Posts Tagged With: lone ranger

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Out of Your Reach.” Was there a toy or thing you always wanted as a child, during the holidays or on your birthday, but never received? Tell us about it.

I wanted to be a boy. Only women over the age of 55 will understand that I wanted to dress comfortably in pants instead of dresses.  I wanted to wrestle and get dirty; push and fight and yell.  I wanted to get angry and show it. I wanted to go places and do things that “good girls” weren’t allowed.  I wanted to stay out late and not be practically water-boarded for an explanation.  I wanted to whistle and spit and cuss.  I wanted to slouch.  I wanted to play contact sports and take shop class. I wanted a motorcycle and to join the Navy.  I wanted to be a cowboy and ride with the Lone Ranger. I didn’t want to develop a woman’s body and have disgusting things happen to me monthly. I wanted to be a sexual person.  I wanted a leather bomber jacket and I wanted to wear high-top sneakers and jeans. I wanted to cut my hair.  I wanted to choose my own career.  I wanted to wait until I was old to get married.  I wanted to travel in a convertible (remember Route 66?). But, I wanted to be beautiful and thin, too. All these were beyond my grasp as a child.

What I really wanted was freedom.  I grew up and worked hard to make certain that my daughters could do and be all the things that were out of my reach as a child in the 1950s.  And they are.