Whose got the Golden Arm? REVISITED because Skinny reached out and POKED ME with her long, sentimental, and dirty little fingers!

I drug this out of the archives because SKNNY POKED ME! And reminded me, not just of the story, but of the way we all remember. A little bit different. A little bit tainted "our way". Same place. Same times. Same story. And how sometimes spooky little stories, do finally get to you. This Golden Arm was my gift to Kimbies a couple of Christmas's ago. Just another sibling POKE! Because she hated it so. Hated the story. Hated the punch line. Hated having to scooch in closer for the punch line, and 40 years later I can still remember her face, her eyes the size of mudpuddles WIDE OPEN yelping "Not me, Not me" She kept this tacky, but sentimental gift in the corner of her den CLOSED and hated it. And the fact that every time she walked by it, the damn latch was undone and it was open just so drove her mad. So finally Skinny toted it home in March. Ask her how she feels about it!


ORIGINAL POST FROM WAY BACK WHEN

It wasn’t the story so much, as the hot salty air and the night sounds from the ocean, lapping at the open windows. And the candles, of course. Their luminescence creating yellow eyed spirits that crawled our skin and danced amongst us with the breeze. The setting was just too perfect. It always was. And it was tradition. The telling of the spooky summer story….over and over again…

We did it for years. A circle of barefoot youngin’s. Madden always the oldest. Me next. For years, and years, Kimilee the youngest. We’d pile into the terrazzo floored bedroom, dust off a spot to sit on ( Ahhhh, the gritty dry sand from days of tracking in could give your swim suited bottom a rash and a half if you just plopped down on it and then did all the carrying on a spook story required : crouching on your knees in anticipation, flailing arms to fight off the fright, spinning on your rump to hide your eyes completely from the storyteller’s gaze!) We’d light the coveted (taken without permission) hurricane candles and the circle would scooch in closer. But not before Kimilee would do her little Indian princess dance, tiptoeing high, arms fanning at the nighttime ceiling….. “Not me! Not me! Not me! Don’t make it me!” She’d plead, and beg, brown saucer eyes wide open and imploring us to just this once, leave her out of it. “SShhhhhhh” “It won’t be you, sit down and be quiet. Sit right here. It won’t be you.”

So little. So trusting. So scared.

And then Madden would start. And we would just fall into it. The so very familiar story that grew with each passing summer. He would braid a thousand scary stories together in a fragmented slide show, but this would always be “our” story….we’d lean in for certain parts, sweaty little sunburnt faces tightly knotted together. We’d wriggle back through other parts. With each passing summer, Madden grew taller, his voice deepened, and so did the story. While we had heard it a hundred times, each time was the first time. He never ever failed us on that.

“Whoooooooose got the golden aaaarrrrrrmmmmmm? Whoooooose got the golden arrrrrrrmmmmmm? Whose GOT the golden ARRRRRRMMMMM?” The words vibrated through the room, had an ethereal quality to them, that convinced you, all of us, it wasn’t Madden speaking at all. But her. The words were coming from some place deep, and damp, and were being whisked in by the night tides, a dirty little mist settling on top of us, a blanket, wet from the beach. Kimilee would sit with her knees up, holding her toes, burying her tiny little face, whispering “not me. Not me”. In perfect Catholic choir harmony, we would echo “Sssshhhhhhhhhhhh” .

And then, WALLOP! Madden would spring into the air and come booming down with a thunderous crash; his arm probing madly at the circle, obscenely pointing…… at the bearer of his punch line: “YOU DO!”

And poor little Kimilee would cry.

Over and over again.

Why are kids so cruel?
I don’t know. But today… this day… I can tell you that Kimilee, “not me, not me”, is one tough cookie. And she knows the punch line. And scary story, you don’t spook her. She’s hitting back. And we’re all scooching in closer. May the circle be unbroken.

For info on KIMBIES FIGHT BACK please visit our links to Kimbies hand me down levis, otherwise known as love letters to Kimbies and join the fight!

The Dunes

The dunes. Giant sugar covered bellies that we wallowed over like tiny pups with our eyes closed. From the time we could toddle, we were rolling in them, crawling up their shifting sides, sliding down their salty shins. From our house to the roaring ocean, the only fence standing was the dunes. The sun would rise and spray paint their peaks the color of mirrors. And so, we would climb them blindfolded. Chubby little hands folded over squinting eyes. And then swoosh….down the other side to the Gulf. The giant body of endless water that called our names out loud.

We played pirates there. Built Geronimo’s fort out of cardboard boxes and terry cloth towels. Pretended we were movie star cast-aways . We dug for buried treasures and found plenty of them….rusty beer cans, abandoned crab nets, Tiparillos. Mottled oyster shells were sudden jewelry boxes, and we filled them to the brim with colored periwinkles, fishing hooks, and adolescent shark teeth. Summer’s in my memories are measured by how we climbed the dunes. Eventually the cardboard walls of our forts were transformed into cardboard surfboards. We would drag the flattened A & P boxes up one side of the sandy mountain, and go flying, bottoms up, face first, clinging to the makeshift sea sleds down the other. We hauled the entire length of the clothesline up and over the Mother of all dunes, and played Man-of-war-tug-of-war. Which team would be pulled up the dune, heels digging in the scorching sand? Fingers sliced with instant paper cuts from the nylon cord? And which team, would be the winners, sent flying fannies backward by their victory ? We would all eat dirt eventually. Crashing headfirst into the salty earth.

And then there was the jeep. We were not allowed this carnival ride. Not by Mama , anyway. We stole it. Not the jeep, but the memory. Our Daddy and Mr. Bruce, daddy-sitting on a Friday night, piled us in the back, like sardines ourselves, and we were suddenly bobbing, leaping, lurching up the white hillside. The headlights flickered up and down, sideways, making fun of the stars as we struggled to climb the daring dune. At the top, with the tires spinning frantically in place, I was sure we would just topple off the earth. Instead we dove into the black night and landed, promptly, poooooossssssshhhhh , into the forest colored ocean: angry waves swatting at the windows like a drooling, rolling monster. “Sshhhhhhhhhh. Listen for the motor.” I watched peanut butter and jelly sandwiches floating by….Listened for my own motor. My heartbeat. Anyone’s heartbeat. I dug my fingers into Kimcam’s thighs and she never made a sound. We held onto Paiger and the boys like priceless Madame Alexander dolls. The Monster pounded at our doors. Slithered his rheumy arms over the canvas rooftop. His breathing was rhythmic. Splish. Splash. Gurgle. The jeep rocked slowly, the ocean was luring us with his lullaby. And then bam! Mr. Bruce shoved it into gear, and an upside down waterfall was spewing from the jeep, spitting at the stars…..and we were off again! Fishtailing it down the coquina sprinkled shoreline.

Last summer we dunerolled down the wet hills into the nighttime sea . Strangers stood on the crumbling seawall and hooped as we made our wreckless descent. Went face first to the ocean. To the kissing, glorious, arms of the ocean, calling our names.....

Feel the love....
Ride the wave....

And we all fall down......

We really did go to the beach, I swear. We just spent a lot of time at the Tiki Bar. I mean, they put it right there. We had to trip over it to get to the ocean! So as soon as we emptied the cars, hurling stuff through the motel room doors, we trapsed our little fannies down to the bar and parked it there. "Woo, hoo! We're at the beach"!

The deck teeters over the edge of a steep dune, haphazardly reconstructed by the hurricanes, and the wind howls through the railings at night, making the tarps billow, the ceiling fans sway, and the bartender's tips, if not scooped up right away, blow to the next lucky recipient. Dollar bills scurry across the splintered planks like tiny runaway rodents and float like lost kites in the sky. Little kids, whose parents, hours ago trusted them to the sandbox, chase them in the neon night.

And so we danced. In the sprinkler mist piped in like Musac from the Tiki Bar roof. Barefooted with beers in our hands. Over and over again. We danced with each other, with strangers, with lovers, and hubbies. We danced with other peoples hubbie's, bikers, and the boys from The Brotherhood of Death (you know who you are.....precious skin headed just-turned-21 friends) We danced til one of us had splinters in her toes and one landed on her rump, feet to the sky. We danced until I fell off of a perfectly good chair, cracking a rib, and got up to do it again. (Kind of like when the music stops, the safety bar rises and you have to exit the Tilt-a-Twirl and walk on perfectly flat earth again....Just another day at The Fair!)

We danced until we were silly......

Enough to do other silly things... To roll down the dunes, into high tide, biting the sand straight from the ocean's lips. To give out our email addresses to people we wouldn't give our names to.

Sometimes you have to runaway.
To do what you really want to do.
To heal.
To find the reason.

June 18th, 2007.....
Report from the "he's so handsome" Doctor......

What have you been doing, Kim?
You went to the beach?"

yeah, I did.
And oh, yeah, I drank beer.....

Come here and give me a hug.

and then go do it again....

You're in remission!


Feel the Love......

Take my hand.....

We're doing it....



Bailing.....
Throwing it all in the back of the car and driving off...



May seven sunsets and seven sunrises.... be blessed....

With perfect strangers we fall in love with...
Ice cold bar beers...
Spicy chicken wings...
Periwinkle soup ,
Barefoot sandals,
Bloody Marys,
Grafitti in the sand.....
Band-aid tattoos,
Found treasures...
Moonlit nights and the cat that jumped over them,
Coolers full of melting ice,
Salty white sheets covered in sand,
A margarita now and then,
Frosty window units dripping through the night,
Sunburns that feel good....
Rock and roll laughter....
Slow dancing to fast songs...
Spooky seawall stories...
And the yellow butterfly.......

Clink!
Here's to getting the days and nights mixed up...



For seven days and seven nights!



Feel the love.......

Will work for beer....

18 years have passed since I walked out the front door of my first little house, drove in reverse down the dead end street....

And started over again....

No map, no plan, no stick, no bandana....just an unairconditioned car piled with youngin's
and
the belief that I could do this.....

And we did.

Some of the best times of my life, hunkered down in our "Are we homeless, yet?" days.... Skinny and I at the kitchen table brewing up "there must be a way" dreams....

Moon Stars and Paper started a chain of love, dig up a picture from 20 years ago, and feel the love. I spent five minutes plundering through the suitcases of memories, but before I made it back that far, my fingers fell on this one, and I knew. It's exact copy has been plastered on my refrigerator door for 17 years.

Skinny on the right...
It's a hot, hot Sunday morning and we're packing up. When we get there, we'll plop down in the the old wooden chairs, arranged in a perfect circle, stretch our legs out in front of us and stack our barefeet in the middle of the cement meeting place, toe to toe. The flakey ole paint, pink, aqua, yellow and green will stick to our bikinied rumps and our Ban de Solie'd thighs and we'll smile at the sky and the passers-by, the regulars, the waitress, and Tony and Joe. Ice cold beers arrive and disappear. Evaporate by the heat and our unquenchable thirst. We'll laugh and tell stories, make friends, dare each other silly , maybe even cause a ruckuss.... We'll order a giant hamburger, all the way, with greasy fries, and a dill pickle, that will sweat in the sun. We'll ask for a knife and divide it into thirds....

This sign was good for two and half Sundays at the beach. "Do Not Jump The Fence" sat propped up in the garage, we'd pull it out, toss it in the trunk and gift it to Joe when we ran out of credit.....

We are Family!

Brothers and Sisters and Me!

And sometimes "we have to fight for our right to party!

So here's to "If I coulda, woulda, shoulda bought a lotto ticket and if I woulda winned, I coulda binged and bought a value jet ticket and we woulda go out partying again!"

Or something like that.

Late night conversations are always the best!

Timmy Toes, Skinny, Curt's so Heavy, and Me

All that glitters...

Being the first to wear them in 1972, I was sure that my size 7 Cinderella toes would slip effortlessly into the iridescent soles and we would become “one” again….
I couldn’t resist. There in my daughter’s Christmas pile, was the recycled Nike box, lined with soft white tissue paper……and the shoes. Silver platforms that took me up 18 flights of stairs and back again a dozen times between sets at the David Bowie Concert, shoes that , get this... I wore with painter’s pants, a glittered belt and almost nothing on my chest, to Rosie O’Grady’s for nickel beer night. The shoes I balanced on while dancing on a fluorescent coffee table to Pink Floyd in Christian’s garage apartment.

SLB gave them to Haley for Christmas, continuing the “gift that keeps on giving” tradition. And since Haley’s been borrowing from my closet, my pocket book, my make-up box and dresser drawers for years, I plucked them from her tidy little stack of presents without guilt.

I just HAD to wear them. For old times sake.

Well, after 30 years, two broken toes, and an extra ten pounds, it was a TIGHT SQUEEZE to say the least. If it weren’t for that damn pinky toe, still swollen three months after pirouetting in the living room at 2 A.M., I might have been able to stand it. But then there was the fact that, feet don’t fail me now, these glittered babies have been worn by three generations of Campbell Clan Chics….. Some with size 9 feet, some size 6, some with little cheese curl toes, and some with very BIG big toes, some with high arches, some with flat feet, some with a ballerina’s grace, others without. The platform is now a well worn rocker…. So wobbling down the hall in my cocktail dress, trying to maintain balance, (4 hours BEFORE the party began) I began to feel a little sea sick. They hi-jacked forward if you took off too fast, and sort of sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid on the tile if you stopped too suddenly. Maybe if I practiced a bit. “Let me try a shimmy” ….pretty good. Dip …..pretty good. Grind…..pretty good. Twirl ….. “Oh, God, here I go again” , flat on my ya-ya with my silver shoes and puffed up pinky toe pointing towards the ceiling!

I gave up. Raced to Bealls and tossed a pair of beaded oyster slides onto the counter and handed over the card that’s accepted everywhere.

It was the thought that counts.

Happy Birthday Skinny!

I know who you are and saw what you did....

There were five of us. Kids. And a natural order of Age. Me, four years, Kimbies, 4 more years, Curty Boy, 2 years, Skinny 2 more years and then Chanty Boy.

For the most part we were passive, a wandering tribe of gypsy souls. Rarely did we scrap. By our teen years, Kimbies and I were given lots of freedom as long as we toted a little one with us. Thus, Curty, Skinny and Chance were introduced to Rock and Roll, fast cars, and secrets early on.

And that would be how the natural order of things would change.

Skinny, when not digging in the dirt, was the first to bop up with "Take me, Take me", often elbowing her way into the front of the line. Which wasn't really hard to do. Curty was passive and frankly,not really interested in cruising with the big kids on Friday night. Happy to just stay home, perched indian legged in front of the big old console TV, watching reruns. And Chanty, with no words to make his wishes known was often at our "take em or leave em" mercy. While I love Skinny dearly, being the oldest, I often opted to take Chanty. We'd plop him on the center console of Million's van, and venture into the week-end, Deep Purple blasting from the 8-track, windows rattling. See, Chanty, dumplin' of a sweetie, is down syndrome...born with a forever smile and dancing eyes. And in those little eyes you have to read the world, because he doesn't speak The Kings English. His tiny voice box was just born jumbled up and the sounds and noises he makes are endless streams of babbling, sound effects, noise....but never words. He early on, became the keeper of secrets. Never one to tattle tell.

Not the case for Skinny.

Her endless arms and legs piling into the week-end, also meant her wishing well eyes were there. Soaking in every word, every sight, every secret. She would be elbow deep in a bag of Lay's BBQ chips, singing, WATCHING. Gathering. Later, on occassion, trading sssssshhhhhhhssssshhhhhhs for candy bars. A business agreement. A lucrative and viable business agreement. "Don't tell Mom and Dad"

As the years grew and her legs grew, we settled into sisterhood. Trading secrets for secrets. Trading the spoken for the unspoken. Trading the order.

Sometimes now she leads.

And I quietly follow.

Oh.....the secrets Chance could tell.

More please

Razor ribs. Skinny little white chic. Spaghetti legs. Anorexic. Skeleton head. Terms of endearment. You’re kidding me, right? I don’t stick my finger down my throat after steak and potatoes (God, I cherish a take- home from Outback….a friend with the talent to light the easy-light gas grill I paid a fortune for!) I don’t weigh my food on digi scales, skip seconds, run on the treadmill, or even weigh myself! And we have an eating disorder? I’m ranting tonight because my sib got cat -called! Someone with the inability to recognize a family trait, a metabolism mechanism, a true- blue thin blonde, went out of their way to hack into our world and TRY to make it look like there is something WRONG with being a skinny little blonde! Hell, we were born that way! I don’t get it.

IN OUR WORLD, you don’t point, it’s rude. You don’t judge, you never know when you will wear those shoes. You don’t cry wolf when you don’t know where the wolf if camping. Why would anyone , I mean anyone above the age of adolescence , a grown stranger at that, go off on my precious sister because of her weight, or in THEIR WORLD, lack of it?

This much I know is true. When you are skinny, you just are. It is as hard to gain weight as it is to lose weight. Because you are what you are. Our knees will get wrinkles sooner. Our laugh lines will be louder. Our bikinis will fit longer, but our fannies will disappear. At some point in our lives, the juniors department will probably be inappropriate, but we’ll have to shop there anywhere. We have to wear A-OK bras and they don’t make a lot of them. We don’t tan in our wrinkles. Skin stretches and we’re not that tall. We can’t wear pantyhose, they droop.

But we can dance until the sun comes up. Laugh until the hiccups or tears take over. Be your best friend. So WHY? WHY on earth would someone trapse into OUR WORLD and trash us ? Because at 37, Paiger can still wear a belly ring and it shows, isn’t hidden behind some midlife fold? Because she’s just a whisp of a thing, flitting around, being the yellow butterfly, touching a zillion lives?

Shame on you, silly little stranger, barging in and being a bully.

Peace, love, and pass the dumplin's please

Road Trip

I'm home. I've just survived a roadtrip. Georgia and I. She could care less that we survived it, doesn't even know that we might not have. Since she gets car sick, she spent the last 6 1/2 hours laying face down on the back seat panting and drooling on the "still smells like new car" upholstery. My two attempts to take out a brand new mustang (one red and one blue by the way) that landed her on the floorboard, we're just hiccups on her journey. Since she didn't SEE the two semi trucks toting GASOLINE stopped in the middle of the interstate, she didn't have that instantaneous flash of fear I did, as we almost drove over the little Ford Mustang in front of us. Neither did she see the 21 car collision, that by the way, I didn't see either, which is why I almost parked us in the trunk of the 2nd Mustang. But being a dog and all, she kinda felt my fear so for the 10 miles or so after each incident, she did what any best friend would do....She growled.

And then of course, there was the rain. The instantaneous flash flood that said "Hey, idiot, you've just entered Florida, the hurricane state" and sent all four wheels hydroplaning. That, by the way, feels somewhat like riding the Zipper at 17. Your stomach is suddenly swirling with a zillion butterflies, your otherwise perfectly manicured hands, are sweaty and clammy, and your'e gripping the steering wheel for sweet life. The semi truck next to you is a psychedelic blur. So I did exactly what I did on the Zipper. I closed my eyes! Gotta love the florida rain. It stopped.

And the sun came out. The blinding beautiful Florida Sun. I've been staring straight into her face for several lifetimes. That's why I have "frown lines". Yep, My mother always told me to wear sunglasses, a big hat and sunscreen. I didn't. I basked, baked, rolled in the sun. Face up. Frying. Summer blonde. The only difference now, is that I'm blind on a good day. Have to wear Readers to see anything. So driving into the deep south, on top of asphalt mirrored by blazing puddles from a summer hailstorm, with a banging hangover...is like looking into ...hell!

And speaking of hell, try traveling with Georgia. Oh, she travels well, I mean with her carsickness and all. She just doesn't STOP well. You see, she has "seperation anxiety". Which is akin to having a lover with stalking syndrome. From INSIDE the wayside station ladies room, where the toilets flush and the sinks run and the blowers puff on their own and it sounds like you are at an atomic energy plant, I could hear my precious Georgia May wailing, howling...pitifully yelping at the saliva smeared windows. Endlessly. I have never tinkled so fast in my life. Except in the woods.

But we're home. And we had a great time. And Paiger and I met just where we said we would. In Georgia. And we danced to David Bowie and Guns and Roses on the wrap around porch. And we laughed. And did what we always do, we cried. Because we can.

Because we're sisters.

Peace, love, and corner stores.....