The Cowboy, the Princess, and the Equestrian

This picture is probably my very favorite of me and my sisters. I can't tell you any of the circumstances surrounding it other than it was taken in the summer of 1973.

Every time I look at the picture my mind travels back to when I was 7 years old. I'm wearing my Sears Toughskin Huskey jeans. I've clearly worn holes in the knees, which I'm sure mom ironed patches over soon after this picture was taken. I was always wearing out my britches and mom was always patching them up. I can't make out what kind of watch I'm wearing, I wonder where I got it from? Looks like I needed to visit Mitchell's Barbershop for a haircut. Charlie Bowman used to cut my hair and I would giggle and get chills as he would trim around my ears with the electric razor.

My very favorite thing in this picture is seeing my little sister, Jennifer's, dirty feet. She must have been playing in the coal pile that was out in our front yard. During the wintertime we would heat with a coal stove and we always had a pile of coal in the yard. Coal is fun to play with. We would climb all over it and throw the small chunks at each other. What was her little 2-year old mind thinking as she was sticking out her tongue? Was someone standing to the side trying to make us smile?

My older sister, Pam, looks pretty serious in the picture. She almost has Mona Lisa's smile. Was she mad because someone was making us have our picture made? Was she trying to be the mature one in the bunch? After all, she would have been 10 at this time. I try to compare her to my son who happens to be 10-years old right now. She looks older than he does. I can just imagine her rolling her eyes about the time someone said, "say cheese."

Just look at us. So young, sweet and innocent. I'm sure we each had dreams of what we wanted to be when we grew up. Me, a race car driver or a cowboy, certainly not a computer applications engineer. Jennifer, a queen or princess, but probably not a music teacher and a mother to 4 boys. Pam no doubt had dreams of riding horses or writing books, but definitely not of owning her own medical transcribing company. But, everyone must grow up and make their own decisions in life. Hopefully those decisions are good ones and we will leave this world in better shape than it was when we entered it.