A Mullet Will Do The Trick!

Me 6 mos 1975

I am told that as a baby I was a happy and pleasing child. I would sleep when it was dark and woke when the sun came out. This gave my Mother the brilliant notion to put card board up in my windows and when she was ready for me to wake she would take it down. My first word was, "Yes" and I would use it the way some babies use "No".  Dad likes to remind me that he could ask me if I wanted a spanking and the answer was always a sweet drawn out yes! I have one big brother and one big sister, all I remember about them in my infancy is that my sister didn't want to share with me. I have never been someone who minds being alone. I had many imaginary friends and made up countless stories. My family was big and busy, by age two I had a baby brother and eighteen months later I had a baby sister. For a short period I was the middle child, three more brothers would come to make a total of 8 children. There was only one thing that could have rivaled my need to please my family and that was my love for my imaginary world.

Ethan 1983

 I loved to live in a story. I played barbie and babies and when I was playing with my sister and neighbor children it was in some kind of made up adventure. We would go on pioneer treks, we were often Swiss Family Robinson, there were the beauty pageants and lots for reenactments of Dukes of Hazard and other now iconic TV shows. In one episode of  Incredible Hulk my brother Ethan who was playing the Incredible Hulk kept missing his cue and we were yelling at him about it. He was in a a bi fold closet which he was supposed to jump out of. He couldn't figure out how to open the doors from the inside but never said so. To please his big sisters he did just what the Incredible Hulk would do and pushed the whole door off it's hinges which resulted in stitches for me. I have worn a beautiful scar on the left side of my forehead ever since. My parents didn't get angry about these kinds of things they were just a part of raising kids. They loved my imagination and supported and encouraged it. In fact they have a favorite family story in which I totally lost it on the front row during stake conference because there was not room for my imaginary friend to sit and my brother needed to move because he was sitting on her.
In kindergarten I was always in trouble for day dreaming. I didn't have friends and I didn't care. I spoke to myself on recess and on the way to school and i didn't care if I got made fun of for it.  I loved my stories. It was mostly my own siblings that teased me about it anyway. For the most part my imaginary world went hand in hand with my shy disposition, it was my desire to be pleasing that didn't mix.
On my first day of school I was to shy to get off the kindergarten bus. I had been given instructions by my Mother to get off with a specific neighbor child, but their was a lady with a clip board and she told us that we could only get off if she called our name. The stop came and I watched as the neighbor got off in my slightly familiar part of the world. I could feel that I should say or do something but fear over came me and what I got instead was a long ride back to the school all alone. This was one of those experiences that taught me how important it is to speak up. Like many of life lessons it had to repeat itself a few times before I got it.

Corby and I Easter 1977

In second grade I was lucky to have a wonderful teacher who was Mormon like me. My sister had had her before me and assured me of how fabulous she was. Once I was pretending to follow along during reading, when really I was day dreaming. She put an emotional spotlight on me for the whole class and held me up to them as an attentive student. I carried a lot of guilt for that one. Later that year during math time she asked me if I had completed a problem. I had been day dreaming and so had missed the middle part of the lesson. I miss understood the question and answered her with what I thought was the truth. Later she looked at my paper and chastised me for telling a lie. She kept me after school and gave me a scolding for being dishonest, she told me she knew how I was being raised and that she expected more of me because of it. When my big sister came to pick me up I began to cry and explain the miss understanding. She told me I needed to go back and straiten things out with my teacher. I refused the shy quality in me was more powerful than the deep need to make things right. Corby my sister really worked me over with lots of encouragement and a little prodding. In the end she lost and I refused. I always felt badly about my inability to stand up for myself.

More opportunities  to overcome my shyness lay ahead and I would eventually rise to the occasion. Who would have thought a mullet would do the trick. I was raised to believe I was pretty. My father made sure of that. He was and still is the most romantic and nostalgic person I have ever known. When I was asked to draw myself for the first time I drew myself with a crown. My teacher told my parents this was a very good sign about how I saw myself. Both of them had to know it was all to my Dad's credit. He was always telling me how beautiful I was and my nick name for quite a while was Fara Faucet. She was an actress in the TV show, "Charlies Angel's". I had a sleeping confidence about my looks that was awakened in 4rd grade. My Mother let us get the latest hair style. I had a mullet and now every boy in class and all the girls thought I was beautiful. My popularity sky rocketed and you can not be the most popular girl in class and stay shy and I didn't. Pleasing finally over came shy. Now to learn how to stand up to pleasing.

Summer 1985 My little sister Mandy, myself and cousin