6th grade

This was the first year I started to get kind of boy crazy. There was all the "who likes who" drama going on and everybody wrote those notes:

Do you like me? Circle yes or no.


This was also the time that all my friends were starting to wear bras and starting to develop into teenagers. I was not one of the first ones. I was somewhere in the middle. All of us girls talked about who was wearing a bra. All of the boys would go around and pop the bra of any girl who was wearing one.

Sixth grade was still considered elementary school back in 1980. We were the top of the elementary school. The big dogs of IA elementary. On May Day (IA's end of the year celebration) the sixth graders got to crown the May Queen and dance around the May Pole. We had a sixth grade chorus and even performed our own musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" (I was the Little Red-Headed Girl).

We would listen to Casey Kasem's Top 40 Countdown on Sunday afternoons and have our tape recorder on hand just in case we heard a song we liked. When a good song came on we would hit record and hold the tape recorder up to the stereo to record the song.

Sometimes on Sunday afternoons in the fall, the boys would all get together and play football in the vacant lot by the Fletcher's house (Josh Fletcher, Ann Wyndham's cousin). A lot of the girls would go over there to watch the game. We were the "cheerleaders".

I also remember wearing yellow ribbons for the hostages in Iran. I remember wearing those barrettes that you braided a ribbon into. Shoelaces with designs on them. Velour sweat suits. We played Pac Man and Donkey Kong when we went to RollerWorld in Greenville. We played tennis on the Commodore 64 at home. We listened to Leif Garrett and had posters of Sean Cassidy.

Fast forward 28 years. I have a daughter in the 6th grade. Oh. My. Gosh!

She is in Middle School.
She has her own locker.
She switches classes (7 periods a day).
She wants a cellphone.
She wants to go to the tanning bed.
She wants to get highlights in her hair.
She wants her ears pierced. (Thank goodness it's only ears!)
She probably needs to wear a bra. (I am trying to hold out on this one!!)
She downloads music from the Internet.
She is crazy about the Jonas Brothers.
She has posters of teen stars all over her walls.

How did I get here so fast?? Wasn't it yesterday that I was in 6th grade??