Not Exactly Mr. Roger's Neighborhood...

There were tons of girls in the neighborhood I grew up in.  Some boys, though most of the girls didn't hang with them too much.  I hung with whoever would have me.   And I mean that literally.

I had the hardest time making friends.  Thankfully some of the families were quite friendly to everyone and the parents didn't mind who hung with who, as long as the parents knew where their own children were.  

I'd have to say there were 3 places we hung at the most when we all got together.  I think our place was probably the most frequented.  Not sure exactly why, but my thought is that because my sister was very popular among any group she was in, everyone liked to be at our house. 

Our neighbor's down the street, that's where I loved to spend most of my time.  They had 3 girls and 1 boy, he was the youngest.  Their oldest, Tricia was in my grade, although after a couple years at my elementary school her parents sent her onto the Catholic grade school downtown. 

Tricia taught me how to play the piano, at least the basics of it.  I loved to learn to play!  Her mom let me come down just about any time and practice.   I loved playing "When The Saints Come Marchin' In."  I was pretty good at it, made few mistakes and learned to play it by heart.  This was really cool, because later on in the 6th grade my Music Teacher put us in groups and we had to come up with our own musical presentation, and I chose that song and played the piano while my partners played other instruments for accompaniment.  We did rather well for 12 year olds!!! 

Later on I hung with Tricia's younger sister, Sharon Ann.  She went by the nickname of Shan.  She and I and one other, Melissa, were nearly inseparable most weekends.  We'd end up at Melissa's Grandmother's house and like clockwork, we'd hit the ice cream and stay up all night goofing around and then having our own little slumber party.  I loved those.  Didn't always sleep well away from home, but there I sure did. 

There were other girls in the neighborhood I hung with and one was ostracized for being kind of a bully.  I still hung with her until some not so cool things went down.  She wasn't always nice to me, and she had this air of superiority of intelligence over me, that drove me to be more shy around some people than I normally would have been.  We stopped hanging together in high school.  I had to move onto to other friends who treated me better.  I believe now I know why she was so off the wall nasty.   Her parents had divorced, her mother remarried and I believe she didn't like her stepfather at all.  He was pretty bossy to his stepkids.  Out of respect for her, I choose not to mention her name.  I forgive her for all the rotten things she did to me and said to me.  Although some of these things profoundly affected my self-worth, I know now she was really having a hard time with life back then and I was the one she took it out on, well, me and her sister.  Sometimes she wasn't that bad to me, she always called to want me to hang with her, and in that respect maybe she liked me.  I just choose to forgive her because it was so long ago, and that recent act of forgiveness has helped me move on and be a better person, and heal a 3 decade old wounded heart. 

The boys in the neighborhood also were a sore spot for me back in the day.  They were honestly just out to make fun of me ever which way they could.  3 of them were brothers, and the middle son was the meanest to me.  I don't know why.  He was a bit older than me, I didn't have classes with him ... I don't even think he went to any schools I attended.  He was just one onery cuss to me.  He had a knack of making fun of my attention problem and loved to call me "wooden ears" in front of all the kids that happened to be in the neighbor's yard.  They always laughed at that, and that hurt a lot.  Even my own siblings made fun of me and honestly, I didn't feel comfortable hanging outside when this nasty boy was out there. 

Often times I would be by myself, in my room, drawing, painting, listening to music....hours on end.  It was respite from the kids that liked to make fun of me...and liked to belittle everything I said or did.  I really never told my Mom about all this stuff.  I don't know that she was home most of the time it was going on.  I just learned to avoid mean people.  I really needed to learn how to stick up for myself, but I didn't.     This would prove to be a very hard thing to outgrow or unlearn during my life. 

             ......  things get bumpy when we interact with others, keep on reading.