We often forget about the things we did as kids, maybe because our memories are not as sharp as they used to be when we hit middle age, but probably because these memories are so embarrassing, we choose to block them from our minds.
A couple of days ago, I was searching for some photographs. Now, if your parents are like mine, your whole life is packed into boxes and stored in the attic, and when I say your whole life I mean it. From the love letters you wrote to your first crush in maths class to the hideous video footage of your first sports day when you won the 100 metre sprint but all you really see are my skinny legs and knobbly knees. Anyway, my mum retrieved some of these boxes and, together, we began to go through them. I can tell you, while a mystery to me at the time, I look back at my school photos and now fully understand why I couldn’t get a boyfriend! Just when I didn’t think I could feel any worse about myself, I found something I really couldn’t remember writing. Of course, my hubby quickly took a photograph of it and threatened to publish it on Facebook…Who said a relationship stales after marriage?
So as a bit of fun (and I wanted to beat him to it), I thought I would share it with you.
In case you cannot read it, it says, “Dear John Travolta. I like your records very much and I like Grease. Love Donna. xxxxx”
Oh, how I can feel myself regretting this already. Notice there is no date. This is so I can adamantly deny I was older than five when I wrote it. Unfortunately I was 8 when Grease hit our cinemas, so I reckon I had to be 8 or 9 when I penned it. It reads a little like my query letters now, actually.
Ok, that’s enough laughing at me. I want you to comment with an equally embarrassing story or memory from your childhood. If I get over 15 replies, I will tell you of another TV couple who I do remember writing to, and I was a lot older too. 😀
This did make me laugh. I have something a little similar posted on my photos on FB. A postcard I wrote to my friend, whilst on holiday. I actually wrote on the postcard, I`ll see you when I get back as I haven`t got much to say! I also added a little note at the botom saying…”you said you had some nice boys, well me and Lyn have got hunky hunks” – how I cringed when reading this now! I also have a box full of photos, letters, pictures, notes and poems from my childhood and they really make my children chuckle when they read the things I used to write, including writing to Blue Peter to get a badge and attempting to appear on Jim`ll Fix it!!! Happy days 🙂
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Sharon, we share many secrects from our days at Cassons, we would never admit too 😀
BTW, did you ever get that Blue Peter Badge?
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John Travolta missed out there or was that the draft copy! 😛
Apart from very cheeeezy letters to girls I fancied at School…pen to paper I never managed to embarrass myself however;
Around the same age 8-9 yrs old in my Junior School we had a selection of stuffed animals (Real – not soft toys)
I had a strange fascination with these and had a particular fondness for the Badger; from which I could be found regularly removing the cork from its bum to remove some of the newspaper that had been inserted in there.
(Yes weird I know – I never worked out what this was about can any Taxidermist shed any light?)
I was apprehended in the act a number of times before finally being made to stand in front of class and explain why I persisted in this behaviour, at this point I was indeed lost for words (A rare occasion) and shamed into never assaulting the said creatures plugged behind again.
Now I learnt from this experience and applied it in later life; so that whilst I would never open a presentation or stand before people and recount this tale as my gambit, I learnt to be prepared to answer any questions if you ever indulge outside the norms of behaviour!
p.s I still like Badgers
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I wish I knew you when you were a lad…you always manage to make me smile.
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Jenni – as a lad I was a nightmare, creator of mischief and carnage no end…not a lot different now 😉
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LOL, David! I want to reply but just cannot find the right words. I am sure there is a name for this though 😀
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I have checked but cannot find a condition to describe Badger love or indeed Badger phobia, apparently Clive Owen has a fear of them! I now know how to disarm him in a fight – just thrust one of the furry little mint humbugs at him and he will run!
I had a run in with one once – pretty fierce.
Perhaps it had heard of my cork/newspaper antics in the past!
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I don’t know that I have a similar story, though recently at a Taj Mahal concert I was tempted to pass him a love note of sorts. If he’d called me out on it, it would have been embarrassing! Unless he was offering to take me up on it?
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Hang on, let me see if I’ve read this right. You was tempted to pass John Travolta a love note at a Tay Mahal concert? And you didn’t? If only I had posted my letter sooner – you could have used that 😀
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Ok. This is bad. I had a crush on the boy with the locker next to mine when I was 11. I wrote a love letter to myself as if he were writing it. Of course, I didn’t want to carry it around all day to chance anyone seeing it, so as I passed my locker, I slipped it through the vent. Turns out that, in my haste, I missed my locker by one and slipped it into his locker. I’m amazed to this day that I ever survived the embarrassment, and I’m even more amazed that I’m confessing it now. Lol. Ever since, I’ve been very careful what I write done. Except for in this comment, that is. Very fun blog, Donna. And John Travolta was quite cute back then. No one could blame you.
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Piper, that is so funny but something we have all done. Throughout my high school, I had the biggest crush on a guy who didn’t know I was alive (which, after seeing the hair-do I had in the 80’s, I now don’t blame him). Anyway, my best friend told me to pretend I had a boyfriend to get him jealous. It must have worked, because he asked me to the school’s valentine disco. On the advice of my friend, I played it cool and told him I would meet him there. He asked me if he could have the first slow dance. I was walking on air, I can tell you. The slow songs started playing and I hurried to the dance floor…..to finding him smooching in the middle of the floor and kissing my sister! I was heartbroken 😦
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Were you madder at the boy or the sister?
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I must have been madder at my sister as I didn’t speak to her for days. The boy I continued to love from afar, until the following year and the next school Valentine Disco, when he asked me to dance again, only to snog my best mate instead. I kind of went off him after that 😀
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What a shameless lothario!
– hopefully he is single, balding, and a social outcast with a beer belly that costs him his entire income to keep stabilised.
And whilst he sits before an electric fire – one bar on, clutching tightly a can of cheap lager, he can only but imagine the lost love that shunning the delighfull Donna all those years ago, he deprived himself of.
Dont know where that came from!? Happy Sunday all! x 🙂
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LMAO – You never fail to make me laugh! He isn’t on FB and didn’t turn up to the reunion we had, so I reckon you’re on to something!
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I still love Travolta…
OK, since you put yourself out there want to know what my first concert was? Ready….Andy Gibb. No Joke. I was maybe 11. Me and my friends held up a sign that said “Take off your shirt” and he did. We thought that was great….
I quickly got over that and became a Dead Head, but that lead to other not so shinning moments we’ll leave to your imagination!
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Ha ha ha, andy Gibb – and you got him to strip! That is a classic. Do you have any pictures of it?
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I wish. Just fond memories. I used to love Shadow Dancing and then also listen to Leif Garret and David Cassidy. Then disco died and I hung my roller skates, listen to heavy metal until the big hair bands showed up and I decided I needed the “mellower” side of life and became a dead head. Now, musically, I’m just confused. LOL
But I still think Travolta is hot.
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Its a good job he see it first and not Robin!
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You mean choose just one? LOL
My freshman year in college I (still) had a HUGE crush on actor Chris Makepeace. I printed a poster that read “CHRISTOPHER MAKEPEACE IS TOTALLY AWESOME!!!” and hung it on my dorm room wall. MY roommate rolled her eyes but said nothing. I left it up for an entire semester.
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Brilliant! And it’s just reminded me of the time I wrote a big ‘DAVID SOUL’ across my wardrobe with my mums bright red lipstick. It never did come off, either. Good times 😀
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Okay, Kristen Lamb, posted this blog post to facebook and I followed the link here. I’m LOVING this thread. When I was 8, I wrote a letter to Andy Gibb which contained a song I wrote asking him his thoughts. I was really inspired by his song, (Love Is) Thicker Than Water. HA! awesome.
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Cindy, did Andy every reply?
Actually, I’m seeing an Andy Gibb following on here 😀
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Too funny! I wrote a fan letter to Sting when I was 8. I was a big fan of the Police and I knew he was the real talent of the group. Knew that one was gonnna go far. Burt Reynolds was my first crush, and then Bo Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard was the second. Oh and then there was Larry Hagman as Major Nelson. Then Buck Rogers. Sting was one of the first 50 crushes. Of that I am fairly sure. He was the only one to get a real fan letter, so that does make him special.
Thanks for sharing!
Kristen
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Oh, the song I wrote was about a dove. LOL.
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Too funny! You need to post the song here, :D. We will help you set it to music, LOL. Just swipe something from Queen. Thats what all the rappers do.
I was heartbroken when Arnold Schwartzenegger married. Was there anyone I DIDN’T have a crush on? Maybe that would be an easier list :P.
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We moved so frequently, little of that sort of thing survived from my childhood. However, I keep a journal for each of my children to document all of the hysterical things they say and also keep notes / letters / pictures they produce. One day I’ll make a fortune blackmailing them 🙂
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An embarrassing situation pops into my head as I read the other posts. 8th grade, crush on the most popular boy in the school. Me…poor side of the tracks. I wanted to go to the school dance SO bad. Nothing to wear. Short version. Older sister, outgrown dress. She suggested I wear it to the dance. Picture – candystriped, puffy sleeves, totally didn’t fit me right. Oh, he asked me to dance, all right. I answered yes, and he said. “Come on, I’ll help you look for someone.” He burst out laughing and I fled to the ladies room. I burned the dress. Life has been kinder to me since high school!!
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OMG, That is terrible. I feel really awful smiling at the moment! Amazing how we both spent most of our school dances in the toilets, hiding in shame, lol.
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I think you should just be proud that you had good taste at such a young age. You knew, early on, that Grease would be huge, and that we would be loving it for decades. Nothing to be ashamed of there 😉 My elementary and middle school have now ended up being such losers than I can only thank God I never got a chance to be with.
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I was 12 when Grease came out and I can tell you it was the biggest moment of my life. All my friends bought the soundtrack and we would reenact Grease day and night. I was more of a Knickie girl myself though.
Great memories!
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LOL, oh God, just when I thought I could not embarass myself anymore, you go a post this comment and it reminds me of something else. My sister and I used to pull out our sofa and while ‘You’re The One That I Want’ played, we would bob up and down behind it, mimicking Travolta and Newton-John.
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I think I’m with Kristen, there weren’t many men I didn’t have a crush on. For me it was Harrison Ford, and embarrassingly enough Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables and also Richard Chamberlain in The Thorn Birds. Why did my mom let me watch that so young??? It’s disturbing really.
My embarrassing moment…I decided during a game of four square it’d be a good idea to jump on my crush’s back for a piggy back ride. He then proceeded to martial arts me over his head and I came crashing onto the blacktop.
Do you remember your first crush? I was three. My neighbor, Austin, tried to attack me with a stick while I was swinging. It was love at first sight. lol.
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Ouch Jessi ! I hope meeting guys has become a little more painless for you! 🙂
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LMAO – Now that is the sort of thing that would happen to me! Classic!
My first crush, that I can remember, was a boy who lived in the next road. We used to sit behind the dustins (clearly I was easy to please back then) and plan our future….
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[…] Have you checked out my early attempt at fan mail? […]
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Great blog! And it sure does bring back memories! I, too, was in love with Andy Gibb (what a waste of a beautiful, talented man). I also fell in love with Ringo Starr when I saw the cover for their album, Let It Be. What a cutie!
But my embarrassing moment happened when I was about 18. The manager at one of the grocery stores was probably in his mid- to late twenties and a very nice man. Always nice to me anyway. Probably everyone else, but I took it to heart, looked him up in the phone book, called him up and asked if he would like to go out for supper with me.
He very nicely apologized and said he was engaged. Back then I was so shy it was pitiful, and it had taken every ounce of courage I could muster to give that guy a call. LOL…I was so mortified I wouldn’t go back to that store for a very long time! 🙂
BTW….read about your blog from Kristen Lamb. 🙂
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No! Oh my god! How funny! (And a few more for good measure !!!!!! :D)
Reminds me of the time my sister and I chased a John Travolta look-a-like around a camp site until he danced with us. I was only eight at the time.
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