Things you may not know about me....

He was tall and thin. His hair was permed to a taut curl and dreadfully fashionable in rural1983. He played football, was a UIL regional qualifier in pole vaulting, and he played the snare drum in the marching band. After graduation, he married my classmate; I married his. I played cymbals in the high school band because I had a crush on this drummer. This is just one of the many particulars you didn’t know about me.
In the second grade I sat across the table from my first crush. He could wiggle his ears like no one I had ever known. Through the next summer I practiced twitching and wiggling with all my facial muscle. Now, proudly, I can wiggle my ears.
“Fourscore and seven years ago our Father’s brought forth on this continen, a new nations, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equally…” I can recite two-thirds of the Gettysburg Address, the recording of the Emergency Broadcast Systems and OSHA’s definition of Regulated Waste.
On Christmas day in 1995 my husband, two sons ages 5 and 1, and a Great Dane named Spencer, packed our clothes, furniture, house wares and Christmas presents into a 10X12 storage building on Padre Island. Unable to pay the rent on the 1950 ranch style house that we had called home for the previous six months, we took only what we couldn’t live without and lived in our 1985 suburban. Sometimes, if we could find something to hock at the local pawn shop we would stay in a cheap hotel for a night. Or we would pitch our tent at the lake and pretend we were on a camping excursion. Mostly we stayed at Mustang Island State Park where the showers were warm and safe. We lived this way for nine weeks before we were able to move into a trailer park in the refinery district of Corpus Christi, TX. I have been ‘homeless’.
I was having a bad day. Maybe I was throwing a pity party. It was voting day at the high school, popularity showdown, all tears and no tiaras, and I found myself to be not terribly fond of anyone. I voted because I had to but I was class favorite my Junior year because I voted for myself in the first election and the run off.
My grandmother told me I could sing just like Kitty Wells and Donna Fargo and because of that I secretly dreamed of being on stage at the Grand Ole Opry. I could almost feel the crowds roar. I could smell the excitement as they waited anxiously for the moment I stepped gracefully onto the stage covered in sequins and rhinestones.

There once was a flamingo named Marty, He was pink and fluffy yet hardy,
He had lots of fun drinking Malibu rum. And he threw on heck of a party.
There once was a chick named Maria She walked in the sand by the sea
She ran into Marty, who was throwing a party. There was no need to RSVP –a.

I have two pink flamingos in my backyard named Marty and Maria. They entertain a host of friends and family for a Memorial Day Party on Lake Murvaul.