I am not a girly girl.
Give me dirt, skinned knees,
and sweaty gym clothes
over
manicures, plucked eyebrows
and long soaks in the tub
any day.
I am getting better, though.
I love a good pair of dangly earrings
fancy braided or twisted locks
and even wear an occasional skirt
on a day other than Sunday
GASP! I do?
Oh yes
I enjoy it, too.
My tastes have slowly changed,
evolved,
matured,
from my teenage years
to now.
Then I was all for playing games
basketball,
soccer,
volleyball,
with the boys.
Though I would run
to the bathroom mirror
to check my hair after
the games.
Our stake had a good set up
for church ball.
We played basketball games
with other wards
in the stake
Warner Robins, Macon, Gray
Milledgeville, Cochran, Dublin.
The finals were almost always
Perry (us) against Cochran.
The winners went on to play
in a tri-stake tournament
with Albany
and Columbus.
Columbus thought they were good.
But were easily beaten
except one year
we actually had to work a little
to beat them.
Volleyball and softball
were played only on
a stake level.
But they weren’t as fun to play
anyway.
One year during the Peach Festival
there was a youth
volleyball tournament.
Anyone who could get
a group together could play.
Naturally, being a little competitive
I decided it would be fun
to get together with friends
and join.
Our team consisted of boys
and girls from
Perry and Warner Robins
all Mormons.
The day we showed up
for the tournament
we found we would be playing
two teams from the Baptists
and one from the Methodists.
Sounds like a good friendly showdown
Right?
First game was swell.
We beat one of the Baptist teams easily.
Then we played the Methodists
who won the other match
with the other Baptist team.
And beat them too.
Then things got a little bit ugly.
See, on our team was my
good friend and “adopted” brother
Maurice.
Who happens to be black
Very black
even for a black
The pastor for the Baptists
started the name calling
although not to Maurice directly.
To his team,
“You mean you let that
beepity-beep on the
blankety-blank
Mormon team beat you?”
And it got progressively worse
with members of the other team
who I thought were friends
from school
began to taunt
and name-call
to get Maurice
and us
riled up.
It started to work until we realized
that’s what they wanted us to do.
We ignored them.
Then beat them all
without losing a single game.
Victory was bittersweet.
© 2007-2010 Chocolate on my Cranium, LLC all rights reserved
I haven’t been commenting much, but I love all your childhood memory posts. You’ve inspired me to do a better job of writing this stuff down.
I consider Georgia home, too, though like you it was probably about 1/3 of my childhood. My parents are still there, though, and it’s where I go when I “go home.” I loved church basketball there. I was a tiny bit on the outside of some of the circles in the Stake, but when I played basketball, I felt confident. They would even publish stats in a Stake newsletter, and I loved being on the leader boards. I wonder if we were there around the same time???
Seriously…you and I could not be MORE alike! 🙂
When I had to “be a girl” growing up it was tricky. Now with all boys…it is sometimes hard to remember that I am basically setting that example for them. I need to show them the better side of being a woman, and teach them how to treat a woman…lucky I have a hubby who is a great example. 🙂
The names and viciousness of some people is amazing. Especially church going people. What a tough lesson to learn, but such an important one. Love, tolerance and acceptance of others. Beautiful.
Loved this post today, it is so sad when people behave badly for whatever reason. It is something I don’t understand. But, your team handled it amazingly well!
Oh – I’m catching up on these posts and they are fantastic! Thanks for sharing them
wow…FAB story!! i was laughing when i read the first line about NOT being a girly girl…i was like uh oh! i am a TOTAL girly girl, so now i am worried about some of the things i already bought for the package…but not reeeeally worried because by the end of the story i realized that Sami matched us perfectly!