You Know You're from Seminole........

Right now, Facebook is exploding with pages entitled "You Know Your From (insert hometown here) If...  I have great childhood memories growing up in Seminole, but my greatest memories are mine and I'm not sure anyone else from my hometown could relate so, what's a gal to do?  BLOG!!


My older sister Natasha or Tash as I call her, are 54 weeks apart and polar opposites in many ways but very connected in almost a twin sister kind of way.  When my parents rounded the four of us up, Tash and I were one name, it would go something like this "NatashaRebecca.........Nathan, Danita".  We were always dressed alike in our younger days and we even had our birthday parties together.  


Tash and I were so inseparably we even shared our "pretend" friend, Tabby & Choo-Choo.  We could always count on Tabby & Choo-Choo to get us in trouble, they were so mischevious!  Spilt kool-aid could be chalked up to Tabby & Choo-Choo, not us. Bath water all over Mom's newly cleaned bathroom, did not come from Natasha or myself, that was the works of Tabby & Choo-Choo! But we all have pretend friends right? Man I sure hope so or Tash & I are looking pretty crazy right about now and Mom has to be kicking herself for throwing away the number to child psychologist she was given by our next door neighbor in 1975.  But that is another topic for another day.  


Now back to the water soaked bathroom.  Like clock work, Mom & Dad would clean the house every Thursday.   Dad would be dusting all of his clocks and antique glassware, running the vacuum cleaner.  Mom would be doing laundry and cleaning the bathrooms.  Mom's tag line on Thursdays would be "Don't mess up that bathroom, I just cleaned it!"  Tash & I of course were expected to clean our room, so we did like most kids our age and shoved everything we could under the beds and once that became overloaded, we began shoving any and everything into every available space in the closet, then run outside and out of ear shot of Mom and Dad so that we could play Charlie's Angels or ride our bikes uninterrupted.   


On one fateful day, after riding our White's Auto bikes around the neighborhood, Dad summoned Tash and I to come inside and take our bathes.  Mom of course told us "Girls hurry up and take your bath and DO NOT get water on the floor, I just cleaned it!"  Heeding Mom's warning, Tash and I scurried off to get our matching nightgowns.  You know the ones with the little pink roses,  2 buttons and trimmed in lace at the top and had elastic in the cuff of the sleeve.   Mom & Dad had ordered them from the Sears & Roebuck catalog and given to us the Christmas before.  So nightgowns in tow, we head off to the bathroom and start running the water in Mom's bright and shiny Mr. Clean tub.  During bath time, aka splash time, Tash and I discovered that if you took a wet washcloth and then threw it real hard so that it hit the ceiling with a THUD, it would leave a huge water spot on the ceiling, it was so pretty, almost looked like water sunflowers on the ceiling.  If you kept throwing the wet washcloth on the ceiling, it looked like a beautiful sunflower field.  The other thing we also discovered was when you are letting the water out of the bathtub, it creates a magical effect, you know, like when you are rounding the corner on a water slide?  So Tash and I took turns, pushing off at one end of the tub and then just enjoying the ride and the force that pulled us around the tub.  One was sliding in the tub while the other continued to create fields of water sunflowers.   Of course, little did we realize that all of the Splash Olympics & water sunflowers we had created and  enjoyed for about 30 minutes left an ugly wet mess in Mom's freshly cleaned bathroom.  There was water standing in the floor, water sunflowers covered the ceiling, there were even sprays of water on the mirror and we still can't figure out how they got there.  Must have been Tabby & Choo-Choo, after all, they were the one prodding us along and screaming "MORE MORE MORE".  We couldn't let Tabby & Choo-Choo down.  They didn't get to come play very often, so we had to show them a good time!  So we continued on with rides around the tub and water sunflowers on the ceiling.  It was magical.


After about 30 minutes, we heard Mom's footsteps, and then we saw the shadow under the bathroom door.  We instantly froze and looked at each other, looked at the door, looked at each other, looked at the door and swallowed so hard we both gulped......we watched the door knob slowly turn and then the door opened.  Mom's eyes narrowed as she firmly put her left hand on her hip and it was as if she could not believe what she saw.  The horror of it all was almost too much Mom to bear.  Her freshly cleaned bathroom was disaster, water everywhere.   She gained her composure as she looked around at her once cleaned bathroom which now looked like the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and in barely a whisper, we heard Mom say "I'm going to spank you when you get out of the tub."  Mom stepped out of the bathroom pulled the door shut and we watched the shadow under the door quickly disappear.  


Of course, what kid wants to get out of the tub knowing they have spanking waiting for them at the end of the hall.  Certainly not us, but we were clever and we could not let Tabby & Choo-Choo down so we had to devise a plan. Somehow, we could get out of this if we just thought about it, really put our heads together and think, think think...........then Tash comes to our rescue with a plan so creative, intelligent and almost mind boggling.  That's Tash, always there when I need a plan, to this day, and she is not about to let her younger sis down.  So Tash pushes off the end of the tub, rounds the back of the tub, executing her maneuver effortlessly, like water in motion, comes to rest in the center of the tub and reveals her plan.  "Ok, this is what we will do....we will sneak out of the bathroom, you first then me, (I'm nodding my head and muttering Yeah Yeah Yeah),  run to our room, we will each get a hymnal and slip it under our nightgown, that way when Mom spanks us, we won't feel it!  Easy Greasy!"  I take about a half a second to review the plan, create a beautiful water sunflower and then start nodding my head up and down crazily.  I mean Tash wouldn't steer me wrong, she couldn't! She was the leader of our gang.   Tabby and Choo-Choo and I looked to her for guidance and wisdom.  So we take another lap around the bathtub, kiss our quickly wilting sunflowers good-bye, dry ourselves off and sneak back to our bedroom.  We each make it back to home base (bedroom) and try locate a hymnal but in our panic are unable to remember if we shoved them under the bed or in the closet.  I open the closet door, there they are, shining like a ray of light, in the back corner of the closet, we spot our Savior, or more commonly known as Sacred Selections.  We quickly slip it under our gown and await our fate.  


Funny thing is, I don't even remember Mom spanking us and I don't think she did.   All I know is that Tash and I have a plethora of childhood memories of our time growing up in Seminole, Texas.  So my post is "You know you're from Seminole if you turned your Mom's freshly cleaned bathroom into an olympic size swimming pool and you were saved only by the Grace of God and a Sacred Selection."

Life After Jr. High

I was the 2^nd of four kiddos. I have an older sister, a younger brother and a younger sister. My older sister Natasha or Tash as I call her, are 54 weeks apart and very connected in almost a twin sister kind of way.  Because our birthdays were only two weeks apart and we shared the same friends, we would have these Colossal Slumber Parties.  There would be games like "Light As A Feather" but that always scared Tash, so we would play a rousing game of Charades and then of course we had to play Truth or Dare.  When it was my turn, I would often select Truth, and then make stuff up to make myself more exciting than I actually was.  Am I the only one who did such a thing?  When playing Truth or Dare and you are asked to be truthful are you really truthful?  I hardly doubt it.  When we are in Jr. High and High School, we want so much to be liked and accepted and it ends up driving us crazy which in turns drives our parents crazy.  I remember asking my daughter "What's going on with you?"  and her reply would be "I don't know"  I would get so aggravated, but truth of matter was she really didn't know.  She was struggling with issues of self-esteem and fear of rejection.  I remember looking around at my friends and classmates and often thinking how cool they were and it never occurring to me, that they were struggling with the same insecurities, they just did a better job at hiding it.   I have come to discover over the years, that even the most popular kids in school struggled with feelings of inadequacy, self-esteem and fear of rejection.  The teen years are a journey we all must take and as brutal as it may seem at the time, it does help to define us and the struggles we endure, make us stronger.  When we feel alone and feel like every day is struggle to find out who we are and where we belong or which lunch table to sit at, just remember, every kid is waking up each morning with the same struggles and issues.  I wish kids at this stage of the game could learn to relax and just enjoy each day they are blessed with, because 20 years from now, the people that you thought were nerdy, or HOT or best dressed in Jr. High and High School, will be your friend on Facebook and they will not remember that you split your milk on the hottest guy/girl in school.  Truth be known, the kids you thought of as the most popular, were truly jealous of you and never saw you as you saw yourself.  Be yourself and embrace who you are.  The more you love yourself, the more lovable you will be to others.  There is life after Jr. High & High School and it will be amazing! 

Small West Texas Town

I grew up in a small west Texas farming town called Seminole. My parents were school teachers and I grew up in what some might consider a strict household. I had a great childhood, no complaints, after all, it is what has made me who I am today. Or has it? Sometimes I think "we are who we are, before we are ever even born." I do not necessarily think we can blame our parents for the person that we have become, because at some point, we have to start taking responsibility for our own actions. But I do blame my parents for not buying me the Easy Bake Oven and the Baby Alive baby doll I wanted but I do not blame them for who I am or for what I have become. In turn, if they do not approve of what I have done or what I have become, they should not blame themselves, these are choices I have made. They can say they taught me better about different decisions I have made throughout my life, and they have, but all in all, it was my choice to go left when I should have gone right.  In my younger days when I was out living life in maximum overdrive, the thoughts that ran through my carefree, and free spirited mind wasn't "You know, my folks taught me better than this!" Heckl no! It was "This is going to be so much fun, how soon can I do it again?" My life and my decisions are all mine and no one else is to blame.  After all, it is what brought me to this point in my life today.  Isn't it funny though that when we make a decision that isn't necessarily wrong but just not one our parents would have selected, they are less than proud of us but if we chose to do as they would have done, then in their eyes, we have made the right choice and they are very proud of us.  Why is it that the parents are always right and the children are wrong just because we do not make the same selection they would.