REAL GIRL FRIENDS.

It began the spring I made a horrible discovery about myself.  

As background I will tell you that looking back, I think, no, I know,  I was some kind of narrow minded slug that looked down on those who didn’t fit into my idea of a cool existence.

The pecking order in our small neighborhood was well established.  We played a heap of baseball and we knew who was good and who was bad and well you know how kids are,  always testing one another.  One thing we all agreed on was, “NO GIRLS” were ever allowed to play.   When choosing up teams, my best buddy was always chosen first  and I was chosen second and so on down the line.  That fact never varied!

Just about every afternoon as we were choosing up sides we would hear the familiar bike bell ringing frantically and a girl named Dotty, with a purple bike and  red orange bobbing curls all over her head ,  would be yelling, “Wait for me!”   But of course Dotty was a girl and girls didn’t get to play!  But she asked every day,  was she a slow study or what?   She was totally disgusting!   NO GIRLS!

And then one day after a long hot sweaty game, we headed for the creek for a swim,  as we always did. But somehow over this winter, changes had happened to my body that I hadn’t really noticed before but everyone noticed that afternoon at the creek.  When I peeled off my shirt, it was apparent I was a girl.  Everyone began to snicker and laugh,  I grabbed my bike and headed for home. Tears flowing hotly from my eyes.  I was so humiliated !   I could not believe it!  I knew somehow I was a girl,  but I never dreamed I was a “real” girl and now, the whole team had witnessed my disgrace.

For two days I hid out in my room or in the garden with the other ugly weeds but I never went near the ball field.  I’d sit high up in my favorite tree and wonder about where I might fit in now?   Would I ever belong anywhere?    I felt destroyed!

One morning the purple bike rolled into my yard and Dotty asked my Gram if I could visit her house,  she had a new fish in her aquarium.  I was waving my hands and violently shaking my head NO but my Gram knew I was unhappy over my recent discovery and she thought this might be a good distraction so she called me down from the tree.   And I was stuck going to Dotty’s  house….could things get any worse?   I ask you now!   How could anything get worse?

Dotty was an only child and worse yet, she had no Dad.  Just her and her Mom,  like the grownup and child version of red orange springy bouncy curls!   She did have a nice bedroom and a ton of books but the coolest thing was, in one corner was a huge wedge shaped aquarium full of great fish.  

We spent the afternoon talking about how to care for the fish and she sure knew all about them.   She knew fish like I knew baseball.   I began to think knowing about the fish was much more interesting than who had the most RBI’s and homeruns and which teams might be in the World Series.  As I was leaving she asked me if I would visit again?   I told her,  I’d think about it.  Who was I kidding?  Baseball was over for me so if I hung around home I’d end up with chores!

By my third visit,  Dotty asked if I would explain something to her.  She wanted to know why I could play ball all those summers when she couldn’t and we were both obviously girls!   

“What? “,  I asked incredulously,  “what was so obvious about it?”

“Well,” she said, “Did you think you were a boy?”

“Of course not!  but I didn’t think I was a “real” girl either!”

“What is the difference between a girl and a “real” girl?” she asked .

There she had me,  I had no idea what I really thought.  I had always played ball, and I played good ball, as good as any of the guys, …...but that didn’t make me a guy, and they always let me play and girls were never allowed in a game,   I was a mass of confusion.   I didn’t ride a purple bike with squirrel tails on the handle grips, and I didn’t have bouncy springy curls but I knew it was true!  I am a girl!   How utterly depressing!

I tried to talk to my Gram about it but all she would say is, “Look I’m a girl and I turned out ok!”  And so in desperation Dotty was the only one I could openly talk with about this.   I had a slew of brothers but they had already been warned and threatened by my Father if they teased me, but still there were looks and laughs, you know how kids tease.

And so it was that goofy looking Dotty would listen to me prattle on about the injustice of this happening and with patience and understanding she decided we both could use some working on,  we were both unhappy about how the world saw us.  

It turns out she hated her curls but her Mom did her hair and she had no choice.  

“Who does your hair?”  She asked.

“What?  Who does my hair?  No one does my hair except for school picture day or weddings!”   She could ask the dumbest questions.  “I brush my hair, use a rubber band to put up a ponytail.  DONE!”

That day began a week of giggling over movie magazines looking at hair.  I tried to uncurl  hers and she tried to curl mine.  It was a riot!

We found more and more things in common and I loved learning about her aquarium.  She was a smart girl book wise but I would always wonder why she tried so hard to get into a ballgame.  Why didn’t she learn they would never say yes?

Over that summer she grew taller and lost her baby fat.  I stayed skinny and didn’t grow much but I learned about curling my hair and Dotty’s Mom showed us about lipstick.  A nice peachy color that would work for Dotty and a soft pink that might me look??   What?   More feminine!   We spent lots of time with the Sears catalog looking at clothes way too old for us but we did finally acknowledge that was where we were eventually headed.

If I had to admit to you now!  If I had to just say it out loud!  I’d say Dotty saved my life that summer.  

I still think of her riding into the ball field, bike bell ringing, orange curls bouncing and making a totally disgusting spectacle of herself.  I still remember thinking….has she no self respect...but then,  that was when I was a narrow minded slug!   Now I just smile to think that I am happy I got to know the “real” girl who lived under that mass of orange curls!   REAL GIRLS come in all shapes and sizes some know fish and some can hit homeruns!

It was decades later when I had a family of my own, three fine sons,  that my Dad explained to me,  he wasn’t at all worried about me being a tomboy growing up, he figured I’d need to know how to help my own sons learn to play great baseball!