Intro: Were there any events — world, local or personal that changed your life? The dairy princess activities must fall in this category, a series of little events that probably changed a natural introvert into a pseudo-extrovert. If you keep throwing a little girl out into social situations, eventually she’ll learn how to talk to people whether she wants to or not. I call these the “dairy princess” activities because I think their presence in my life stemmed from mountain celebrations and parades where towns elected pretty girls to ride on floats, representing blueberries, rhubarb, dairy farms or other local industries.
I’m pretty sure my mom wanted a dairy princess, although she was her own worst enemy, especially when taking me to the library for more books. She was too honest to make a dairy princess out of me. I’d say, “I don’t want to play. I want to read,” and she’d say, “I know. But it’s good for you. Why don’t you see if Rita and Jerry are home?” Nobody ever sold a kid on an idea by saying ‘it’s good for you.’ She was smart enough to know that. She never did manage to sell an idea she did not believe in herself. I view the dairy princess activities as wish-fulfillment, an attempt at vicarious living. She might have liked to be a dairy princess. Like me, I’m sure she lacked the diplomatic skills needed to win her place on the float.
Tap-dancing, Skating, Baton and all the Dairy Princess Activities
I lacked grace. I lacked stamina. Mostly, I simply lacked coordination.
Yet these activities kept coming at me, courtesy of a mom who was determined to help me with my clumsiness. I shattered antique chandeliers with that baton. My parents just bought new ones. Antiques had not yet become antique during my childhood. I remember some of the old glass fixtures in my house, elegant presentations in marble glass, and wince. My parents were tolerant of collateral damage. I vaguely remember my brother may have shot a hole in the ceiling once. Nobody regretted past fixtures or minor repairs. In some ways, I had an idyllic childhood. My parents might become a little crazy over small stuff, but they were remarkably resilient when kids accidentally dropped and broke a portable TV, for example. Past mistakes were rarely brought up again.
I enjoyed tap dancing mostly because I got to wear pretty costumes for recitals and tap dancing never went catastrophically wrong. You never ended up on your face in the ice. You never ran into a wall backwards. You couldn’t hit yourself in the head with your tap shoes. Batons, on the other hand, were dangerous as all hell. I had so many bruises that today someone would probably call DCFS. Tap dancing was safe. Even if a shuffle-ball-change got stuck in the wrong place, I could keep scratching the floor until the music and I were more or less back in sync.
My life with the baton was a love/hate relationship. I didn’t like practicing and I skipped practicing when I could, but then the nagging began. My mom took baton twirling seriously. She wanted me to look as good as the other girls in the troop. Some of those girls had more in the way of athletic chops. They were practicing more, too. Practice or no practice, I understood that I was destined to be a baton mediocrity. You can tap dance with limited coordination. The deadly metal attack tube was a different matter.
Still, I looked good with that baton. I marched in many small-town parades and even the Tacoma Daffodil Parade. My white costume with the purple and lavender sequined stars matched the other girls’ costumes, and sometimes my baton matched theirs as well. Other times I was running to the side of road to pick the cursed thing up again and then trying to figure out where we were at in the routine after I regained my place. (Only now, all these years later, do I wonder if my lack of control made my troop members nervous. I can only imagine the answer is yes, unless they’d hit themselves on the head too many times. I knew I’d hit my head too many times.)
Little girls wore a headband with a silver star. Older girls graduated to the gold-sequined top hat that I eventually earned. The best part of baton might have been long family drives to parades. The McCleary Bear Festival became a favorite. Bear stew tasted good and McCleary felt like Mineral, another small logging town with fir trees all around where my grandma lived.
McCleary, Winthrop, whatever. One of the great things about being a kid has to be that you don’t have to plan your life. You get your marching orders, pick up the metal attack tube and go. With luck, you can eat bear stew or stop at a restaurant. At the very least, my brother and I knew ice cream was likely to be in the picture somewhere. My folks liked ice cream. Trips to grandma’s house always included a stop at Gilbert’s Store for a mountain cone, three scoops of ice cream that dripped down my hand and wrist toward the end. I’d be licking my hand furiously, oblivious to germs and dirt, savoring the last rivulets of blackberry ribbon or chocolate mint.
This post is dedicated to my parents who still eat a bowl of ice cream at night. They even used to feed the cat ice cream at bedtime. We would stop at Fred Meyer to buy her favorite type of vanilla. We fed our various dogs ice cream too, along with just about everything else in the refrigerator. In this time of allergies and food sensitivities, I wonder that our dogs always seemed so happy and healthy.
