November 14, 2007

I've Been Tagged

Well, it seems that I've been tagged by granny j over at Walking Prescott, which I consider a real honor, but there is only one problem; that being, that I don't have the slightest idea what to write about myself. It is one of those memes where you have to tell seven things about yourself, and I can't even think of seven things about myself that would be interesting enough to want to know. Besides, I think that I've put just about everything there is to know about me in my blog. I'm wondering if this would be one of those "7 things you wouldn't know about me, unless I told you " kind of memes? Maybe, I will give that a try. Let's see how it goes.

1)I was born at home, in a little place in Georgia, called Buchanan , named after former President
James Buchanan. It is the seat of Haralson County, and had a population of 941 in the year 2000.

2) From about the age of two, I lived on Canal Street (I always loved that name) in Cedartown, and it was there, before starting school that I memorized my first poems, "The Night Before Christmas" by Clement C. Moore, and "Bed In Summer" by Robert Louis Stevensen. It is strange, but to this day, I still don't remember how, unless they were quoted to me by either my mother, or my grandmother. I never remember having books read to me.

3)About the age of seven, we moved a few miles away to Benedict, where I was in second grade, and won just about every contest there was in the little Olympics, because I could run faster, and jump higher than anyone else, including the boys.

4) After that, I became an Alabama girl, when my mother remarried, and we moved to the country. Before that, I was a city girl, and had never seen a real cow, chicken, or any other animal found on a farm, so here is my confession: I had seen pictures of cows, and their udders, with the various spiggots, so everytime that Mama milked the cow, I wanted to know if it was sweet milk, buttermilk, or chocolate, and was very disappointed to learn that the cow had only one flavor.

5) As a teenager, we lived in yet another town. In this town, I was walking down the street one day, at the age of sixteen, all dressed up in a pretty dress and heels, and it being an Army town, and all the National Guardsmen were in town, I, somehow, caused a traffic jam. I just kept walking toward my destination, until a motorcycle cop drove up beside me on the sidewalk, and told me that I would have to go inside a service station there, to get out of sight until he he got the traffic moving again. With face burning even more than it was before, I did as he advised. And just so you know, I was not immodestly dressed, or anything like that, it's just that they were young soldiers who were away from home, and were just being, well...young!

6) I was asked to pose, two different times, and years apart, by Playboy Magazine. The first time, Daddy said, "No," and the second time, I said, "No." I said it a lot nicer than Daddy did, though.

7)About five years ago, I was summoned for jury duty in Alabama, but it was postponed because the judge who was to try the case, was still involved in the civil suits against Monsanto Chemical Company, so I didn't get to fulfill that one desire of my heart, having always wanted to sit on a jury. My husband said that they should thank their lucky stars that it was postponed, with me on it, because it would probably still be going on because of my inherent desire to be a detective, and memory like an elephant, or as he so delicately puts it sometimes, "a mind like a steel trap."

I'm going to have to think about who I will tag, now. It may take me awhile to do that, because most of those I know have done so many, recently, that they may have to be talked into it.

Meanwhile, though, I offer you one of my favorite poems mentioned above. Even now, especially if the morning is particularly dark, the poem becomes vivid in my mind.

Bed in Summer
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

~Robert Louis Stevenson
November 13, 1850-December 3, 1894