#tbt: Camping All-Star

As you read this, I am either getting myself psyched up to go camping, or actually driving to a campsite with my dear Evanshine. We will be celebrating our nation’s birthday as our forefathers intended: with grilled foods, fireworks, and sweat.

I get a little PTSD whenever someone suggests camping. You see, when I was a wee little girl, I went to camp Judy Layne Girl Scout camp. I got to take a mess kit, which is something that my doll Molly had in miniature, so I was surprisingly okay with the idea.

However, disaster seemed to strike soon after arrival every single year.

In 1992, I struggled mightily enough with outdoor sounds and bugs that I felt the need to describe it in my diary:

To add insult to injury, my parents took Ross to see Cop and a Half while I was away, which I had been wanting to see.

Then in 1995, I had a near-death experience in knife safety class. We reported to a shelter for class, where our teachers told us we would either be “honing” (haha) our skills on a block of soap or a tree branch. Obviously I elected tree branch, since I am an artist and artists don’t work in soap. The teacher told us: “The First Rule of Knife Safety is never cut toward yourself. Now, before we start class, go get yourselves a stick.”

I headed out into the woods and looked carefully at nature. Each stick candidate had something wrong with it – one was broken, another bendy, too little, etc.

But then I saw it. The Stick. It lay on the ground, seemingly bathed in the glow of angelic light. Only one tiny branch stuck out to the side, marring what was otherwise the perfect medium for the masterpiece I was about to create. So I whipped out my trusty Swiss Army knife and cut that branch off – cutting toward myself.

The knife, which had probably never cut anything before, went straight through the wood, through my thumbnail and into my thumb. It didn’t even hurt, which was nearly as surprising as the enormous amount of blood gushing into the leaves. One of my fellow Scouts screamed. I screamed.

A counselor came running, wrapped up my hand in a bandage and told me we’d go talk to the camp manager’s husband, who just so happened to be a real live EMT and could bandage me up properly. This was reassuring, but still I burst into tears, fearing the worst. I was losing a LOT of blood.

“Am I going to DIE?” I asked through my sobs.

The counselor looked at me like I was the crazy one. She was the one voluntarily working at a camp for an entire summer! “Uh, no.”

Despite these comforting words, I know that I barely survived Girl Scout camp that year. It is only by the grace of God that I somehow survived losing gallons of blood and am here blogging to you today.

My mom even noted this camping trip in my School Days book...
Not only did I slice my thumb open, I also got 80+ chigger bites!!

 

So you can see why I struggle with the idea of camping, even at my mature age. Wish me luck that I come back with all my fingers and toes. God Bless America, and God Bless air conditioners and hot showers when I get home.

(IF I get home…)

#tbt: From the Desk of Allison L. Grogan, age 6

Last night, I finished The Goldfinch, a Pulitzer Prize-winning, nearly-800 page novel. It was great: nearly as well-written as most of what's on this blog. Naturally, I immediately picked up a new summer read: School Days: A File System to Retain Records and Memories, Preschool Through Grade Six. It's basically a compilation of all the monthly update blog posts my mom surely would have written as I grew up had the Internet and blogging in general been invented at that time. I highly recommend you add it to your Amazon.com wish list immediately.

Aaaaaanyway, this #tbt is brought to you straight from the desk of this little lady:

At this point, I was in first grade, where I was "not interested in participating on sports teams," but "loved dolls," according to my mom's excellent notes. That year, I got straight As and, along with my BFFs, performed a skit called "The Peach" at our school talent show. I was "learning to tell time" and "getting to be a great reader. (Nerd Alert). I also got a haircut and won three ribbons -- one blue, one white, and one green -- at OOVOTO ("Our Own Version Of The Olympics") Day at school, though my mom didn't write down which events I dominated.

Apparently the best thing my mom could think of to write under "Special Memories" was this: 

Allison brought Mom an old newspaper from school (when the teacher was cleaning out shelves) because I recycle papers. 

It's clear that I was just as thoughtful then as I am now.

I was also blossoming into quite the artist -- 

I'm pretty sure that's a picture of Molly holding an American Flag and standing next to a giant lollipop. This was published in the local paper. No big deal.

I also had quite the sense of style, knowing just when to use a cute denim scrunchie and barrette to liven up a side pony.

But most importantly of all, I was an activist. I didn't mind telling people what I thought, especially when I could do so by letter. 

 Exhibit A

I'm pretty sure I had some help in coming up with the subject of this letter (ahem, Dad), but if that's true he could have given me a little more help with punctuation and editing for redundancy. I do think the last line was pretty effective, though. It's always good to end a piece of persuasive writing with a reminder to the reader that you'd like them to do what you just said. 

And for this little glimpse into the mind of Allison L. Grogan, age 6, and that bit of writing advice -- you're welcome!

A Tale as Old as Time

And now, for something a little different. It’s not even #tbt and I’m giving you a rare glimpse into my past and I’m doing it as part of a storytelling link-up with Kristi at and babies don’t keep. You lucky readers are about to be treated to a tale as old as time. No, it’s not the story of how when I met Evan he was a beast trapped in an enchanted castle and after we fell in love he was transformed into his current-day princely self. That’s a story for another day. This tale is one of celebrities and missed connections and it's actually only 10 years old. Ingrigued? Read on.

 

Of my college years, 2004 was a pretty great vintage.  I started off the year with a Winter Term class on film studies, lived with three of my best friends in the Alpha Phi house, spent the summer stuffing myself full of cornbread and fried green tomatos while waiting tables at Ramsey’s, and then headed in Spain, where I peppered my semester abroad with weekend trips to Morocco, London, Ireland and Paris. I would do it again in a heartbeat, but wearing more sunscreen and moisturizer. (Oh, the things you learn as a semi-grownup.)

What made 2004 an even better year was the fact that my film studies class involved watching a few movies on campus, then heading to Park City, Utah to continue my “studies” at the Sundance Film Festival. For me, an avid student of celebrities and pop culture in general, this may have been the highlight of my life. (Evanshine, take note: I REALLY LOVED Sundance and WOULD LOVE TO GO BACK, PERHAPS AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT ALONG WITH SOME BLACK BOOTS…).

For a few weeks every January, Park City, Utah is like a condensed version of Hollywood: chock-full of celebrities, but because the town pretty much consists of one block of bars and restaurants, the ratio of celebrities to normal plebes like myself was excellent. Just walking around, we spotted Sharon Stone, Andrew Firestone (Bachelor fans, unite!), Tim Robbins (who refused to take a picture with us because he was "too sweaty"), Mallory from the Real World: Paris*, Mark Ruffalo, Jay somebody from Supertroopers, McCauley Caulkin, Mandy Moore, Robert Redford, Darrell Hammond, and more. I’m such a namedropper, right? Sorry. No, I’m not.

 * This was a big deal to us at the time, okay?

For my roommate and travel companion Stacy and me, 2004 was also a great year in Hair. We had perfected the “flip out” style and were rocking it pretty hard. One of many great things about this style was that it looked great even with a hat on.

Exhibit A.  See how nicely my hair stuck out from my hat?

 

Fortunately for her, our other friend Tanja had not fallen prey to this trend. Instead, Tanja had long, curly blonde hair that doesn’t even look out of style now. Tanja also wore very stylish sunglasses all around Park City, giving her the air of a celebrity and leading a whole lot of people to stop our little trio on the streets to ask Tanja which movie she was in. For a reason that I still don’t understand, I was not asked this question even one time.

One night, as we made our celebrity prowl up and down Park City’s main drag, an oldish, non-famous-looking man stopped us. As usual, he ignored me and Stacy and asked Tanja: “What movie are you in?”

Tanja laughed. “Oh, I’m not in a movie…”

“Well, my agent would like to talk to you.”

Nervous laugh. “Um, okay, sure…”  What a line!, I thought. This guy was clearly a liar and we needed to get away from him immediately. So we all took a few steps backward, avoided eye contact, and continued our celebrity hunt on down the street. We soon got cold and found a coffee shop to warm up in. Because I had not yet discovered my love of chai lattes, I ordered hot chocolate and we found an ideal table giving us not only a prime view into the street, but also easy access to the door should a celebrity stroll by that needed our stalking.

A few minutes later, our old friend walked by the store. Glancing through the window, he spotted Tanja and opened the door.

“Hey, I was serious about my agent wanting to talk to you –“

“Oh,” said Stacy, cutting him off. “You have an agent. So you’re an actor, huh?”

He tore his glance away from Tanja and noticed Stacy. “Um, yes.”

“Ok, if you’re an actor, what have you been in?” Stacy clearly wasn’t buying this guy’s act. Neither was I.

He gave a confused smile and named a few things that sounded like soap operas and some movies that I’d never heard of. Amateur hour, I thought, nodding like I knew what he was talking about. He was still going. “…Coach.”

“Huh.” Stacy was also not impressed. Tanja and I gave the man an awkward smile (though I’m still not sure he had noticed that I was there.)

“Well, okay,” he said, defeated. It was clear that he wasn’t impressing us. “It was nice to meet you all.  I’m Craiger.” And with that, he turned and left the coffee shop, taking Tanja’s big break with him.

“Craiger!” we giggled. What a name. It was only later, when we got back to the hotel and got online, that we realized who we’d been speaking to:

The Coach himself, Craig T. Nelson. Sorry, Craiger!

Note: I just realized that it says something about my current day life that the best story I could think of to tell happened more than ten years ago. Dang.

#tbt: Journal Entries from the Vault

Greetings, friends! Thanks for taking a quick break from crocheting Granny Squares to pay a little visit to the tudor house this lovely evening. Today, I'd like for all of us to throw ourselves back to 1992, when time moved a little slower, when people were a little nicer, when things were a little simpler, and when my mom still had control over me and tried to force me to keep a diary. 

"You'll look back on this one day and be so glad you did it, Allie," she said. "Blah blah blah." At least, that's how I remember it. You know my mom, so I'm sure you can imagine what she looked like while lecturing me.

To inspire the Anne Frank within me, she bought me The American Girls Diary: A Journal for Writing Your Secrets - An American Girls' Tradition. I believe I've mentioned that I was big into American Girl dolls at the time. I was pumped.

And from January 1, 1992 through May 18 of the same year, I kept that diary. Pretty much. What normally happened was that my mom hassled me every few days about the diary until a couple of weeks built up with no journal entries. Then she'd make me sit down in the kitchen with our family calendar and try to retrace what I'd been doing lately.

Which resulted in a number of posts like this:

February 21, 1992

But when I wasn't grumping about having to write in my diary, I had a pretty exciting life. And Mom, you were right - I am tickled pink to find this relic from my past. It's fun to see what I was up to as an 8-year-old, plus it's taught me so much about myself.

First, that I really stuck to things. In addition to being extremely devoted to keeping up with my diary, I also was really devoted to gymnastics and accomplishing my dream of doing a cartwheel in a mere 8 days:

And I was quite political:

 

January 20, 1992

Inauguration Day 1992

I was also hilarious. Such a jokester. (But still the super fan that I am today for my CATS).

Not only did I take an interest in current events, I took an interest in -- and enjoyed critiquing -- important literature.

February 8, 1992

I also had great decent self-esteem.

But life wasn't all afternoons at the theatre and evenings in front of the nightly news. Disaster struck sometimes.

 And sometimes, nothing happened at all:

#tbt: God Bless America

It is no secret that I was a very patriotic child. In fact, I still love the good old USA and people might even say that I'm a patriotic adult. However, due to a little discovery I made this week, I'm starting to wonder if my extreme patriotism was forced upon me by my insane, daughter-of-two-veterans mother.

Whenever I go to my parents' house, my mom has a stack of papers waiting for me. Usually these papers are wedding announcements cut from the Herald-Leader (she assumes that I am best friends with anyone who lists my high school, college or law school as an alma mater, regardless of age, and cuts out their announcements for me), articles about gardening or healthy eating, and the occasional comic strip. This time, the pile included this little throwback treasure:

photo credit: no one wants to take credit for this.

As you can see, I was right in the thick of my awkward stage. The family was about to embark on an international adventure - to Canada! - and I needed a passport. So obviously, my mom curled my bangs extra-tight, loaded up the minivan and drove me and my brother to AAA, where I posed for this treasure. Can you see the excitement in my blank stare?

I distinctly remember this shirt, because I hated it. It was the really scratchy kind of button-down with very thick fabric that ballooned around you (as you can see from my meaty arms) especially when, as it was here, tucked neatly into jeans. But my mom said I had to wear it because I'm from America and this picture was for my American passport. Sadly, it kind of made sense at the time. I remember Ross having to wear something patriotic, too, but when I saw his photo he was just sporting a blue striped shirt. Much less obviously patriotic than mine. I'm surprised they even let him back in the country.

After my mom made me patriotic for my passport picture, the patriotism just continued to grow. Check out this picture of me and my friend Lauren on one Fourth of July (I hope!!). You can see that I was sporting patriotism on every part of my body -- and obviously, I'd spent quite a while icing that cake in the most patriotic manner.

 

Don't worry, I still dress up in this type of outfit every Fourth of July. I assume you'll be coming to my house this year.

#tbt: Deep Thoughts

The year was 1992. Bill Clinton had just won the election (more on my eight-year-old feelings on THAT in a later post), I was flirting with the idea of growing out my bangs, I was really into Aladdin and Honey I Blew Up the Kid, and a pound of bacon cost a mere $1.92. (Okay, you got me. This post is not written entirely from my excellent memory, but with an assist from thepeoplehistory.com.) 

I looked a little bit like this –

– but I still had friends because I went to Montessori school.

My very non-hippie parents had just enrolled me and my brother in a Montessori school, which I was cool with because it seemed to involve quite a bit of counting beads on mats on the floor and drawing pictures of things. I came to learn that it also involved a lot of journal writing.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was an Excellent Journal Writer.  I know this now because, in a fortuitous sequence of events (me going to my childhood bedroom closet and poking around in search of embarrassing items), I have unearthed my 1992 journal! In honor of #tbt, I present you with my top five deep-thought posts from this ancient text.

1. ON DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS

"I'm Captain Hook. I have to be careful when I get the sleep out of my eyes…. It's good to have a hook when I'm picking my teeth." Even at this tender young age, I could appreciate how one person's disability might be another person's blessing.

2. ON THE LITTLE THINGS, AND ON CATS

"My favorite things are cats and my dolls and my cousins Claire and Paige." Cats, dolls and wee little cousins are truly all you need in life. At any age.

3. ON CLARITY

"I am trying to persuade you that writing stories is fun." No messing around here. This is a persuasive essay, and I'm letting you know right up front.

4. ON THE MEANING OF LIFE (Nerd Alert)

"Why I'm Living: I'm living so I can grow up and have children. Any how, why should I die? I have a great life! I never get grounded and, hardly ever do I get in trouble. Anyway, it's so fun (my life)!" Deep.

5. ON PRIORITIES

It's not clear from this entry what my priorities were, but journal writing was clearly near the bottom. Just like blogging sometimes isn't today.