Do you Remember Your First Bra?

I am the oldest girl on both sides of the family. Nothing magical about being the eldest. Just part of this introduction. Sure Dad would have preferred a son, but since it wasn't to be I was the athlete, and junior achiever Dad never got. They called me "string bean" cause of my lean mean fighting machine of a body. With my PF fliers I could run faster and jump higher than the average kid. See commercials for keds.

Everyone wanted me to be on their team. Kick ball, soft ball, track, basketball, skiing swimming. It was a thrill to be a winner on the best team. Life was so much fun. Being out until dinner time during the summer. Never worrying about mishaps or weird people. Times were good and people looked out for one another's kids.

Honestly, Dad wasn't around much. Weekends sometimes, summers more often. Mom was the real influence on my upbringing. She had amazing ideas that kept the doldrums to a minimum. She was a truly creative person:

About age seven she sat on the back steps and used food dyes to teach me about primary colors. She would tell me about what would happen when I mixed the different colors together. For hours we sat there on the steps and I would pour rainbows of yellows greens, blues, and reds together.

When I turned 8 she took me out to the back yard and told me to start digging. That it was time for me to learn how to plant a vegetable garden. Green beans and tomatoes, squash and peppers. Talk about being proud!

At 9 It was all about picking fruit and vegetables from the bigger farms. We would gather up our harvest and we would spread out on the back porch with the Grandmothers, snapping beans and preparing for canning and freezing.

Mom was forever taking us to visit her Aunts. All of them were kind and loving down to earth kind of women with families of their own. Usually older than we were. While they visited over coffee, us kids would poke around in the creek or explore the woods. My Aunt Peg lived just over the hill and she would always shush us when she watched her soaps. She ran us out during her favorite which was "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" she had about 10 kids so I figured she deserved a break.

Every summer just before school started back up, Mom would get out the Sears catalog and let us to pick out what kind of sneakers we wanted and to pick our favorite color along with our new shoes she would also include a matching sweatshirt. It was so exciting when the package showed up.

One year when I was about 11 years old.... Mom handed out the goodies and I couldn't wait to try them on. That was until she pulled out a training bra for me and told me to see if it fit. I nearly hit the ceiling about that darned bra. She had betrayed me ordering that "over the shoulder boulder holder." Why in the world do they call them training bras, they don't train! They are our oppressors, evil things making us feel confined and squashing our childhood!

Unfortunately for me it fit. You know one size fits all type of rubber band thing. It felt like certain punishment. Just because of being a girl!