Storytime Starts

Well, I don't know quite how the tradition started, but somehow, Nat and Sam persuaded me, entirely against my will, to begin to tell them stories. And for some reason, I can't think how or why, they mostly seemed to be about boyfriends. They became the "boyfriend stories." And although there are several of those stories ready to be resurrected and posted, as well as several more to be told for the first time, there is that very first love the Freudians tell us each girl feels.....

Love for her daddy! And so what more fitting way to begin than to confess that I still remember my crush on my dad?

It's true.....I do. I don't know quite exactly how old I was, but I remember a conversation with my mom that went something like this:

"Mommy, I am going to marry Daddy when I grow up."

"You can't, pumpkin."

*shock, disbelief, stirrings of anger*

"WHY not??!?"

"Because he's already married, sweetie-pie."

*righteous indignation builds*

"To whom?" (I am sure I said "whom." You believe me, don't you?)

"Well, to me!"

*transfer of all indignant anger to mother*

And so it goes....for my next love was the closest thing I could find to my dad, John-Boy on "The Waltons" TV show. Did anything about him matter, except that he had my father's first name? No!

But somewhere between my crush on John-Boy and then a real little boy in kindergarten named Eric Snow, I stopped having these conversations with my family. Something about the merciless teasing of an older sister, I think, that did it.

From then on, my goal was to prevent /anyone/ in my family from figuring out which boy in my class I "liked," while still continuing to talk about him constantly. I am sure I was hard to read and that no one could ever figure it out. Probably they never knew for sure about any boys I liked until....oh! Wait! You don't know that story yet!

But you believe me about how my family couldn't tell whom I liked, right?

(Please don't destroy my illusions!)