Girls Scouts is a lot of fun.

We meet on Wednesdays after school in the library and do crafts and read books and earn badges. Once a year, we have to sell Girl Scout cookies. Mom schedules us a table right at the checkout at IGA and we sit there giving our best puppy dog eyes, hoping to lure in unsuspecting cookie cravers.

The bathroom at IGA is all the way in the back, and you have to go through swinging doors and a stock room to get to it. Brooke and I come back from a restroom trip, and then a manager comes stomping out to our cookie table, furious.

“Who made such a mess in the bathroom?” she demands to know.

Brooke and I don’t look at each other. Maybe, after we peed, we pulled out some paper towels and smeared soap on the mirror. Maybe we didn’t.

When the other girls leave, Mom makes me sit at the Girl Scout cookie table all by myself. I hate it. I’m alone and responsible for all these cookies and no one else’s mom is forcing them to stay. Instead of selling cookies, I sit in the shop window and cry. When Mom gets back, she scolds me.

“What were you thinking? Why would anyone want to buy cookies from a crying girl? Get it together.”

We also get to go camping as a whole big Girl Scout Troop. We head out to Belmont, a caravan of minivans, moms, and Daisies. Rather than staying in outdoor cabins, we end up in a cozy little suite with running water, heat, and television. This is not camping, but we’re not complaining.

When we do dishes after dinner, Allison teaches me about only using hot water to wash dishes. The cold water won’t get it as clean, she explains. At least, that’s what her dad told her. We make sit-upons and foil pizzas and learn about different countries around the world.

In May, we get to march in the Spring Blossom Parade! Dad rents a giant pink bunny suit and plans to walk along beside our troop. The parade gets rained out though. We don’t get to march.

Dad puts on the suit anyway, and I wear my Girl Scout uniform, sash and all, and we have a photo shoot in Nana’s living room. It’s so dreary and wet outside; we enjoy some Peppermint Patties and Thin Mints to cheer us up.

Girl Scouts is a lot of fun.

“Would you like to dance?”

The whole school buzzes and hums with excitement the whole day leading up to the dance. It’s my first real dance and I’m not quite sure what to expect. It starts right after school lets out on Friday.

We stand in line and pay $3 to get in to the dark, decorated gym. Streamers on polls, flashing lights, and plenty of empty space. Groups of friends separate off into sections.

It is instantly clear how much more comfortable the 8^th graders are than us, the puny 7^th grade kids. They form dance rings in the center of the gym, and shake it to *NSYNC selections. Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears for the girls, some peripheral rap and rock for the boys.

I love to dance. I jerk and spasm and spiral and rock my way into a sweaty mess in a short time. Most of my friends are bopping or tapping along. About half way through the dance, I have to stop for water.

When I come back from hydrating, I take a seat next to the bleachers in the back of the gym to watch the others. It’s dark and I can’t really tell who is who in the mass of people who have finally loosened up and are shimmying and grooving in the center of the gym.

We hear the opening notes to a slow song, and roughly half of the Jr. High population immediately disburses to the far corners of the gym. Jiving is one thing; holding someone close and being romantic and stuff – that’s a whole other beast that most of our awkward, hormonal selves aren’t quite prepared to face.

I am content to sit next to the bleachers here. Someone else has other plans, though. A tall, blond boy approaches from my right side.

“Hey! I don’t know if I’ve met you. What’s your name?” he says, his words coming out all mushed together and rushed. He’s an 8^th grader. I’ve seen him before. I am fairly certain I’ve never actually met him though.

“Umm. I’m Sarah?”

“Hi, Sarah. I’m Ryan. Would you like to dance?”

“Umm. Sure?”

So we dance. Awkwardly. So incredibly awkwardly. The dance ends soon after the song, and he walks with me to my locker. “Where do you live? What’s your number? We could hang out?” he chatters non-stop all the way.

I am completely frazzled. I’ve never really done this boy-girl thing before and I don’t even know this guy and I don’t know what to say and what comes out of my mouth is, “Listen, it was nice dancing with you. Thanks for asking. But I don’t think it would be a good idea if you just started showing up at my house, and calling me on the phone, and ….”

“Oh,” he says, crestfallen. “Oh. Okay. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Okay.” He walks away.

Monday after school, a group of girls is hanging out at the library. One girl asks me,

“How did you get Ryan to dance with you?”

I am puzzled.

“He just came up and asked me.”

“Really?” she asks. “He was my boyfriend all last year and I tried to get him to dance with me at every single dance, and he never would.”

“Oh…” I reply. This is easily the most uncomfortable ‘boy talk’ of my life. “Well, I don’t know then. He just asked me. Sorry.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Weird.”

“Ten and Two, Sarah. Check your mirrors. Foot on the brake. Now, ease it into Drive.”

I officially started Driver's Education last week. So far, we sit in the auditorium at the high school, and Mr. Helmrich lectures us about not chewing gum while driving and how “There are no such things as accidents! Every crash is a direct result of Driver Error!”

I’m going to be a senior this year, and I feel like I’m the only person in this program who’s old enough to get zits. They’re all freshman fifteen-year-olds. I’m a late bloomer, I guess.

Now that I have a Learner’s Permit, Mom decides it’s time for me to drive The Jeep. We haven’t actually driven in Driver's Ed yet, but Mom doesn’t know that. And I don’t volunteer the information. We head towards Crouch’s.

I make the widest left turn you’ve ever seen. The speedometer is seemingly stuck at 24 MPH.

“Go,” she urges me. “You have to at least go the speed limit.”

I start to speed up. And suddenly a police car is right behind me. We may see one police car a week on these back roads. Unbelievable. By this time, Mom has begun to notice that I don’t actually have any driving experience yet.

“Okay. Don’t freak out. Just use your signal and pull off the road up here into this driveway.”

The driveway she chose just so happens to have two large, stone columns on either side of its entrance. I am beyond intimidated and definitely panicking.
I brake.
But not enough. The columns are seconds away from crumpling the front end of The Jeep.

“Sarah! Stop! Stop!”

We come to an abrupt halt in the ditch next to the driveway. The policeman speeds on around us. Mom looks at me.

“I think that’s enough for one day. I’ll take it from here.”

Three Weeks Later

“Check the board for your assigned driving groups. Meet out front at the assigned time and don’t be late! I will leave you.”

And so we are dismissed from our last in-class Driver's Ed session. Next stop: Behind the wheel.

I get grouped with a couple of freshman girls who have known each other for years.

We drive around at the high school at first, getting used to the pedals and mirrors and various knobs. Then, the streets of Nashville. We make backwards figure eights in the Little Nashville Opry parking lot. As I’m making my first loop, I see the light pole in the rearview mirror looming closer and closer.

“StopStopStopStopStop,” I’m begging the car.

“Why don’t you try using the brake instead of talking to it, huh?” my compassionate instructor replies as he applies his handy instructor-side brake.

After a day or so, it’s time to tackle the interstate.

“Accelerate up the ramp, use your signal, check your blind spot, and merge into the interstate traffic going with the flow and speed. NEVER use your brakes on the interstate, understand?” Mr. Helmrich advises as we sit at the stoplight, awaiting my first interstate merge of a lifetime.

The gum he told us never to chew while driving, I am chomping furiously.

Up the ramp we go. -- Not so bad.

Indicate with left turn signal. -- Got it.

Anybody coming? -- Not that I can see.

Begin seamless first-merge onto the highway. – Flawlessly perfor--

 “STOP!” Mr. Helmrich cries out as he slams on the instructor brake.

I turn to look at my instructor, perplexed.

“Tell me you saw that semi,” he says, though it sounds more like a question.

I start to ask, “What semi?” but the behemoth truck in question goes flying past my side mirror, zooming ahead, barreling through the space I was about to fill with this little sedan. The girls in the back are giggling nervously, glad to be alive.

Mr. Helmrich is still looking at me expectantly.

“Umm... It was in my blind spot?” I answer.

Mr. Helmrich’s eyes widen. Is he amused? Amazed? Going to throttle me?

“Sarah,” he begins, but has to take a calming breath before going on.
“Sarah, an entire semi does not disappear in your blind spot!”

He takes another breath.

“Okay. Let’s try this again.”

Super Bowl Party!

*Betty’s parents are letting her throw a Super Bowl Party! So far to me, the Super Bowl just means Dad hogs the tv all day, and every now and then a cute commercial comes on. But today is the real thing.

When I get to Betty’s house, Juniors and Seniors and even a few kids who have already graduated are piled on couches in her living room. Dips. Salsas. Chips. Cookies. Cheeses. Sodas. Her dining room table is piled high with all the goods.

Two –day-old snow lingers on the frozen ground, but Betty’s parents have a hot tub outside the back porch. I forgot a swimsuit. I borrow one of her mom’s, and gratefully slide into the hot, steamy water. I have zero interest in football. If it weren’t for Junior High Cheerleading and some Color Guard / Marching Band halftime action, I doubt I would have ever seen a game. Feeling no compunction to break my non-viewing streak, I am content watching hazy wisps of steam rise from the surface of the scalding water and into the icy branches above us. This is how you spend a football game.

The hot tub lives up to its name. It makes the surrounding winter air feel even chillier. Stepping out of the warm, frothy bubbles to grab snacks or to use the restroom is torture. It is on one of these treacherous excursions that I barely miss the infamous “wardrobe malfunction” of 2004. As I walk into the living room, I hear boys hooting and hollering and high-fiving.

“What’s going on? Did we win?” I ask.

“No! Janet Jackson just showed her nipple on national television!”
More hooting. More hollering. Even more high-fiving.

These are the future leaders of our community, of our country. Pride and joy.

So back to the hot tub I go. A few of us spend most of the game out there, while others come and go. After a while, we notice two of our classmates are staring rather dreamily into one another eyes. *Steve keeps going under water.

At the school the next day, we learn that “Snorkeling Steve” (as he comes to be known) was into some shenanigans under the water in that hot tub that day. Risky business. We tease the two of them mercilessly. Betty’s Super Bowl Party goes down in BC history as a smashing success.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent… and the not-so-innocent.

The church is small and white and is built into the side of a hill.

The pews are dark red and are dotted with crocheted throws, old Bibles, and baby toys.

The windows face just south enough to let a blinding amount of sun shine through during the Sunday sermon in late spring and early fall.

We have pitch-ins, baby showers, graduation parties, and Vacation Bible School in the shelter house that stands behind the church, up the hill, in front of the cemetery.

Every week, the minster asks if anyone has a song? Sister Mary reads us poems and excerpts and sings songs to us that we’ve never heard, and she doesn’t have the accompanying music, so it’s a capella, off-key, and amazing. Uncle Harry sings “Near the Cross” often, and we all sing along to his particular melody -- “til my rap-tured soul shall find rest bee-yond the ri-ver.”

We are having a foot-washing. Clyde and Flo are here. They are 100 years old if they are a day, and still as dapper as can be. Clyde, in his bomber jacket, and Flo sporting sassy lipstick and sassier spirit. For the foot-washing, we separate. Men to one room. Women to another. As the ladies chatter, and we nervously yet enthusiastically participate in this age-old tradition, Flo tells us how it is.

“Isn’t it just a like a man to spring this on a person? Men, they don’t think about some things. Like a woman wears pantyhose to church. When you get to be my age, you can’t just pull ‘em off so easily to do things like this. You’d think they would warn you. I'll just do it anyway, right through the stockings. Men, they just don’t think about some things.”

We are having a yard sale out front to raise money for a youth trip, or camp, or VBS. We start early. Fortunately, breakfast tastes even better when you eat it at church.

Sister Louise can’t have any sugar, but she loves coffee. It is in that moment that I learn that coffee doesn’t have sugar in it. It had never occurred to me. Occasionally, when I’m adding sugar to my coffee, I’ll remember that moment of clarity and see Sister Louise smiling at me.

We put on Christmas programs, and everyone who wants to gets a chance to sing. No auditions, and no one is left out here. We gather for weekly Youth Group, and giggle about things that are new to our developing bodies and minds.

We form bonds. We are a family. Nothing designates where my family ends and your family begins. We are all one.

My first concert!

Mom works at the Post Office. Sometimes, after school or on a Saturday, we get to go hang out “behind the scenes.” There is a sing-a-long tape of classic Christmas songs, with clay-mation Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, and The Island of Misfit Toys. We watch it over and over and over. Sometimes, there are treats at the table in the lunch area. Usually not, though.

I get to put bulk mail into the post office boxes from the inside, and sometimes a key turns from the outside and I hide from view. I don’t want to spoil it if the mail-seeker thinks all the letters get in there by magic.

There are rubber bands everywhere. And little plastic sleeves for your thumb to help you snag one piece of mail at a time, allowing you to keep sorting mail, even if your hands are dry.

Papaw also works at the Post Office. He’s a mailman. He gets there really, really early, sorts stuff for his route, loads up his car, and heads out on the road. He’s usually back to the post office by 2:00. And home by 3:30.

I love being “behind the scenes.” Seeing the different slots for “Local” or “Out of State” mail sorted, packages piled high. When Mom works the front counter, people buy stamps or send letters or come to pick up a package and she sends me back to the stacks to find it.

One day, Mom comes home from the Post Office and tells me she has a surprise. The Backstreet Boys are playing a concert in Indianapolis and one of the ladies from town came in to drop off a package and offered us her tickets to the show! Aah!

The Backstreet Boys are a big deal. Hearing “I Want It That Way” is the first time I ask Mom to keep it on that radio station in the car. I am in love with Brian. I know that he’s shorter than me. And from Kentucky. But I love him. I just know I’ll get to meet him at the concert!

We get to the concert a little late, which is the usual when you travel somewhere with Mom as the pilot. We sit next to tiny children who are way too tired to be surrounded by screaming adolescent girls. I can just make out the band members on stage, but I can see their faces on the huge screen facing our high, high balcony seats.

None of it matters. For one moment, Brian flies through the air in a harness; he looks right at me through that screen.

It is magical.

Nana, Sissy, and I are taking line dancing lessons. Well, we’re taking a lesson. Mike’s Dance Barn is out by Ski World on the way to Bloomington, so you have to be on your way there to get there. You never just end up at Mike’s Dance Barn on accident.

We wear jeans and tennis shoes. We don’t really know any line dances. We don’t even know all the music the live band is playing. We are beginners.

The others in the session are hardcore. Worn, scuffed boots. Blue jeans. Cowboy hats. Giant belt buckles. The men have handlebar mustaches and the women have large permed hair with tall, poofy bangs in the front.

We stand in two rows, facing each other. The man on stage calls out turns and steps and moves and I am beyond lost. I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing, but what I am doing is trying not to get stepped on or throw off anyone else’s groove.

Finally, it’s break time. Nana gives me some cash for the concession stand. Score! I get a soda and some candy and head back to the table where she and Sissy are sitting. The “barn” is set up with a dance floor in the center, the stage at the front. The entrance, bathrooms, and concessions are at the back of the dance floor. Along both sides, long tables with several chairs each line up along the walls next to the windows.

We have homecoming here. We have a winter dance here. And we have line dancing lessons here.

The band plays a note or two, signaling that it is almost time to get back at it. I look at Nana. She looks at me. I am done. Nothing in me has any desire to rejoin the herd, ending up a casualty in the synchronized stampede.

Instead, I make my way out to the car where I have my latest romance novel stashed in my backpack. I no longer care if the lessons last 10 hours straight. I have a book. I climb into The Jeep, stretch out in the backseat, and lose myself. I jump when someone taps on the glass.

It’s been an hour. The sunset a while ago. I’ve been reading by the security light through the car window. Nana and Sissy are sweaty and tired and feel all exhilarated from the dancing. They chatter and bicker good-naturedly all the way home.

Luckily, someone in the car behind us has really bright headlights. I hold up my novel and read by the glow of the low beams.

I guess line dancing isn’t so bad after all.