Time Machine Memory Tour-8th Grade Part 2

More about 8th Grade:

-Sometime around 8th grade I started doing a little babysitting. I doubt I was very good at it, to be honest, and didn't pursue it much. But, because I was a good girl with good work ethics, a few mothers wanted to use me on occasion. I also babysat my 3 second cousins while my Dad's cousin, Kay, went to her bowling league. That was sort of neat because they weren't babies and we could entertain each other. Not a career I'm cut out for, though! :o)

-I also started working with the physically and mentally challenged around this time. Our church signed up volunteers to work with a family who had a developmentally challenged toddler. We used a revolutionary technique called patterning. Since then, it has been disproved by the medical society, but it offered this family some hope at the time, and taught me the importance of volunteering to help others.

-I was asked out to a FFA barn dance in a neighboring town by Carl Ulrich, the son of a family friend. We had always been friends, and it was fun to think about going to a different school to meet different kids. Carl was one year older, a freshman. Since he didn't have his license yet, his folks picked me up in their conversion van. After we got on the road, Carl told me that the entrance price was 5 cents times the date's waist size. At the time, I was a 22-inch waist. He admitted he thought it would be fun if I had the smallest waist there. Not sure if I won that or not, but for 5'5" at the time, that was pretty thin. On the way back, Carl wanted to get "romantic" and I had to explain that I wanted to be just friends. I had always heard girls use that lame speech, and never wanted to use it myself, but it was so true in this case. Carl was a good friend, and he was more like a brother than a boyfriend.

-I didn't have such willpower when a complete stranger (who played in a rock band) wooed me. I met him when our folks went to visit some of Dad's cousins at one of Missouri's Lakes. They had a daughter, Debbie?, who was a couple of years older than me. She had a boyfriend in this band, and another guy from the band reeled me in hook-line-and-sinker. They wanted to go skinny-dipping, but I refused (underneath it all, I was a good girl-mostly). We enjoyed time together as a group on a pontoon party boat, listening to music and more, while our folks were inside. I don't respect myself much for some of what happened that night, but I didn't go as far as most kids go-just further than was right and decent. Wade, you were on the boat too- I think that night made for blackmail material for you for a couple of months-rightly so! Ugh-try to erase that memory from your mind!

-In between my 8th and 9th grade years, a couple of neat things happened. One was our trip to California as a family. I was such a hick who hadn't seen much outside of Pike County, Missouri. I borrowed clothing and shoes from my Aunt Minnie so I would appear more aware of style than I really was. There are many memories of this trip-and I will write more about it at another time.

-I signed up to volunteer as a Candystriper the summer after my 8th grade year. I was trained by a neat nurse-was her name Alice Oliver? She was a stickler for hospital corners on the bed linens, and taught us neat techniques for assisting patients and nurses. I ended up finding my niche in the medical records office, though-and still love working with medical terminology and paperwork (just not my own!).