Growing Up As A Girl Child In America: Part 2
I was forbidden from playing with my best friend — she ran away at age 14 and never came back
Between third grade and seventh grade, my best friend was a slim, super-smart blonde girl named Cheryl.
Cheryl was always more “grown up” than me.
But we did kid things together. We played with Barbies. We rode our bikes up and down the dirt road behind my house.
Cheryl lived about five miles from me, much closer to the mountains. There were maybe 20 kids in our age group who rode the school bus together. We lived in rural houses stretched out for about ten miles along Highway 38. This road was the “back way” to the San Bernardino mountains in Southern California.
Some kids had horses. Others had dads who worked on cars. Cheryl’s dad owned a garage. Her mom worked as a playground supervisor at our school. Her mom was pretty strict.
I don’t think she was on duty the day I was swinging upside-down using my legs on the monkey bars, showing off.
