Twiggy and Go-Go Boots 

The summer of 1967, fresh from the shores of London, where let’s face it, everything that was cool originated, Twiggy hit the scene in a big way. To me, she looked like a fawn.🦌 Her long legs adorned with posh, brilliant yellow go-go boots, 👢 a shockingly short mini dress and big blue eyes with long lashes (courtesy of three layers of false lashes) and model thin. I adored her. I wanted to be her. 

My younger sister Dana and I begged and begged my mom for a Twiggy Barbie. My mom cut our hair short so we could “look just like” Twiggy. My cousin Terrie, who lived on the next street over, took one look at us, and cut her hair too. 

If we could’ve worn go-go boots and mini-dresses we would’ve felt so groovy while we all danced to Nancy Sinatra singing, 🎶"These Boots Are Made for Walkin’"🎶 on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. A blast-from-the-past never goes out of style. YouTube has a video featuring this song on American Bandstand, you may want to watch,📺 that is sure to take you back to a time in your life where the music, go-go boots, and Twiggy haircuts, are forever young and hip! 

 

Genevra Bonati

A Halted Heart

                      DUSTY MEMORIES

There are times when I feel like the character Pig-Pen, the way past memories follow me around like a cloud of dust.

Pig-Pen once proclaimed: ‘You know what I am? I’m a dust magnet!’ That describes me--a magnet for memories that collect inside my head, like dust on a coffee table. 

 

Ping-Pen once referred to his messy life as ‘the dust of countless ages.’  The dust he picked up as he walked, lived, and experienced this world. It's the same with memory dust. The past we collect on the way to living our lives. If a person could scoop up all their memories and spread them out on a table—oh my goodness—the story it would tell.

 

The book, Mercy Me, is that story. An account of my dusty memories. Some of it truths, some of it embellished. But a lot of it is the back story that describes who I am. Quirky, crazy, funny, and sometimes sad. 

May there always be a little bit of Mercy in all of us.💖

                                  

 Anna J. Wise

www.anna-wise.com

 There are millions of starving kids in China who would love those peas! 

Growing up in the 60’s, you couldn’t put one over on your mama, no matter how hard you tried. First of all, they had eyes in the back of their head, the side of their head, maybe even their elbows, cause somehow they saw everything you did. Take peas for instance. Trying to discreetly hide your peas in a napkin, while your mom headed to the kitchen for more gravy, as us kids would hurry to try and give our peas to the dog…impossible!  

Speaking of eyes. There wasn’t a child alive who didn’t know what the “evil eye or (stink eye 👀)” was all about. You couldn’t tell a lie to finagle yourself out of trouble. All my mom had to do was narrow her eyes into slits… cock her head to the side… like a cat licking its lips and locking in its prey. Then she'd pounce… and the unfortunate truth would pour out of us kids the way the batch of Orange Tang I made, without permission, spilled all over the kitchen counter. What a total mess that made. Then came the old fashion "spanking." Or even worse, “Wait until your father comes home.” Of course, every kid knew what that meant--another spanking. Maybe even the belt. Yikes! 

Forced to wait in your room for dad to come home was pure torture. Just the thought of it---a belt slap across your legs or butt---was punishment enough. It was enough to make a child STOP! And THINK! 

For me, I had double the trouble because my mom was an identical twin. That meant two moms! Two sets of evil eyes! Two sets of trouble! Yep! My cousins and I would team up and try and try to fool our mothers but we were up against a magical force called motherhood. And it didn’t help that our moms could complete one another’s sentences; sometimes even saying the exact same thing –simultaneously! To top it all off they could read each other’s minds (with some kind of twin telepathic super power). They’d take one look in unison, two sets of scary eyes, locked in on us. . .then we’d know… Trouble!😮

Back then we didn’t have security cameras, instead we had our mothers, their eyes recording every move we made. Their goal—to keep us healthy and safe. A big thanks to God for these two beautiful women. 💕

Genevra Bonita

A Halted Heart

                       CURBSIDE CHATS

The other day, I told someone my age. In the middle of the conversation, it hit me. Holy cat fur, I told the wrong age!😱 My real age…well, let’s just say birthdays are escaping me faster than money in my wallet. It seems only yesterday I was sitting curbside in my hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, with teenager girlfriends, gabbing about the only subject consuming our brains—boys!  

 Before internet, texting and chat rooms, the curb on Kenosha Street was the place for social networking with my close friends. I remember one get-together when we spotted a creepy, brown spider, 🕷 its back, hairy like sprouts on a Chia Pet. One of my friends got the bright idea to bump the creature with her shoe. A gazillion babies spiders scrambled off the momma's back and scattered away in a naked frenzy. 

 

Maybe that’s what happened to all my birthdays. 🎂Life bumped into me, and like those baby spiders, the years took off. Gone. Skedaddled. 

Many times I have gone back to the old neighborhood and met with my longtime friends. But due to a few minor issues—creaks in our knees, stiffness in our backs—we sometimes avoid the curb and meet in coffee shops,☕ restaurants, or someone’s cozy kitchen. But no matter where we unite, we talk like chatty teenagers, our souls jelling together like jam in a jelly jar. 

The only difference between forty years ago and now---the topic that consumes our mind. Boy talk…um…not so much. Instead, we discuss creaky knees, stiff backs and who has the most grey. 😏 But more important, we talk about the blessings God gave us in good friendships and the style of social networking from the old days of curbside chats.

Anna J. Wise

Mercy Me 

One of the houses where we'd meet.

 

 

Ann J. Wise

Mercy Me

                   A HARD DAY'S NIGHT

I was nine years old when A Hard Day’s Night hit the movie theaters in August 1964. I’m not sure, but I don't think I knew who the Beatles were. Maybe I’d heard “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,” on the radio, 📻 but that was about it. All I remember is it was a Saturday afternoon, matinee time set aside for us kids to go to movie. Even though the cost was barely a dollar, 💸coming up with the money was sometimes a challenge. But by-golly-gosh my parents needed some alone time, so somehow they scraped up enough loose change and off we’d go to the movie. 

The theater was packed, every seat filled. As soon as the film started, the Beatles appeared on the big screen running up the street as if they were on fire. Then lo and behold if that movie theater didn’t erupt like Mount St. Helens. Right then those teenage screamers jumped out of their seats, as popcorn 🍿 flew around like confetti. 

I could have gathered up all that popcorn and eaten it while watching the movie. But that’s just it—I couldn’t really see it. And I never did hear it. The entire movie I kept thinking—Why would all those girls spend a whole dollar on a movie and then refuse to shut up long enough to listen?  

 

Okay, so maybe I was too young to attend a Beatles movie. Not because of the movie itself, but more about the chaos of that day. Oh my gosh, all the screaming, crying, and fainting those teens did, all of them caught up in Beatlemania, something my hormones had yet to understand. As for me, I just thought we were there to watch a movie.  

 

Years later A Hard Days Night aired on TV, and the nine year old in me sat on the sofa, a bowl of popcorn in hand, as I watched it in silence. Turns out it was a fun movie. But if not for all those young teenagers going bonkers back in 1964, I would never ever have remembered I was at the theater that day. Or that I went with my best friend Jean Marie. So a big shout out to all those screamers—thanks for giving me this fun memory.  

 

 Anna J. Wise

 Mercy Me