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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

50 years ago, this day in history....

...felony pedaling....


Very seldom I could tell you, outside of birthdays and special days EXACTLY what I was doing on a given day. However, I happened to run across this one, which my mother had dated, 50 years ago to the day.

Trust me, that doll was butt ugly and "asking for it."

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!

GREAT photo!

I was never a 'dolly' person. I had loads of them though.

I used to chew their fingers off and cut their hair real short.

I'm sure that says something about me, but i really don't care ;-)

The Digital Hairshirt said...

Karen,

I think it's great! My poor Barbies re-enacted the French Revolution too many times, causing my mother to finally despair and stop buying them.

You were adorable (and you still are)!

Hey, I posed a question to you over at The Hairshirt - see post on California Supreme Court decision.

gemoftheocean said...

Ukok and digi, I was given a number of them while small. I tolerated them if they were "talking dolls" or loved them if they were the soft teddy bear kind, which to me didn't really count as a "doll." The plastic ones that didn't do squat also stayed at the very bottom of the toy chest where they perfected the art of doing squat.

Forget the tea party stuff. And rediapering them. I knew housework in disguise and I wasn't being suckered into it to get washerwoman's elbow at a young age.

Little green army men were great. You could position them in sand pits and conquer worlds. And for some reason Barbie to me did represent the promise of autonomy to come. A) that b*itch had *everything* and b) mom was an excellent seamstress who created tiny Barbie dresses that were more fabulous than anything Mattel sold separately.

gemoftheocean said...

Oh, and another funny thing:

When we were in 1st grade, sister was teaching us all about Baptism, and how we kids could, in case of necessity Baptize someone.

Sister wanted to illustrate this by having one of us girls bring in a little baby dolly the next day. She stupidly asked: "who would like to bring in a doll?" and EVERY girl, EXCEPT me, raised her hand. "pick me, s'tr, pick me." So this woman looks at me (I was minding my own business) and says those then to me bewildering words: "Karen, YOU bring in the doll." [thereby teaching me a lesson for life that if you REALLY want something, pretend you don't want it- although in this case I really didn't want to bring in a freaking doll.]

Barbie would not have been appropriate, dressed in her capri pants, or wedding gown. If she was already that old without being baptized, she was probably a heathen anyway.

The talking dolls which I did still have in decent condition, wouldn't have been right either, and I think sister would have been ticked off had I brought the teddy bear, him not being "human" which would have forced her to add the theological lesson that we weren't to baptize bears, dogs, cats or parakeets.

This left me with a toy chest lined with naked, dirty, missing limb dolls - also unsuitable. I think by that time the butt ugly doll was long gone. I think I probably had consigned her to an early death after a clandestine pistol whipping from one of my metal cap guns, finished with the coup de grace of defenestration followed by decaptitation (she was harder to kill than rasputin) If I recall, she had been buried in an unmarked grave at the crossroads with a stake through her heart, unloved and certainly unbaptized.

All this left my mother and me in a conundrum. What to do about that doll thing sister wanted? We had to go to the store that night for some ***king doll. You didn't say "no" to nuns back then. If sister had sent me home with instructions to "bring back a piece of the stone of scone" my mother would have found a way. I'm sure at the time sister thought she had handed me a big, fat honor instead of presenting me with a pain in the a$$. And I'm sure all my female classmates were green with envy.

Jackie Parkes MJ said...

Now now Karen!!

Rob said...

I was gonna say that the picture looked like just a simple accident since you ran over just the legs. However, you clarified your intent in a follow-up comment. Too funny. Rob

gemoftheocean said...

Jackie, let me know if you have facebook! I'll show you a pic of that doll from a different angle, and you'd have to agree with me that I put her out of her misery.

Rob:
My mom knew how much I hated that particular doll too!!!

I was 1 month shy of my 2nd birthday.

Karen

Rob said...

One of these days we have to meet. Two "certifiable" people (HT to Mac) like us could start a galactic calamity.

gemoftheocean said...

rjw: Don't tell me you were busy decapitating GI Joes!

Karen

Rob said...

Actually, I didn't. I only had one and still have it (somewhere) in it's original box. Ought to be worth something one day. My penchant was much less environmental. Gasoline down ant hills followed by a well placed match.

gemoftheocean said...

rjw! I know people who could use those exact services today. Too bad the EPA would be too environmentally chicken to allow that usage. [I think the Cali forestry department might also take some issue, but ya know, there is such a thing as "risk management."

Ebeth said...

Brings to mind the days when I was burying my Skipper doll trying to get rid of it and using the Barbie fold-out house as a Matchbox car parking garage.

Happy birthday!! and many more.

Hugs!
Ebeth

gemoftheocean said...

What on earth had Skipper done (other than be entirely too perky!) to deserve such a death.? Or was that reason enough in itself? Now Midge.... Midge was the kind of girl who was after Ken even though she still had Allen on the string!

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