I had been buying my own clothes since the sixth grade and I was a late bloomer, so I still shopped in the girls’ department. Therefore, I went off to high school still dressed as a much younger girl. Fortunately, a new friend, Laurie, came to my rescue. She politely told me that I should not be dressing like a child now that I was in high school. Our high school was in downtown Portland, so after school she took me to THE store, Charles F. Berg and introduced me to the junior department.

I was overwhelmed by the choices confronting me in this new clothing arena. Plus, I had very limited resources. She said that I should just buy one item today and then, as I earned more money, I could add to my wardrobe. She had a sweater very similar to the one pictured above(now listed as “vintage” on Ebay) and I bought one nearly identical to hers.

I didn’t have any reliable adults in my high school years. I was no longer in Camp Fire Girls, and there were no new neighbors in my very isolated neighborhood. Laurie served as an advisor and confidante, even though she was my same age. At her encouragement, I went to football games and even to after game dances, though I never danced. Though she moved away after sophomore year, I depended on her to make the transition from kid to teenager. Thank goodness she did a clothing intervention, allowing me to look as if I belonged in high school. She saved me from being the “weird” girl, and I am very grateful.

Mrs. Wade led my Camp Fire Girls group for most of the six years I was a Camp Fire Girl. She loved to bake and she loved to teach us how to bake. I attribute my love for and skill at baking to those weekly afternoons in her spacious kitchen.

One of her first lessons involved tunnels in muffins. Just as the above image states clearly, tunnels=bad muffin. Our work was to make muffins until we got the hang of how to neither undermix nor overmix the batter. The main temptation was to overmix and Mrs. Wade showed us the tunnels that created. The best moment for me in her kitchen was the muffin I made that she cut open for all to inspect. NO TUNNELS!

It takes real skill to teach children how to do something right without any blame or shame. Children aren’t helped by blanket praise for everything they do. Nor are they helped by having every error pointed out to them. Instead, they learn best, as I did from Mrs. Wade, by learning from their mistakes. She didn’t stop with criticizing tunnels; she explained how to prevent them from occurring. Then, from repeated tries, I learned just how much to mix the batter. It has allowed me to take my baking errors in stride and figure out what went wrong so I can correct it. Sometimes, as recently, looking at my brick like bread dough, it is as simple as leaving out the yeast. At least, there wouldn’t have been any tunnels!

I am taking a break today to recognize the 4th of July, celebrated in the United States. That day, a general Congress declared independence from England. However, as any teenager can attest, a declaration of independence is not the same as actual independence. The Revolutionary War continued until 1781, with many setbacks  and great uncertainty as to who would prevail.

Three of my forebears(as one of my daughters once said, “I know the three bears, but who are the four bears?”) fought in the Revolutionary War on the side of the colonists. Daniel Whitney of Connecticut, Jeremiah Carpenter of New York and Oliver Stewart of Massachusetts all took up arms against the British.

They were farmers, not soldiers, and they fought with ragtag outfits and varied weapons against the greatest empire of the world at the time. It is surprising that they triumphed, a surprise I think they would have shared with their neighbors and families. I imagine them coming back to their apple orchards, crops and livestock after they were done fighting. Nothing much would have changed in their lives. Individually they wouldn’t have had much to show for their service.

Still, they worked together for a common good, one that seemed far out of reach, an independent nation, free of external control. I hope this July 4th that Americans can once again put aside their individual ideas of exactly how this country should be and join in a common vision. This time as a place which  values freedom of the press, holds the office of President in high esteem, respects the checks and balances that the authors of the Constitution designed after the War was over, and knows that together is the only way we will survive as a nation. Daniel, Jeremiah and Oliver would say “amen.”

When we moved to the new neighborhood when I was almost 8, I lost all of the cookie people who had been so supportive for the previous five years. Our new house was very isolated, with forest on one side and a highway and a road on two other sides. Fortunately, Mrs. Bragg lived next door and promptly introduced herself to us. She was older than my mother, already had grandchildren, and she really loved kids.

This sign is just one I found on line. Mrs. Bragg really didn’t have such a sign in her yard. But she happily let me walk across her yard on my walk to school. Sometimes she would wave, sometimes not. I don’t think I was in her house itself more than a handful of times. But she had a warm heart and I knew she was a stone’s throw away.

She died the summer I turned 11. I was heartbroken to a depth I didn’t understand at the time, nor did my family grasp my loss. I now realize that she was the only neighbor, and I had come to trust that neighbors were kind figures. Sadly, her husband remarried in a couple of years. His new wife forbid me to walk across the yard, claiming I was making a path. Instead, I had to walk up a flight of stairs, go behind their house, and go down another flight of stairs to reach the road. I finally had a neighbor who was anything but kind and I once again truly missed Mrs. Bragg.(I called her the REAL Mrs. Bragg, unlike the second one!)