Water lily reflection, Skylands Botanical Garden last week: visit 2.

Maybe this name will ring a bell with my sister. I don’t know if she will remember her or not. (Sis, do you remember??)

The mind is a strange thing. At least mine is. I was sitting here this afternoon reading a book, The Age of Miracles, a dystopian novel about how the earth slowly stops spinning. The girl in the book is twelve and it’s her voice that tells the story. I read the sentence where she looks down in disgust at her never-ever-been-shaved legs and Debbie Ginder pops into my brain. POW! There she is. Now where did that come from I have to wonder? I have not thought about her since the 60’s. It was so weird that I had to write it down immediately.

I know exactly where it came from but how my brain made that leap is amazing to me. It’s because Debbie Ginder was responsible for me shaving my legs and under my arms for the first time, and right around that same age as the girl in the book.

She lived in our subdivision around the lake from us (we were living in Florida at the time) and if Snookie on Jersey Shore would stage any competition with hair, it would have been with Debbie. She had a bouffant hairdo with side burns and wore tons of eye makeup. I think her hair was reddish. Hey, it was 1968!

She was older than I was and very worldly in my eyes. Hey, she had breasts; I did not. (Well, maybe I had bumps at that point and a “training bra,” which leads me to the question as to why breasts had to be “trained?”) She went out with boys; I did not. I’m not quite sure why my parents let me hang out with her.

Anyway, one day when my prepubescent self was over at her house she looked at my legs and underarms and casually said “Why don’t you ask your mom to let you shave?”

DUH. It had not occurred to me before then. I went home and asked my mom and she agreed it was probably time.

Thank you, Debbie Ginder wherever you are in the world today.

Now I ask you, doesn’t the mind work in mysterious ways?

Isn’t it weird what lives in our brains? We can’t always access our memories but they’re in there, in such detail.

I had a couple of experiences yesterday trying to find the locations of some of my very old (20-plus years) photos on Google Streetview. In two cases, in cities I haven’t returned to since, I was able to zoom in almost immediately on the exact spots where the photos were taken.

Your reflection pic is terrific, by the way. And that book sounds scary!

Steve, yes indeed, very strange! Glad you liked the pic. The book is scary but all those dystopian ones are. I’ve read quite a few of them now but I still keep reading!

I hate to say this,but I have no recollection of Debbie Ginder. As you know I was living in my own little world back then, in deep denial of having to live in Florida.  Was she in your class at Gulf?

Pretty flower pic,love the colors!

Bigsis, no she was *older*. I’m surprised you don’t remember her as she lived across the lake from us in Forest Hills. I think she even Wayne-watched with you a couple of times.

It’s strange how and who we make friends with and how memories come flashing back to us - then we move on and lose contact. Debbie Ginder obviously left a big impression in your mind!  Love the pic.

Joyce, I guess Debbie Ginder did make a big impression but that impression has been buried in the depths of my mind for many many years now!  Glad you liked the pic!

Well, I definitely don’t know who Debbie Ginder is, but that photo looks like an oil painting!

C, not even my sister knows who Debbie Ginder is! And Thank You. I think that’s a pretty high compliment you just gave me!

OMG I think I just remembered her!! I seem to see big hair, lots of makeup and BIG lips?? Don’t remember red hair, tho, but maybe. Reading your comments she flashed thru my head,esp. when you mentioned Wayne. Guess I wasn’t so out of it after all. HA.

Bigsis, yes, big hair, lots of makeup but no big lips. At least I don’t remember them. I looked for her in my yearbooks but couldn’t find her in there. Maybe she moved because she seemed to disappear from my life after that.