Joy to the World, and Facebook

Quite by accident, thanks to one quick click, I got myself on Facebook. I then ignored all the Facebook items in my inbox as I was certain I had no need for this frivolous junior high "networking" site, poo! Oops, I love it. And here's why, people I used to know, and love, have found me. The funniest person I may have ever known in my life, someone I met in third grade, found me. And from second grade, Sarah, the person who once said to my father, when my mother was out of town, "when the cats away the mice do play", she's out there also. I hate to admit it, I certainly can't tell my sister, but I love it.

All this grade school reunion'ing had brought forth grade school reliving. I can't stop the flood of memories, so real it's as if I'm right now sitting in Mrs. Grow's fourth grade class creating a dictionary of favorite made-up words. Or diagramming sentences with Mrs. Harding, or scooting around the gym on those little wooden squares with wheels, finger amputate'rs more accurately, with Mr. Ward. I can smell it, really.

I find all this quite helpful, given that I am now dealing with two people set to enter elementary school next year. I will be prepared, ready for the fun, the tragedies and the fears that accompany the early school days. Not to mention armed with an arsenal of resources, ready to head off what lies ahead, or, as was the case this week, what lies behind.

Poor Joy, no one ever brushed her hair. Eventually a large mass grew out of the back of her moppy blonde doo, a tangled web of hair, and what I guessed to be gum and ladybugs. I often stood behind her in the hall, waiting to change classes, and I would stare up (Joy, like the entire school, was much taller than me) at the bird nest that grew from the back of her neck, wondering if they would ever find the bottom of this growth. I was certain it would have to be shaved and then spent quite a bit of time imaging how that might happen, would they take her to her father's barber? Or to the nice man at Mimi's hair salon? Would they discover the wishbone from last Thanksgiving's turkey in there? Would a well placed ponytail cover the spot left behind? All at once I was forever grateful to my mother, the crazed woman with the hairbrush, who pinned me down and struggled with me for years to brush the long brown hair I insisted on having.

A well placed story goes a long way. There are no more arguments about hair brushing at our house, the girls have very nicely coiffed shoulder length hair, thanks to Facebook, Jim, Sarah, and of course, Joy.