Catharsis on the Fly

I borrowed this from versailles_rose. Like her, I’ve confined most of my answers to my pre-teen years.

What was the name of your first doll or Teddy Bear?
–It was a gritchy old Raggedy Ann doll with one eye that belonged formerly to my sister. I loved it and still have it.

What was your favorite toy?
–My Lost in Space robot! Its head lit up and it moved on little wheels!

What was your favorite Christmas/Hanukkah ?
–I honestly can’t pick one out. There was a long stretch of time when, between home and church, the customs and traditions were really set, and one year was much like any other, not necessarily in a bad way. I do remember really enjoying the cassette tape recorder I got when I was about twelve.

What was your favorite vacation?
–I went a great many places with my grandmother, who loved to travel. I think the dual King’s Dominion/Busch Gardens trip was my favorite.

Did you go to camp and did you enjoy it?
–I did not go to camp. I went to piano bars.

Did you have a secret hiding place where you like to play?
–Every summer we had one of those small wading pools of rigid plastic, six or seven feet in diameter and maybe two feet deep. When empty, it made an excellent cave, propped against the granite wall at the foot of our yard.

What toy do you wish you still had?
–I so wish I still had that robot.

Where did you go to school?
–School #92, the same elementary school to which my grandfather went as a boy, and then to a new Gifted and Talented program started by the city from fourth through sixth grades.

What was your favorite movie when you were a kid?
–The Poseidon Aventure. No, really. That was the first PG movie I was allowed to see! Back then people paid attention to movie ratings.

Did you have pets?
–You’re expecting me to say I had birds, I know. But I was in my twenties before I started keeping birds, although my sister had a budgie when I was very small–I only remember him dying, alas. I had hermit crabs and/or goldfish. I was sixteen when we got a dog.

Did you have brothers and sisters?
–My older sister is eleven years older than I am.

What was the first record/cd that you bought?
–I am ashamed to say that the first thing I myself paid money for in a store was probably Foreigner’s first album.

What was your favorite record/cd?
–I had a storytelling record of Rag Doll’s adventures in Somewhere that I played over and over and over. I also loved the Archies and the soundtrack to The Jungle Book.

What was your favorite book?
–Definitely Charlotte’s Web, tied perhaps with The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatly Snyder.

What was your all time favorite TV show?
–STAR TREK. I also loved Warner Bros. cartoons and Carol Burnett.

Did you play any sports?
–Only if occasional rounds of dodge ball count as sport.

Did you have music lessons?
–I took guitar lessons for a while as a teenager.

Did either or both of your parents like to cook and did you help out in the kitchen?
–My mother cooked and so did my grandmother. My grandmother came from the “overcook everything” school, but my mother could occasionally be creative; she baked and made candies at Christmas, at Easter, and to raise funds for my grandmother’s senior citizens’ club.

Who influenced your life the most?
–My parents, for good and ill; the church I went to and the people there; adults I met in amateur theater; the two librarians at my neighborhood branch.

What did you like to do that made you feel grown up?
–Hang out in piano bars. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. The piano bar was my mother’s natural habit; I lurked in the underbrush.