So back when I was in middle school it was the Beatles instead of the Bieb, but I figure that some things haven't changed.
For example, I imagine that the social shark-infested waters of middle school were no easier to navigate fifty years ago than they are today, and I'm guessing that, given the more limited opportunities and archaic technology, the 10-to-13 year-old crowd of my day were equally harsh, clique-y, and adept at making each other's young lives social-rejection hell.
But I am only guessing; I mean, you couldn't actually prove any of it by me. Because I had a special immunity, a kind of social Kevlar which permitted me to bobble about the 'tween shark-tank blissfully oblivious and relatively unscathed.
It was this: I had a best friend.
Did you ever see the movie "Dick" with Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as the best friends?
That was my friend Michelle and me in middle school.
Except that we never accidentally baked a batch of pot cookies or got in trouble with the secret service, though, like the movie best friends Betsy and Arlene, we did once write letters to the President (Kennedy). We mostly spent our time practicing our dance moves to Beatles records in front of the magnificent mirror that took up one wall of Michelle's living room; walking to C&M, our neighborhood deli of choice, for a popsicle or a Tastykake; sewing miniature clothes and collecting fashionable outfits for our Barbies..alas for us, Barbies and Beatles did somewhat overlap. About the worst thing we ever did was catch a bad case of poison sumac from scavanging through a mangy field for old soda bottles to return to the A&P for the deposit money. We were good girls.
So individually, Michelle and I were probably too naive and ingenuous, too close to the antithesis of what was considered "cool" among the pre-adolescent crowd of the early 1960's to have advanced very far up the middle school food chain; but together we were accepted among our classmates as a unit. And who cared if we weren't? With each other we were comfortable and complete as two Twinkies sealed in their cellophane wrapper.
I can remember that besides us there were at least two other best-friend units among the girls in our class, as well as a pair of twin sisters who more or less operated as a best-friend unit. We were part of the Twinkie Elite.
And perhaps would have stayed that way had we not been split up for high school, Michelle taking the city bus each morning to the local parochial high school while I traveled twenty miles and back by commuter train every day to a private school across town, where I did at times feel like a squishy, cream-filled oblong thrown in with a batch of smart cookies...and with good reason: being on my own I had a lot of figuring out and growing up to do. Didn't we all?
Good-bye twelve, good-bye thirteen, good-bye Barbies, good-bye Beatles, good-bye Twinkie...hello life!
For example, I imagine that the social shark-infested waters of middle school were no easier to navigate fifty years ago than they are today, and I'm guessing that, given the more limited opportunities and archaic technology, the 10-to-13 year-old crowd of my day were equally harsh, clique-y, and adept at making each other's young lives social-rejection hell.
But I am only guessing; I mean, you couldn't actually prove any of it by me. Because I had a special immunity, a kind of social Kevlar which permitted me to bobble about the 'tween shark-tank blissfully oblivious and relatively unscathed.
It was this: I had a best friend.
Did you ever see the movie "Dick" with Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as the best friends?
That was my friend Michelle and me in middle school.
Except that we never accidentally baked a batch of pot cookies or got in trouble with the secret service, though, like the movie best friends Betsy and Arlene, we did once write letters to the President (Kennedy). We mostly spent our time practicing our dance moves to Beatles records in front of the magnificent mirror that took up one wall of Michelle's living room; walking to C&M, our neighborhood deli of choice, for a popsicle or a Tastykake; sewing miniature clothes and collecting fashionable outfits for our Barbies..alas for us, Barbies and Beatles did somewhat overlap. About the worst thing we ever did was catch a bad case of poison sumac from scavanging through a mangy field for old soda bottles to return to the A&P for the deposit money. We were good girls.
So individually, Michelle and I were probably too naive and ingenuous, too close to the antithesis of what was considered "cool" among the pre-adolescent crowd of the early 1960's to have advanced very far up the middle school food chain; but together we were accepted among our classmates as a unit. And who cared if we weren't? With each other we were comfortable and complete as two Twinkies sealed in their cellophane wrapper.
I can remember that besides us there were at least two other best-friend units among the girls in our class, as well as a pair of twin sisters who more or less operated as a best-friend unit. We were part of the Twinkie Elite.
And perhaps would have stayed that way had we not been split up for high school, Michelle taking the city bus each morning to the local parochial high school while I traveled twenty miles and back by commuter train every day to a private school across town, where I did at times feel like a squishy, cream-filled oblong thrown in with a batch of smart cookies...and with good reason: being on my own I had a lot of figuring out and growing up to do. Didn't we all?
Good-bye twelve, good-bye thirteen, good-bye Barbies, good-bye Beatles, good-bye Twinkie...hello life!
Sweetest Comeback In The History Of Ever:
Michelle and me , Twinkies again, at my mother's 90th birthday.
Michelle and me , Twinkies again, at my mother's 90th birthday.
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