Ten For Ten

Me, 3rd from the right, age 10

My oldest grandchild just turned ten. She's tall and beautiful with new holes in her ears. She has her own e-mail and is a computer genius. I'm amazed at how grown up she is.

I remember being that age. I was short with goofy teeth and did my hair in pin-curls with bobby pins. We had to wear dresses to school every day, and my mom made me wear thick wool leggings under my skirt when it was cold. (They weren't cute, or stylish, so neither was I.)

I was in Mrs. Ludwig's class, and I had to stay in for recess because I didn't finish my long subtraction problems. My sports were Double Dutch (jump rope,) Hopscotch, Four-Square and Tetherball. My best friend was Patty Sheffield, and my boyfriend was Kent Spencer. He was Patty's boyfriend, too. I guess we were learning to share.

I discovered Nancy Drew that year, and my mom gave me a special booklet called Now You Are Ten, explaining all the new womanly changes that were coming up. The Weekly Reader told us that someday there would be television telephones, and all our school papers were printed on the mimeograph machine because copiers hadn't been invented yet.

Here are ten more facts about 1959:

1. Alaska and Hawaii became states. All the flags had to be re-made to have 50 stars instead of 48.
   
2. The war in Viet Nam started.
3. Castro came into power in Cuba.
4. Sleeping Beauty by Walt Disney was released.
5. The song Edelweiss was sung on Broadway for the first time in Sound of Music.
6. Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon were the teen idols.
   
7. Black people in the south were still treated terribly. They were made to ride in the back of buses, and drink from drinking fountains labeled "Coloreds" while white people drank from fountains for "Whites Only."
8. John F. Kennedy was just getting ready to run for president.
9. Cowboy shows on TV were everybody's favorites. (Bonanza and Rawhide were mine.)
   
10. The hit song wasn't a song at all. A very cool guy stood and just combed his hair, while some girls knelt at his feet and said, "Kookie, Kookie, lend me your comb" over and over, and then he snapped his fingers. We loved it.

Looking at my class picture, I can still name most of the kids. I remember where they lived, and a few details (one boy's dad died in an explosion; one girl had four Dobermans that barked from behind a fence as I walked to school; another girl had leukemia and a boy's big brother had been crippled by polio.)

The most exciting thing about being ten was that I was finally in double digits. That changes a girl.

What happened when you were ten?