It has been decided here at KTGALS.com that we’re extending the Ice Bucket Challenge another week ~ then it’s show and tell time!
I have received a colorful array of IBC vids and pics and ALS United Illinois has received very generous donations and I humbly thank you dear readers!
If you’re still on the fence about the “whole wet hair thing” take a page from my IBC with my early-to bed-neighbor and my night-owl neighbor girlies!
These two were with me throughout the infamous Bat Saga, so clearly they’re used to unusual assignments. 😂
And people, read the fine print.
I never said how big the bucket had to be.
I never said how much water it had to hold.
And I certainly never said you couldn’t use props.
You don’t even need a bucket!
There are no rules here except: have some fun and and help us ice ALS once and for all.
There is a common thread among many people living with ALS ~ or really any disease that takes away the things a body once did without a second thought.
As your physical world gets smaller, something extraordinary happens: other parts of you start expanding.
Think Steve Gleason, New Orleans Saints, and Chris Johnson, Tennessee Titans. They’ve been quoted as having said they are so much more than their bodies despite their bodies making up a huge part of who they were on the football field. This holds true for every person I’ve highlighted in this blog.
We have learned to appreciate what our physical challenges have given us, and that is perspective. You don’t have to like something to appreciate the insight it gives you.
A big part of me is still that goofy little kid who grew up in suburbia, in the 60’s and 70’s and I’d like you to meet her. My grammar school years were the 60’s, my high school, college years were the 70’s.
Here’s a smile only a mother could loveWelcome to my childhood ~ the 1960’s edition.
I grew up inhaling my mother’s Tareyton cigarettes and my father’s Perfecto Garcia cigars and thought nothing of it and still have the lung capacity of Luciano Pavarotti, when he was at his peak.
I slept in pink sponge rollers thanks to my stick straight hair and much like Abe Lincoln walked 4 blocks to and from grammar school every day carrying my metal lunch box in my ginormous book bag.
I was a ‘lunch kid’ at school because Ellie worked and was served room temperature milk, Monday thru Friday, in pint sized plastic milk containers long before there were Have You Seen Me? pictures on them. That began in the mid 80’s and I wonder ~ were they ever effective?
I wasn’t a sports girlie but I took ballet for quite awhile, tho you’d never know it. 😑
All this little Catholic school girl could think about was having fun and eating fried baloney sandwiches after school.
The wool jumpers and wool knee socks were rough when the temps were above the mid 70’s but we learned to offer it up. “Offer it up” was practically part of our uniform. It meant taking an annoyance, discomfort or some kind of suffering and uniting it with Christ’s suffering. The good sisters drummed that into us.
Suffering can be a form of prayer when it’s offered to God ~ for someone else, for a particular intention, or simply out of love for God. You can’t always change what is making you miserable but you can decide to make it meaningful.
Living next door to my bestie meant we got to see each other even on holidays. Christmas mornings were especially fun seeing what Santa had brought us from the Sears Catalogue.
As you can see from this photo, we slept in designated sleepwear. Nightgowns were nightgowns. Pajamas were pajamas. And robes were robes. I’m the beauty in curlers who seems to have outgrown her robe.
None of it passed as loungewear so you couldn’t just roll out of bed and consider yourself dressed for the day.
You rode your bike or walked everywhere. If one of your friends lived within a block or two, you’d go to their house, knock on their door and holler “YOOOOU DOOOONNNAAA!” No cell phone. No data plan. Just lungs.
My other childhood bestie, Col, and I went to girl scout camp at Camp White Deer in Eagle River, Wisconsin, for 2 weeks every summer. Here we are in our full dress camp uniform.
The homecoming pictures were not half as cute due to the 5,000 mosquito bites we each brought home but we loved it and couldn’t wait to go back.
We used the words groovy, dig it, neat, right on, far out and what a drag, to name a few. You also knew what was meant by: rabbit ears, beatnik, 45’s, the long version, five~and~dime, transistor radio, peddle pushers, gaucho pants, hot pants, love beads, and tv dinners.
Some of these are carried over from the 50’s or continued into the 70’s. And some are just as pertinent today like “so grooooovy!”
Growing up in the 60’s felt like such an innocent time if you were my age. The news was the news and I was too young to understand what much of it meant.
In my world: we played outside till someone’s mother called us in, went to the movies, had sleepovers, spent summers swimming at the community pool, sang in the mirror holding a hairbrush, collected lightening bugs in glass jars and ate Twinkies and Bugles to our heart’s content.
We trick or treated till our legs gave out and we watched The Patty Duke Show, The Flying Nun, Leave it to Beaver, and That Girl. I wanted to be Ann Marie in every way. The hair, those clothes, living on her own in NYC. Even her raspy voice was adorable.
I still love mid~century modern decor, fried baloney sandwiches, and of course Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton, two of that decade’s most iconic models.
So don't judge a book by the medical device its owner is using. That may be the first thing you notice, but it's also one of the smallest parts of their story.
Looking forward to seeing more action pictures from you this week!
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1 Comment
Reading this walk down memory lane of your childhood joyous reminiscences has brought me such happiness. Thanks, Lady Danger, for sharing.