"Back in the Day" Tuesdays

In honor of Halloween, I will share this childhood memory.

This might make you scratch your head and say out loud, "What the hell?" It is an OK reaction because I still wonder about this one.

Growing up as pastor's daughters we did not celebrate Halloween. I repeat, WE.DID.NOT.CELEBRATE.HALLOWEEN.

It was the devil's day. Plain and simple.

As little children you are not thinking about it being an evil day. You are thinking that it is a glorious day because you get free candy. What's better than free candy? Nothing! Also, it was sucky to be the only child in your class who didn't have a HUGE bag of candy sitting at her desk. So sad.

Any who, when I was 10 years old Halloween fell on a Sunday. Me, my 2 younger sisters and 16 other children stayed after church for our Christmas play rehearsals.

Instead of us being the good kids we should have been, we decided it was a great opportunity to trick-or-treat. We waited for all of our parents to leave and when we were suppose to be eating our lunch we were all getting our "costumes" ready.

I was already in a frilly dress so I decided I was going to be a princess. My dress was pink so no one was going to argue. But I wanted my face to look like "Halloween" so I drew whiskers on my cheeks with a magic marker. (WTH?! I wish I had a picture) I was a cat princess. Perfect.

All the other kids were getting their "costumes" together. We were all excited!

We left the church without telling our director that we were leaving. We knew that she wouldn't let us go so we didn't say a word.

Me and 16 other kids stopped at every store possible. Our plastic bags being filled with candy at each stop. Yes, plastic bags. Unfortunately, we didn't have one of these for the occasion:


I guess the time flies when you are trick-or-treating with 16 others.

It is amazing what little children do not realize. How in the world did we think that our director was not going to notice that 17 children had disappeared? She was freaking out! She had no idea where we were so she called our parents. All of our parents.

Imagine coming back to church all excited (mouth full of candy) and seeing the look of crazy on your parent's face. I have never been so nervous in my life. My parents were livid. Here I was in this frilly pink dress for church, my face looking like a cat and holding the huge culprit of what I had done.

Our bags of candy was taken from us and burned. Yes, burned. Evil spirits live in candy too, you know. They were not taking chances. Halloween is the devil's day.

I went to school the next day empty handed and stared with much envy at my classmates who had huge bags of candy on their desk. Sigh.

Let's just say that I never trick-or-treated again in my life.

"Back in the Day" Tuesdays

I will never forget the day I went to school in my fabulous, new, bright blue shirt. We had just gone shopping and I was so excited to wear my new shirt to school. I remember taking care to look my best. I was in 7th grade so I was in the stage of trying to impress my peers.

I remember going to Spanish class and my teacher pulling me to the side. She spoke to me in a very, very stern voice. "Never wear that shirt to school again!"

I remember being shocked and scared. Who in the world was she to tell me what I could or could not wear? But based on her face, I did not want to test her. I made sure that I never wore that shirt when I had her class. I wore it everywhere else. Everywhere including church.

It was my freshman year in college that I realized why my teacher had her crazy moment.

This was almost the exact picture in front of my shirt:


Can you imagine what people thought when they saw my mother walking me, her 12 year old daughter (wearing that shirt) to school in the morning?

My mom and dad never knew. They still do not know. I do not think a lot of people knew. To me and a lot of people it was just a picture of a pretty, pointy, green plant on a bright blue shirt.

Embarrassing and 100% a true story!

**(Picture found via google images. And yes, I googled "picture of marijuana leaves" that way I could find one that looked exactly like the one on my shirt)**

"Back in the Day" Tuesdays

Whenever it is time to share one of my silly childhood stories, I always wonder which one I should share. I try to relate it to something going on right now to make it flow better.

So I started thinking and it hit me!

The weather is getting cool, I so have my childhood story!

When my sisters and I were younger, my parents were part of a church that did not believe in women wearing pants/jeans. Women were to wear dresses or skirts, hats and no earrings.

I am so happy that my parents realized that God does not judge you from your outward appearance, but by your inner being, because I would have been so uncool in H.S.

It was a son of a gun to wear dresses and skirts to school. We wanted to fit in and this wasn't the way to do so. Why couldn't we wear jeans like our fellow classmates? Mom and dad just didn't want us to be "cool".

My sisters and I came up with plenty of excuses to try to wear jeans. We told our parents it was too cold when Fall and Winter rolled around. Well, this just had my mom buy legwarmers that we would wear on top of our stockings. No luck. We told our parents we didn't like our legs and they told us, "God made them so they are beautiful". No luck there.

One day, one of us got a brilliant, brilliant idea. To this day I have no clue which one of my sisters came up with it. I don't think it was me because I am not that brilliant.

Here is how the conversation went:

Sister ?: "Mom, we need to start wearing jeans or pants."
Mom: "You know that we do not wear pants."
Sister ?: "I think we should start."
Mom: "OK, why?"
Sister ?: "Well, when we are climbing the stairs at school, the boys are looking under our skirts."
Mom: "What?!"
Sister ? nods.

Mom runs to my dad to explain how us girls MUST go shopping that weekend.

(complete lie ... we were super young, no boy was looking under our skirts, lol. Sister ? was smart enough to know think that the thought of boys looking under our skirts would have our parents ready to buy us every jean in the world)

That weekend we head to the store to go shopping and my mom buys each of us a pair of pants. We are so happy and talking excitedly with each other. Yes, we are finally going to get to wear pants to school!

We get home.

My mom gets scissors and takes one of the pants out of the shopping bag.

(take note, it is winter time so shorts aren't being sold @ the time of year)

Sister ? (looking worried): "Mom, what are you doing?"
Mom: "Cutting the pants into shorts that way you can wear them under your skirts and boys won't be able to look under them."

Complete fail. We learned early on that lies don't work at home. All we wanted was a pair of these:


The next day, we headed to school in our skirts but with shorts underneath.

P.S. What my mom would give to make sure we only wear jeans now and stay away from skirts, short skirts, that is! ;)

"Back in the Day" Tuesdays

I really like watching television. I love finding a good show and then I am a faithful viewer. I use to be so bad that I would make plans based on what show was on. If one of my favorite shows was on, I wouldn't make dinner plans with a girlfriend or a boy I was interested in.

You also can't talk when I am watching one of my shows. I am like a guy who is a die hard sports fan. You can only talk during commercials. If you decide to talk when one of my shows is on, you really will be sorry.

So you are probably wondering what this has to do with my childhood.

Well, I think know the reason I like television so much is because of my parents. They had no idea that their good intentions would backfire.

When I was younger, my sisters and I were not allowed to watch television without our parents around. We did not have cable. We got the basic channels and they were so fuzzy. You had to squint really hard to see what was going on. If you messed around with the antennas long enough you might get some clarity but it was still really bad. Our TV was old, looked something like this but it was brown:


That children station (PBS) was always the clearest channel (and the only channel our parents allowed us to watch) but by the time I was 13 I really didn't want to watch Reading Rainbow or Sesame Street. I wanted to watch 90210 and Baywatch without having to play around with the antenna.

When my parents caught on that we (my sisters & I) were really determined to watch television regardless of how fuzzy it was; they got smart. They figured out that as soon as we heard the key turn in the door, we would turn off the TV and run to our rooms as fast as we could. They started touching the television to see if it was hot. If it was hot we were punished and not allowed to watch PBS.

We got smart too and knew that if our parents were due home at 9pm, we were to stop watching television at 8pm, to ensure that the television cooled off by the time my parents got home.

My parents plan for us to be people who would do productive things besides watch television has backfired because I am now making up for all the TV I couldn't watch as a child.
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P.S. The Situation was so horrible on DWTS. SO embarrassing. Jennifer Gray was amazing! Can't wait to see who gets the boot!

"Back in the Day" Tuesday

It's Tuesday! You know what that means ... Blast from the Past! OK, corny. I apologize.

Today, I decided to just give a bit of a background that way it will be easier to follow along in the near future.

My parents are from Ghana, Africa. My dad came to America for the "American Dream". He came to America with only $100 in his pocket. He worked hard and went to school. When he was settled with a job and apartment, he arranged for my mother to come to America as well. Not too long after he received his PHD in Engineering. He likes to be called "Dr", haha. My mother was a SAHM and this was a huge blessing. I didn't realize this at the time but it was!

I always felt growing up that I was living in The Bronx but was being raised in Africa. My sisters and I were a little strange in school because we didn't talk the same way as the other kids. When we had to use the bathroom in school we called it the "water closet". You want your kids to be made fun of in school??? Tell them that the bathroom is called a "water closet". Tell them that Manhattan is pronounced "Manhattin" and that sleepovers is not meant to be done at other people's home.

What else haven't I shared? Oh yes, my dad is a bishop and my mother is a pastor. I have 3 sisters, no brothers. That was fun only when you didn't have to use the bathroom or didn't have plans to wear a shirt that mysteriously went missing that same day.

Now that you know a little bit about my background I think that "Back in the Day" Tuesday might make a little more sense.

Until next Tuesday.

"Back in the Day" Tuesdays

Today one of our vendors complimented me on my beautiful handwriting. It made me laugh because it brought back how that came to be.

Due to this, I got this idea to dedicate Tuesdays to stories about my childhood. Because it is actually my childhood that has made me, me! Some stories might be downright weird, some might make you scratch your head and some might make you laugh out loud. Whichever of the ones that might happen, I know that it was a hilarious ride and I am happy that I actually want to share a few stories.

How did I get to have such beautiful handwriting you might ask?

Well, growing up, I had downright horrible handwriting. Everytime my parents went to a teacher, parent conference that was their only complaint. "Faith is a great student. She listens well, participates and gets along with all her classmates, but she needs to work on her handwriting skills."

Each time after these meetings my parents would tell me, "Faith, don't rush too much. Slow down when you are doing your homework. Write neatly."

It went in and right out my ears. I continued to be a sloppy mess.

When I was in sixth grade and my new teacher had the same complaint my dad decided that obviously the talking wasn't working for me. They came home after that meeting and my dad asked me how old I was. I began to cry. I knew what that meant. It meant that I was going to get a spanking. I never bothered to lie. It was a trick question. My dad knew how old I was and if I lied (I learned from one of my smart sisters) I just got an extra spanking. I said, "Ten years old."

I got ten spankings on my behind that day.

The next day at school, my handwriting suddenly changed and soon I was getting all sorts of compliments on how beautiful my handwriting was.

My handwriting is so great that when I did my place cards and the addresses on the invitation's envelopes, people thought I hired a professional to do them.

The next time my parents had a parent, teacher conference there was no complaint about my handwriting but my teacher did mention that I talked to fast. When my parents got home and they told me this my heart sunk. Another spanking? My dad smiled and said, "Your teacher said you talk too fast but you got that from me. You can't change that!"

Haha. And this is how I got the handwriting I have today! I guess spankings do work! :)