running track

This is my 11th post on my way to 15... I am joining up with other women... to capture my youth... by writing about my childhood.. 1 post for every year.. This year is 9th grade, only a few more to go.

  This was the year I spent much of my time with my childhood friend.. Dena.  Dena and I were inseparable in 9th grade. She worked  part of the summer on a strawberry field, bending over picking strawberries all day. I thought it would be a great job... to do with my best friend... surrounded by red and juicy berries- which I thought were tiny bits of heaven pulled from the vine. My grandmother would not allow me to work on the strawberry farm, she said," It was back breaking work and I would not like it." Later that year, my friend told me my grandmother was right... she did not want to even see a strawberry until next year.

 I got my first job in 9th grade. I worked as a cashier, at Adams Fairacre Farms.

It is like a Whole Foods.. but not quite as amazing. I loved this job.. and the next year while working there I befriended my first real boyfriend, and incidentally we dated for 4 years.

  She came over my dad's for sleep over parties... and One time... it was my 16th birthday.. ( I know next week is 16... but anyway.. my Dad took pictures of us... in his wine cellar and on his hot tub... and it was like a mini- photo shoot... and We had so much fun...

  I had long hair all  thru winter track and finally I cut it... My friend Dena needed to teach me how to be a girl... I had no idea.. how to paint my nails, curl my hair... and apply make-up.

  I ran track.. Loved the hurtles and the sprinting but not the long distance...See the LONG hair...?

  I look at this picture now.. and I understand why people lovingly called me Morticia from the Adams family... That spring I cut it to my chest... (show above) I was collecting stickers still in 9th grade.... while other girls where.. buying clothes, and getting ready for dates.. I was still making sticker albums.. and this poster which gained me a prize in a local store... called Penny Lane was one of the last sticker things I did until I became a Pre-K teacher..( it was a sticker  and card store). ( now it is a pizza restaurant)
  I thought my braces came off at 16.. I am not sure I wore them 4 years.. much longer than was necessary. I did notice that I have them in the Penny Lane picture.
 

In 9th grade.. a friend of mine came over to my house at my mother's to tell me she was pregnant. I was shocked... I had not even been intimate with a boy.. except for holding hands and a peck on the cheek. I was so illequippedt to listen to my friend talk about her missed period... and her parents finding out.. and how her parents and the boys parents were going to sit down and discuss their options... I was in shock. I had not even gotten my period yet.. I was such a late bloomer.
   My friend ended up getting an abortion... and I felt so confused, upset and hurt.. hearing her decisions, but this was when my queen of candor... attitude began to fade.. I began to realize.. that everyone did what they needed to do .. and it was none of my business... and unless someone asked me for there opinion on anything.. I would not give it.
  I realized too, that I had many boyfriends... but all of which lasted a week or a month... and of course.. in my yearbook ...people still wrote sorry it didnt' work with so and so.... Like we were suppose to get together and marry.
  9th grade was one of the only trips I took without my family... Our 9th grade Spanish class was going to Puerto Rico, My grandmother did not want me to go, she wanted me to live my entire life in her house... in a bubble.. I was allowed to go... and I had a fun time.. My good friend got sun-poisoning the first day and had humongous blisters on her back... that scared me into sunblock for life.... That year... some of the students... had gotten drunk and found in the pool at the hotel, and the trip was never done again in 9th grade, we were one of the last students... to go to Canada for the french students and Puerto Rico for the Spanish students. I was expected to speak to all the waitresses in the restaurants because I had taken Spanish for 2 years in elementary school and 2 years in junior high... but I froze up in Puerto Rico and didnt' say much Spanish at all.
  At the end of ninth grade... I began to plan for my sixteenth bday.. my mother told me she could not do it, but she would have a small graduation party for me.. if and when I graduated.. My grandmother told me she could not have a party for me either, so in the end... I asked my Dad and he was happy to rent out an old pizzeria... and I was allowed to hire.. my friends "hair" band... to play at the event... I don't remember much about the party.. but I loved planning it.. I still love planning parties... I am very detail oriented...