Versatile Blogger Award

Thanks to Suzie Tullett, a fellow writer on our Yahoo Writer's Group who gave my blog the Versatile Blogger Award.



The requirement of the Versatile Blogger Award is that I must reveal seven random facts about myself. Since I've been fairly forthcoming on my blog, I feel like it's going to be a real stretch to come up with seven things I haven't already told my readers. Maybe not many people have read my old posts.

1. My nose is not my original nose. It was broken by a Frisbee flung by a friend in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I had to have surgery to straighten it. While the doctor was straightening it, he took out the Kincer bump in the middle of it.

2. I went to school with Neil Armstrong's son Mark. His mother always made sure we were in the same class because she thought the competition was good for him. I always tried to earn the best grades in class.

3. I never learned how to dive. To this day, as I sit through my kids' swim meets, I don't know how to dive.

4. I used to sing solos at church and take voice lessons.

5. I tried out for a musical in high school only one time. When I didn't get a part, I never tried out again.

6. We lived in four different houses the first year my daughter was born, moving from Florida to Michigan.

7. Once my kids are finished with college, my husband and I plan to move to France to live.

Harper Valley Football

Perhaps I made a crucial mistake when I was a freshman in high school and appeared as an extra in the movie Harper Valley PTA. It could be that I doomed myself to a lifetime of drama.
I rode my bike in the cold to our high school football game tonight. My boys don't play football and aren't in the band, but the team is doing really well this year. The whole town turns out for the games. Spencer paints his body each week and Tucker died his hair pink for the breast cancer recognition tonight.
During the band's halftime show, a mother holding a camera walked up to me, leaned over and said, "Before you go saying things about my daughter, you'd better take a look at your own kids."
Then she was gone, down the steps of the bleachers.
I sat stunned.
I knew the mom because Tucker had dated her daughter in 8th grade, two years ago.
"I just had a hit and run," I said to my friend Jane who sat next to me with a cast on her foot. "What should I do?"
Jane said she didn't know because she'd never had a mother accuse her of something. Jane is very polite and would never gossip about kids or adults. I am not always polite, but I knew I hadn't been talking about Courtney.
I decided to go confront the mom rather than simply avoiding her.
"Carrie, I don't know what you've heard, but I haven't even thought about Courtney in two years," I said.
She told me she had heard this rumor directly from a parent, and she asked if I swore I hadn't said anything about her daughter.
"I didn't," I said. "And next time ask me."
"I thought we had put this all behind us long ago," she said.
And I agreed.
Then I went in search of Tucker.
"What's this rumor I'm supposed to be spreading?" I asked him, relaying the football game ambush by the other mother.
Tucker, of course, had heard the rumor, just didn't bother to share it with me. A dad, who I knew of, but who I felt sure did not know who I was, was saying I'd made claims about Tucker and Courtney.
Now I needed to take the next step: find the dad and confront him.
Lucky for him, I didn't see him at the game, so I'll need to go to the soccer game on Saturday to look for him and put an end to the rumors.
It's just like the song and the movie: "Cause this is just a little Peyton Place and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites."
The joys of living in a small town.
Do you gossip? Would you have confronted the mother? Would you search out the dad? Some people would rather avoid. How about you?

My Shot at Fame

When I was in ninth grade, our little town of Lebanon, Ohio was chosen to film a movie. A big Hollywood movie. Harper Valley PTA.
Now, you may think that the honor was rather dubious. Unfortunately, that little town I lived in was perfect for a movie about small town backstabbing and politics.
The authentic downtown has an ice cream parlor, antique stores and The Golden Lamb, Ohio's oldest continually operating inn (a place I later worked as a hostess).
The main attraction though was Berry Middle School, an old school set atop a rolling lawn. I'd gone to school there fifth through eighth grades. My mother taught there. I remember she told me that during the filming the teachers were not allowed to adjust the shades in the windows so that the shots always looked the same.
The movie was based on the song and had a far-fetched plot about a slightly loose mother whose daughter will be punished by the school board if the mother doesn't conform. As the quote on the movie poster says, "The day my momma socked it to the Harper Valley PTA." The mother gets back at the school board by exposing their own questionable behavior.
So why am I telling you this?
Because I was an extra in the movie.
It's funny because I haven't rented the movie or searched for it on Hulu. I haven't watched it since it came out in the theater and I saw myself on screen for a split second licking a peppermint ice cream cone. If you want to look for me, I had on a maroon wool sweater, crew neck. I had out of control hair that I tried to straighten and then flip backward from my face.
So here's what happened, somehow, I got signed up to be an extra in the movie. Every kid in school must have wanted to be an extra, I don't know how I got on the list ahead of others. There were a bunch of us though.
We got to leave school for the day, taken on a bus downtown to the ice cream parlor. The ice cream parlor was a place we'd hung out since we were old enough to leave our parents behind. In addition to ice cream, they sold hamburgers and other food. Think of it like the burger joint in an Archies comic book.
We were all sat at tables in the ice cream parlor and given treats. I had a sugar cone, the pointy brown kind, with peppermint ice cream. I'm sure some of my friends were in the movie too and we sat together.
The scene in the ice cream parlor involved us all eating and talking when some main characters come running through. We shot the scene over and over. At one point, Craig Colston, a friend of my older brother, got to be pushed over by the main characters running through the ice cream parlor.
At another point, we were all herded outside to stand in line before they brought us back in for more shooting. I remember licking that ice cream cone quickly in the sun so I could get another one before the next shooting began.
What I learned about movie making that day: repetition is dull.
The pay I received: a day off school and two free ice cream cones.
Even today, that might be enough of a reward.
P.S. I found this youtube clip that shows clips from the movie set to the song. Note the very fashionable clothes that the students are wearing. Guess that was what I looked like. Sorry, you know my links never work on this blog so you'll probably have to copy and paste, but here it is anyway.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ivUOnnstpg