5 Facts You Don’t Need to Know

by Elouise

One of my blogging friends* inspired me to give this a try. The negative twist is mine, not hers. And the facts are about me. At first I tried to come up with five facts absolutely no one would know about. But it was pretty dull. So I’ve gone with things most of you wouldn’t know about me.

#1. I thought David would never ask me to marry him. We may have had the longest courtship on record, followed by the longest engagement on record. I promise a post on this item; it looms large in my personal history.

#2. My favorite childhood family activity was traveling by car in the 1950s. From East Coast to West Coast and back again several times. Also up the East Coast to Pennsylvania and back down to Savannah.

The West Coast trips were more exciting. We visited national landmarks along the way. Places like the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, and Carlsbad Caverns.  We always drove straight through Death Valley overnight so we wouldn’t die because of the heat if we had car trouble. On the way back to the East Coast we stopped by Kansas and the family dairy to visit Grandma and Grandpa R., uncles, aunts and cousins.

Life on the road was happier and way more exciting than life at home.  I still have a little burro pin and a Painted Desert souvenir I picked out for myself on one of our trips, thanks to my California Grandpa.

#3. When I was in high school I qualified as a senior life guard. So did Mom and Sister #2. We all attended a training program offered by the American Red Cross. The most difficult part of the final qualifying test was jumping in feet first from the high dive without going under the water, and ‘rescuing’ our adult male instructor who knew how to be a terrified swimmer about to drown.

I got to use my skills guarding children and young people swimming in a lake at a summer camp. Only once did I need to help a friend who was struggling to stay above water. That one event made it all worthwhile.

#4. I participated in a 20-piano recital at the Savannah Civic Auditorium. I was a senior in high school, and was put in one of two senior student groups. Four hands to a piano. Total bedlam at first! A different piano teacher (each with a different personality) directed each of the 12 pieces. We ranged from the youngest beginners on up to seniors. Each group rehearsed separately in a downtown piano store until the last two rehearsals in the auditorium.

Unbelievably, it all came together and the auditorium was packed out with proud family members and friends the afternoon of the recital. My group played a rousing military march. I can still hear it in my head. I also remember my partner on the bench, a young man from my high school—one of my early infatuations.

#5. Finally, this James DePreist poem is one of my favorites. I don’t think anyone in the world would know this except me, myself. Now you know, too.

I confess
to being less
than myth would
make me wish
were true
and from the single map
of my terrain know alone
the sad-deep caverns of regret
lying in the shadow camouflage
of peaks
of
power.

James DePreist, This Precipice Garden, p. 8,
published by the University of Portland Press, 1986

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 9 March 2015

*Megan’s blog is about how she lives with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I’ve learned a lot from her honest sharing. Her OCD posts are available here: http://meganhasocd.com/category/ocd/. You can check out her entire blog at http://meganhasocd.com/.