AMOOXP Day 10: 1979
By now, at the close of my first decade, I am watching the nightly news, which is a staple at our house. Three Mile Island, the Iranian hostages, a plane crashed in Chicago, and the price of gas jumps from the average of .63 cents a gallon to .86 and pictures on the TV show people lining up for miles to fill up.
A Sony Walkman costs an outrageous $200, or over $600 in today's dollars. Of course, this was the same year a classmate had looked at me incredulously when I didn't know who Debby Harry was and, even worse, when he tried to clarify, who Blondie was. I might have plugged into current events by this year, but clearly not into popular music.
This is the Christmas Eve walk. Mammammy showed up at my bedroom door and suggested we take one. Which was weird. As you can tell by my hat, it was actually chilly this year and she wasn't a big one for taking walks. (I looked up it. The high was 53°!)
But had she not, I'd not have this lovely photo of the two of us, setting off down the sidewalk of Sageville.
I suppose I wasn't jaded or suspicious enough at 9 to realize it was because they didn't want me finding granddaddy doing this:
Ah, that side shed. This, too, is the only picture I have of a special place to me. This little covered area ran alongside the house, and then past the AC unit where my bedroom window looked out on the narrow area and the fence. I loved watching the rain from there. And further on, the little shed that housed the swimming pool pump. Only someone small could easily crawl through and make it into the backyard.
1979 was the year I actually broke into tears over how badly I wanted a present. I'm not sure now why it was of such utter importance that I have the 2XL 8-track tape robot, but it obviously was, as my mother was apparently trying to prepare me for his absence when I had remarked how much he was the only thing I wanted.
I imagine they'd already bought the 3-speed bike and a giant doll-house by that time and were thinking they were done with Christmas gifts for me.
Alicia couldn't get under the live blue spruce we had that year because of all the presents underneath.
I am grateful that mom wore something different each year to help me differentiate between Christmases. That blue and white striped shirt of Grandaddy's was his favorite and he wears it almost every Christmas. Note, too, we still have the old console TV, but I think we'd gotten cable that year so out went the foil flagged rabbit ears and in came HBO.
Peeking.
The "Smaller" Home and Garden dollhouse was slightly bigger than I could carry.
And, for reasons I will never understand, it was decided the gift of a girl's first training bra was a good Christmas gift. Embarrassment chronicled for the ages.
On the other hand, there was 2-XL under the tree. The very last present, which we didn't get any pictures of, was the bike, that was revealed on the porch/greenhouse and brought inside, where it sat until the next day. 2-XL, however, got played with immediately.
And at some point, Mom pulled me away from my electronic joy to set up the doll house in my room which still had the raccoon wallpaper. In another year, it would be gone, as would my loft bed, and I'd swap bedrooms with Grandaddy's reflexology office. The dollhouse would hang around for years, at one point providing a fun change of pace for my parakeet who would hop around from room to room with the open space backing up to the wall.
So long 70's Christmases and single digits.
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