Developing Twelve

This year's show to watch!

 The Memoir and Backstory Blog Challenge continues...

Developing Twelve
Turning twelve, saw some interesting development in my life. After catching the theater bug the previous year, this year I signed up for our church's musical and played all the small rolls that required a random kid. It was called, Within These Walls and showed the lives of the pioneers and immigrants who came to Utah.

As I began sixth grade that year I had a great teacher named Mr. Holt. He was the first male teacher I'd ever had, but my success in his class was from more than gender. Yes, he was sensitive to everyone's needs, but his teaching style drew out our minds and let us develop towards our own interests. Well, I found art and reading in his class.

The thing I liked most from his class was the reading time right before lunch. Mr. Holt would read from a book and we would draw art about it. Well... we could just listen, but I preferred to draw. Thanks to Mr. Holt's reading time, I became deeply hooked on the Choose Your Own Adventure books and began collecting them. I only got 13 from the series, but I did pick up another nine from copycat series, particularly the Dungeons & Dragons ones. My favorites were The Cave of Time and Return to Brookmere.

Getting Ordained a Deacon at Twelve

At twelve, life changes for the kids who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The boys and girls leave their Primary classes (children's Sunday school) and move into the Young Men and Young Women program. For me this also meant being ordained a Deacon in our church. It felt like a big responsibility and I hoped to live up to it.

The Striped Cat
In the fall of that year I also had an unfortunate encounter while out feeding our dogs. My dog Zip, chased a cat under my dad's old Rambler station wagon. He began barking like crazy, so I got down and started pulling him out. Suddenly Zip yelped and began backing out. It was then I noticed that he hadn't corned a cat... he'd corned a skunk.

We both turned tail, but the damage had been done. Zip had been sprayed enough he was doomed to spend the day outside. Thinking I'd been missed, I went to school. But before class could begin, my friends noticed the faint whiff of skunk and in five minutes, I was given permission to head home.

Along the way I was stopped by a deputy sheriff who, no doubt, thought I was being truant.
His cruiser slowed to a stop and he rolled down his window. "Where ya headin'?"
I ducked my head and began walking towards him. "Home. I got sprayed by a skunk."
Eyes wide, he began rolling up his window. "Well, stay over there."
He drove away without saying anything else.


Star Wars on NPR
Since I was a big Star Wars geek (and in those days, geeks were synonymous with nerd), when I heard NPR was presenting a radio drama based on Star Wars, I nearly flipped out.

My brother was serving an LDS mission so I would sneak into his room (his room was still off-limits) and turn on his stereo (post eight-track--turntable and cassette). The soft glow of the green console was cool and I would sit on the floor and listen in rapt attention to the weekly episodes. After a few weeks, I can remember going in one day to listen and being quite angry that Star Wars wasn't going to be on that day. Ronald Reagan, the current President of the United States, had been shot and the only thing NPR was doing that day was discussing the assassination attempt.

I knew I should feel bad for President Reagan, but couldn't NPR have waited one more day, even one more hour, to talk about it?! It's not like anyone knew anything at that point anyway.    *Grumble*