Everyone has been in a situation in their lives that required them to be part of a flock, to follow a leader. Outside of work, where I report to managers, I tend to march to the beat of my own drum. Although, a little colorful at times, I like to do things my way, no matter the consequence.
I even look like an awesome, yellow dog when I’m marching to my own beat.
I wasn’t always like this. In fact, through adolescence there was a good chunk of time that I wanted to be my older sister. If she liked a movie, I became obsessed with that movie. If she liked an actor, that actor now became my imaginary boyfriend. If she liked a band… well, let’s just say that band took me around the country.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have my own identity, because I most certainly did. As my sister was the social butterfly, I was the band geek that played video games and watched movies in my free time. But there was a certain mystique about my sister growing up that I wanted. I thought that the only way to obtain this was to follow along with what she did.
This notion actually predates high school. My sister was, not really my idol, but someone to be listened to. Although she was only 18 months older, in my eyes, she was so much wiser. She knew the cool things to do, and when we were much younger, she knew the fun things to do.
This memory, albeit a little foggy since it was so long ago, actually still resides in the dusty recesses of my mind. I was only about five years old, an impressionable age, and always after what was fun. Naturally, my sister was a good person to follow in order to find the fun things to do.
We were living in Park City at the time, and this being back in the 80’s, it was common for kids to be out in their yards playing and riding bikes. My sister and I, left to our own devices, were goofing around outside. The next thing I remember is my sister telling me that I had to follow her, that she had found something really awesome.
No truer words. Only sometimes, we WERE the wild pets.
Obviously, that wasn’t her verbiage, as she was only 6 years old, and I don’t think ‘awesome’ was in her vocabulary. I only remember that she convinced me that she found the greatest mud pit imaginable.
Well hell! Who am I to turn down some super awesome mud?! And my sister of course wouldn’t lead me astray! If she raved about it, and it was something, not of our toy collection, that was totally wicked, I was down without a fight!
I followed her down to the street corner, where between the curb and the asphalt, lay a beautiful heap of black, shiny mud. I had never encountered mud like this. My sister was right, this was amazing.
We got to it. That mud didn’t know who was boss the way we were man handling it. Handful after sticky handful we gooped the mud all over our clothing, our arms, our faces, and our hair. Not one part of us was safe from this glistening, sticky, black mud.
After awhile, and after most of the “mud” was exhausted on that corner, we took our filthy selves back home.
There are a lot of things that have made my mom less than pleased towards us growing up, but I might have to say that this day takes the cake. That “mud” we were wrestling with was tar. My sister and I had successfully tarred ourselves.
We were one step away from this scene… just short on feathers!
The next parts of the evening are a little splotchy for me, but I remember the smell of acetone that my mom had to use on our skin to try and remove the tar. The clothes ended up in the garbage. It was a disaster.
Although we got in trouble for playing in tar, I would have to say that it was still one of the greatest times I’ve had as a child. How many people can say that they’ve tarred themselves? Not many.
Unihorn of Steel 