I think had my parents known my artistic bent, they would have given more things to do in that area. I did paint by numbers, finger paint, played with clay and clay dough. As a teenage, one friend and I would make up stories.  One of us would start and then the other would add something, this would always occur in the evening after we had eaten dinner.  All of the children on our street would be running around playing games and she and I would lean against a car and make up stories until we got tired.  The next day we would meet again and continue our stories.  To this day, I still tell stories.  While I was a teacher, I would tell stories at our Martin Luther King Assemblies and, of course, in the classroom.  My students knew if they brought up the right topic, we did no work that day because I would tell them a story.

I have loved beautiful clothes since I can remember. In the fifties, the Ideal toy company made a doll many called The Miss Revlon Doll. When I saw her in the Sears catalog, I fell in love. She had pretty dresses, earrings, high heeled shoes and a fully made up face. I had no hopes of ever seeing that doll, but my mom must have noticed me looking at the doll and kept in her mind.

Of course, this doll was fashioned after a Caucasian woman. Although most of my dolls looked like Caucasian babies, I have a feeling that Mama was not "feeling" those kind of dolls for me. One day in the toy section of one of the department stores, I saw an African American version of the Miss Revlon doll. I was beyond excited. I dragged my Mama over to that doll and exclaimed how much I wanted her. Like all good mommies, she said, "We will see." My parents were working class people with three children, who were all in parochial schools, and money was tight. "We will see" was a nice way of saying "no." Despite that knowledge, I was hoping I would see her under the Christmas tree that year, but she wasn't, so I let my dream go.

Buuut.... the next Christmas, guess what was under the Christmas tree....MY AFRICAN AMERICAN MISS REVLON DOLL!!!!!!! She had her own carrying trunk with places for her shoes,earrings, and clothes and herself. Mama couldn't buy her more clothes, so she brought me a used machine and sewing patterns for her clothes. My doll had clothes for every occasion of her make believe life!

I was unable to take her with me when I left home to pursue life as adult. When I came home to visit my family from time to time, I never saw her trunk, so I assumed my mama had given her away. But last year, I found out who had my doll, MY SISTER! She told me she kept it for me. When I go home this summer, we are going to pull her out of storage. Even it she is no longer in good condition, it won't matter, I still have my memories.

Remember to thank your Higher Power for every wonderful thought you have of your past. No matter how many or how few, to have even one is a blessing....

"I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now." ~ Sophia Loren

Ummmm....I think there is a poem in this memory somewhere.