the black one. For most of my childhood, the mysterious black crayon was but a third of its original size. It took years to get a new box (I don’t think I ever thought to ask for one), and once we did I’m pretty sure they were RoseArt. *sigh*
When I was five my parents brought me a present that I loved. I cried when I opened it, because it looked very expensive, and we didn’t have much. It was a beautiful doll in a blue dress. She made a crying noise when you turned her over, and her eyes closed when she was on her back.
I used to take this doll and my stuffed animals for rides in our red wagon, and one day I left them all outside and it rained. When I found my doll the next day she was nearly ruined. From then on her hair was a weird texture and it always stuck up funny. For days I cried every time I saw her.
I think I played with her even more after that. I didn’t want her to feel ugly.
I LOVED Jem and the Holograms. One Christmas, Santa Claus (aka my well-meaning mother) bought Tyana a Jem doll, and she bought me Roxy: The bass-player for The Misfits. Not even Pizzazz. I cried.
But Mom couldn’t have known, so I bucked up and played with Roxy. (She was about the right height to work well with Voltron.) (Voltron was my favorite toy; I even had the castle.) But I did sometimes sneak into Tyana’s toys and play with her Jem doll – because, well, she was Jem.
Jem dolls came with cassette tapes with two recorded songs from the cartoon on side A. On side B were the instrumental versions of the same songs. You could thus sing karaoke, though we didn’t call it that back then. (We called these kinds of tapes “accompaniment tracks.”)
Inspired, I made up songs about God to the tune of the original Jem songs. They were awesome. I did not re-write the Jem theme song, but “Like a Dream,” yes. And “She’s Got the Power.”
On Wednesday nights we had Bible Study, which was called J.A.M. (“Jesus and Me,” a thematic vestige of the 70′s).
One Wednesday night, when I was sick, my mom stayed home with me. I didn’t want to watch Scarecrow and Mrs. King, so I dialed through channels (without a remote), and I paused on a sitcom we’d never seen. (It did after all air on a “church night.”) It was called Perfect Strangers.
We laughed for the entire show, my mom and me, and it was love. When Perfect Strangers moved to Friday nights, my family had us a new tradition.
I was a preacher’s kid, and I liked knowing a lot about Bible things. When I was nine I enthusiastically did things like take notes on my dad’s sermons and memorize the book of 2nd Peter. I took great pleasure in correcting the JAM teacher’s spelling of “Crucifiction.” (It’s “Crucifixion.” I won that game of hangman by default.) I was always trying to convert my 8-year-old Presbyterian best friend during recess (Sorry Amber).
My nine-year-old self could lurch happily from Roxy and Voltron to crucifixion and pitch-in dinners.
Also, we used to take a sheet of wax paper to the park across the street. We’d sit on it as we slid down the tall metal slide. We went so fast.
Enjoy.
