I have noooo idea how to spell those lyrics. I did The Goog and it was all over the place. I’m sure I could use my super-Ninja internet research skills to come up with the exact spelling but I am not into it tonight. I did find out that it comes from an old Bing Crosby tune “I’m an Old Cowhand”, a song I heard more than a few times as a kid but undoubtedly did not know (or care) anything about Bing Crosby.

I do remember when my BFF in grade school was Laurie Ping and she had a cat for a while (I had a cat for a while too) and one day I was over at her house and we were playing in the basement and I dunno what the heck we were playing but the cat came downstairs and she said YYYKY (I’m abbreviating this because I’m taaaared of typing it) and we somehow incorporated the cat into our play although I doubt that lasted very long because cats…

To get to Laurie’s house, I walked down my alley, hung a right and walked about a block, crossing one street. We were BFFs throughout grade school even though I attended Stinkin’ Linkin’, the public school across the street from my house and she attended St. Joe’s, the Catholic K-8 school a few blocks away. Every Saturday morning, one of us would call at 9:00 AM (my phone number was 2-2565 and hers was 2-9310) and I would always go over to her house because she was “cleaning her room”. That was her Saturday chore and I *suppose* I was “helping” her with it but I certainly wasn’t and I don’t actually remember what we did on those mornings until her parents finally released her from her chores and we took off to…

…Well, bike riding or kickball in the street or playing on the playground equipment at Stinkin’ Linkin’s school yard if there was no snow. Or, if there was snow, walking on top of snow banks, making snow caves in the big banks that the plows left behind in our front yards, or sledding down big snowbanks into the street. Whatever the weather, we always made trips to Aunt Marion’s store to buy penny candy and/or popsicles or whatever. Aunt Marion’s was the name of the store but Marion was also Laurie’s great aunt and she and great-uncle Frank lived on the same block as Laurie. Along with great-uncle Angie, a recluse who was not all that nice to children and I, at least, was a bit scared of him when he worked at the store…

Laurie and I left our childhood friendship behind when we hit junior high. She continued at the Catholic K-8 and I walked downtown to the junior high. Junior high was a struggle for me, at least socially. One of the few times I met up with Laurie after junior high was when we were in about 7th grade and she told me she was kissing boys, etc. I so wanted to do that too but somehow did not have the social confidence. Plus those were the years that I felt I had to fail academically in order to better fit into the social structure. Like, if I get bad grades will I get a boyfriend? Jeebus!

A few boyfriends brave enough to call the small town bank president’s family phone and ask to speak to his daughter eventually came along and I did get to actually date boyfriends. And I married one of them and he is *still* around. Of course by the time I met the GG, I had my own phone (landline) here on the Planet Ann Arbor, so he didn’t have to call my parents’ phone to talk to me. It was hard back in those early days for a smart woman to fit into school or any job but I somehow managed it. It’s getting easier for women to fit in but there are still challenges.

Keep it up girls and Nancy Pelosi, YOU GO GIRL! I think I am becoming a fan.

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