Marching to a Different Drummer

I'm reading Erma Bombeck's Forever, Erma, which is a book compiled from various articles whe wrote. How many of you under 40 know who Erma Bombeck is? Show of hands? All of you. Yes, I know. Every day that I scoff and laugh at aging and say that I refuse to let it get me down, there is another example of why some cultures have ritual suicide at a specific age...

Anyway, in it is one article entitled Marching to a Different Drummer, dated November 3, 1979. She talks about her one son, who didn't fit into any of those typical descriptions of kids.

That's me.

I'm the baby who used the stuff in my diapers to draw on the walls. I'm the kid who threw a rabbit skin (very soft and fluffy) out the car window and yelled, "Furs flew away!" I'm the kid who played in the dirt, hated girlie clothes (as you can see, little has changed that way), and traipsed around the house in my mother's work clothes... a sequined bikini (she was a go-go dancer. What, aren't all thirty-something mothers go-go dancers?), wanted to be an astronomer and one time packed my suitcase because I was "going to Hawaii to see the volcanoes". I'm the kid who ate sugar straight out of packets.

Parents asked mine not to let me come over. Teachers clucked their tongues and shook their heads. Guidance counselors everywhere predicted dire outcomes with no chance of success. My grandmother was sure I'd never see adulthood because I ate no vegetables and hardly any "real" food and was skinny as a rail. Even religion didn't want me - a friend took me with her to Sunday School and I asked so many questions, the teacher told her parents not to have me return. My parents smiled and encourage me all the while worrying that I wasn't going to college. I was that kid destined to work in a MacDonalds, serving Happy Meals to the completely hapless.

What happened to me?

My parents don't worry anymore. My grandmother missed that bullseye by miles, as my current panoramic figure testifies. My friends love me and all describe me as a "pisser". People find me funny and entertaining. My squadmates shake their heads when we are chatting in the squadhouse but tell me I'm good with patients. My husband has lived me for 19 plus years (enough said!).

I love my job. I'm an EMT and save lives. I get up in the morning smiling and ready to live a new day and I go to bed the same way. I see joy and beauty in every day just by watching the sun rise and the Moon set. I'm told I have a wonderful smile (that would be my ability to hypnotize and confound people - ever seen my teeth?), genuine and friendly. I have my husband of almost 20 years who loves me and I him. I'm not wealthy, but we live very, very well. I always write that my goal is to be happy. I am very happy!

And I have never, ever, to this day, worked in a MacDonalds.

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