Dethroned

by Elouise

The winter Olympics are upon us! So just for today, here are a couple of old photos from my past that tell a bit of a story about my family of one father, one mother and four sisters. Nothing profound, unless you’ve been there and understand the dynamics of being dethroned.

First: I’m the oldest, 10 years old judging by the shape of my body parts. An early bloomer as they said back then. Sister #2 is 8 1/2 years old, and Sister #3 (Diane) is 4 years old. Sister #4 is still a baby. And yes, my hair is in rubber-hive curlers. An attempt to make my hair look pretty.

It’s bad enough to be the first-born dethroned three times by the arrival of baby sisters who suddenly grab all the attention. But to be forced to give up my rightful seat on my brand new adult-size bike when I was 10 years old got my goat. Not that I let it show very much in the photo, but I guarantee you, I’m not happy in photo #2.

Nor is Diane, Sister #3, the youngest in the photo. She has totally checked out of the happy sisters mode and is enduring the shame of having been booted from her larger wheels to this ridiculously tiny baby tricycle. I love her for her honesty. She has her hands defiantly clasped in her lap–not on the handlebars as requested by my father. Sister #2 is being as cooperative as possible, having given up her two wheels for three.

And there I am, boiling with indignation on the inside (yes, I remember this well) but ‘calm’ on the outside, while my mother poses for my father on MY new bike! I wonder what was going through her mind?

Small stuff, you say? Not to me. Which is already more than enough said.

For now, Happy Friday and Happy Winter Olympics! May the best women and men win, and those dethroned be gracious and appropriately distressed.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 9 February 2018
Photos taken by my father, Fall 1953, in our front yard near Savannah, Georgia