Starring Cindy Marie

For you to understand the path I may have chosen in my adult life, you must know the foundation for which I based my decisions. This foundation is influenced by many whether they are immediate family, friends, teachers or neighbors.

I didn’t want to move.  I had my friends and I loved my teacher, Mrs. Allen.  She took an interest in three little girls and after school she taught us to play the ukulele.  Once we mastered this, she began to teach us how to play the guitar. My parents bought me my own ukulele and guitar so I could gather with my friends to hum and strum. We were in the fourth grade and in April 1970, we moved to the “country.” I had just turned ten years old.

We lived in a subdivision called Lake Geneva.  The Neighborhood Park access to the lake was practically in our back yard.  It was a “private” lake and you had to have special wrist bands to gain access to the water.  This did not stop others from dipping their toes in this pond.  We had always had a cottage at either Higgins or Houghton Lake and so when comparing “lakes,” this was considered a pond and a murky one at that but it did not stop us from venturing down to the waters on a hot summer afternoon to play.  The water was not clear at all and it became deep very quickly.  My Mother had made sure my brother and I knew how to swim at an early age as she feared water and never had learned that skill.

Again, boundaries were set. The Lake had both an East and West access for the residents.  We lived on the West side.  Swimming lessons were offered on the East side. We were not to swim any further than the floating deck anchored just off shore on the West side of the lake.

 I cannot count the number of times I swam across that lake from the floating deck on the West side to the floating deck on the East side.  My brother and I would race to see who the fastest swimmer was. It was rare that I would win as he was older and stronger than I was, but also, he cheated.  Don’t get me wrong, my brother terrorized me as only an older brother can, but in turn, I knew where his hot buttons were that would send him into a rage and I pushed them as often as he pressed mine. But in some areas I was defeated due to the difference in our sizes and age.

We always went to the cottage every weekend and spent most summers up there, so getting acquainted with other children my age was very limited.  I was in school just five weeks before we were recessed for the summer.

In fifth grade, Mother thought I might meet others if I joined Girl Scouts.  She had been my Brownie leader when we lived in Lansing and meetings were held at my house.  I admired my Mother for volunteering to be our Brownie leader.  We had attended a meeting announcing an opportunity to be a Brownie.  In our area, there were no leaders and I so wanted to wear this little brown and orange uniform with the beanie cap! So she stepped up and took on the challenge.  My Mother is not one to lead nor is she one to mix with others, so this was monumental for her to do, for me.

So, I joined the Girl Scouts.  I lasted a year. I went to Girl Scout camp and even took my guitar, but I just didn’t fit in. I longed for weekends and summer where I could escape to the cottage.  It is not that I had friends there, but family.  My paternal grandmother and her husband also came up to their cottage on weekends and my dad’s sister and her two children spent the summer and weekends as well at their trailer.

In the summer of 1970, our cottage was a trailer with an upstairs! You climbed five steps to a landing and a full size mattress was built into the loft off to your right, looking over the lower level.  A fishnet hung decoratively from the ceiling to the half wall allowing you to peer down below and watch others.  Once again, when this cottage was purchased, I claimed the upper living space as mine.  Age and gender took me out of the running again. My brother was granted that space as his.  My “bedroom” was a pull out couch in the middle of the “living room” space.

I pleaded again with Mother explaining to her that the television was in the living room space and my brother watched it all the time.  He was invading MY space and I had no privacy.  She should consider giving me the upstairs bungalow where I could play with  my Barbie’s and read my volumes of books, but equality within the family amongst the children was once again not in my favor.

My days were spent outside.  I would walk to the corner store and spend hours talking to Mrs. Deeters.  She was the better half of Mr. Deeters and they owned the corner store where you could buy your must haves between trips to the Hub Supermarket at Houghton Lake.  It was also my shopping mecca in Northern Michigan.  For inside this log cabin that was converted to a store, there were prizes to be found, purchased and devoured.  Mrs. Deeters loved to have me visit.  The store was not far from our trailer and I would walk to visit out of boredom.  I always came home with some little present either a gift from Mrs. Deeters or a treat that I purchased with money earned on my adventures around the trailer park.

I ran an entertainment business that summer.  Near the bath house I rearranged the pile of decks that had been stored but not used by the residents.  I placed them carefully forming a cat walk for my shows.  Hand crafted flyers were colored announcing the show of the week staring of course, ME!  I passed these fliers out to every trailer and encourage the residents to bring their lawn chairs to my theatre.  I spent several weeks preparing my stage.  I found several buckets of unwanted paint and painted the discarded decking so that my stage was colorful and alluring to anyone who passed by.  Many would ask me what I was doing; curiosity was building among the residents as they watched this ten-year old work feverishly every day constructing her Taj Ma Hal. The backdrop was an old wire fence bent from years of children hopping it to take a short cut through the trailer park to Deeters Store.  I worked hours straightening the fence so it would hold my backdrop, a used bed sheet.  A clothes line was stretched from the bath house to a pole for those who line dried their swimming suits or freshly washed laundry.  I fashioned a curtain from more bedding and hung it from this clothes line so that I had a curtain to hide from my fans before my show started.

I charged admission to my show. Lots of people showed up to be entertained by this ten year old girl with the guitar and ukulele.  I held several shows that summer as a means to fill my pink piggy bank.  No more quarters for this girl, I was stuffing dollar bills in my fat sow!