Goat Girl

As a youngster growing up on the hill — well, in my case halfway up the hill — I was the youngest of the group.

 Of course, I’m not counting the non-people:  my little sister and her friend, Nancy.

Nancy and Darla with their babies

Nancy and Darla with their babies

 At the time I thought they were ridiculous: everywhere they went carrying their baby dolls with their diaper bags thrown over their shoulders; spending hours on end playing with Barbie dolls; pretending to be the Beatles.  Actually, that’s one of my best memories now.  One of them would stand on the bed and sing and play the guitar, eyes closed, head shaking.  The other one would stand at the end of the bed screaming like a fool, grabbing their hair, then eventually passing out in the floor.  I used to stand in the hallway and watch them.

I was, of course, so superior to those goofballs.

On the other hand, my friends were cool and exotic.  They rode horses and had goats .  Well, Gail had  goats.

Gail and her goat

Gail and her goat

This picture was taken back in 1960 when our little town was having a celebration for our sesquicentennial year.  There were parades and all sorts of activities.  Gail and her goat won first place.

Her love of goats began with the Goat Man who came to town about once a year back then.  Today he can be found on the internet.  I googled “goat man” and got all sorts of interesting information.

the goat man

the goat man

I’m hoping Gail doesn’t decide to get herself a passel of goats in her later years.

Nancy and Darla… and babies and diaper bags and…

Nancy and Darla with their babies

The neighborhood wouldn’t have been complete without the “little sisters.”  That is, Terry’s little sister and my little sister.  You never saw one without the other.  You never saw either without their babies in one arm and their diaper bags thrown over the shoulder of the other arm.

Nancy lived up the hill from us, a block away.  Those two kept that road hot.  I can still see them walking up or down that hill with their “children.”  They would meet in the middle to discuss important “stuff” or just to walk with the other to one of the homes.

As they grew up, they embraced Barbies (along with the babies) and went wild and crazy over the Beatles.  One of them would get a pretend microphone and stand on the bed and pretend to be the Beatles, singing her heart out, “I Want To Hold Your Haa-aa–and,” while the other, standing at the foot of the bed, would squeal and scream and fall down on the floor… just as the girls on the TV did at the Beatles concerts.

Nancy was Catholic; Darla was Southern Baptist.  I’m not sure what kind of Catholic game they played, but I was privy to the Baptist one where Darla would stand and preach to Nancy and sing hymns.  She perfected her preaching when she was raising her children and ordering them to get dressed, clean their rooms, just generally behave…  and she still sings hymns.  I’m thinking that Baptist preaching Darla taught Nancy may have come in handy as Nancy raised her own four children and had to do a little preaching herself.