My days in the "service" and my dad the superhero

I don't know why I am thinking about this now. I know what triggered it, "I love the 70's" on VH1. They were showing the demise of the GI Joe dolls-because of the oil embargo.

It's just silliness, but they are now some of my fondest memories. When I was 6, we lived in Mississippi. I was always a War Playing Junkie, as far back as I can remember. It would have been at the end or ENDING of Vietnam. We lived in Ocean Springs, just outside of Biloxi, my dad was stationed at Keesler AFB.

We played GI Joes and "other dolls," only handful of girls in our neighborhood had actual Barbies. I owned a Skipper (Growing-Up Skipper). The girls played dolls in the driveways and yards. In safe, clean places. The boys played GI Joes behind the King's house, because there was a red clay ravine back there. It was just perfect for a Nam setting. I wandered back there and joined the boys in playing, took over a Ken Doll--and was made fun of being the sissy in the Platoon. (Following this time, I demanded that I get a GI Joe for my birthday, not a sissy Barbie.) Anyway, we played out there in the ravine, we were badasses between the ages of 6 (me) and 9-10. My brother, being 12, came along with his friends, and wanted us out of the area, because they'd swiped cigarettes and wanted to smoke them. With us there, they could not do it. Especially me, the Nark Sister.

Anyway, they tried to scare us off, we just incorporated it into the game. So they joined us. They wanted to play real war, not just dolls. So we joined the Army in those back woods and our Platoon did a recon. Funny thing, I was chosen as the mine detector. hmmmmmm?

The entire day was spent running through those woods, covered in mud and searching for the enemy. We all wore headbands with cigarettes plastered to the sides of our head. I was the unkillable brat. If your mom hollered for you, you were suddenly killed in an ambush attack and released from duty until the next recon. They tried everything to kill me off, because they wanted me gone. I would not die, accept death, or go away. So they devised a new way. They went to Jimmy C's house and got his dad's parachute rigging and chute and rigged me into a tree. I was supposed to have jumped in and gotten my rigging caught in a tree. They left me swinging in that tree for what seemed like days. I was not allowed to make a noise or the enemy would find me. So I stayed up there forever, and only got pulled down when my mom called me in. Oh yes, and I was sworn to a vow of secrecy about basecamp.

For the rest of the summer, the pack of boys went off to play war, in further reaching neighborhoods than I was allowed to go. If they played closer, my brother would take my bike apart and hang it on the fence then leave. I was pissed off all summer. I started playing down at "Big Tree," a huge old oak that had been split in three by Hurricane Camille, but had continued to grow. The branches were so wide you could run on them. The Platoon showed up and chased me off. They needed it for the new basecamp.

About the time I'd settled in to having to be a girl, I started playing dolls in the back yard. We had a playground slide in our back yard, a very tall one. We took blankets and built a tent under the slide and had our babies in the tent. I got called in for lunch and when I came back out I saw the Platoon in the ditch behind our fence, crouching there. I was mad because I thought they'd come to claim my tent too. I went racing into the tent to claim my space. My brother was leaping out the back side of the tent. My 3 little friends were crying in the corner of the yard--and unbeknownst to my lunk head brother, my dad was home early, working in his shed. When I got into the tent, I saw my one and only dolly, the one doll I ever loved, with firecrackers in her eyes. I got in there in time to see her head explode. I started screaming, Chris and Platoon were laughing like insane little freaks and my dad appeared out of his shed. When they saw my dad, they lost their minds and ran for their lives. My dad went through my tent, saw my doll, and emerged on the other side. He leaped the fence like superman and chased my brother. I have never seen my brother so scared.

He was captured and WAR was off limits. He was restricted and lost his casting net. (Like cutting off his arms!) He cried his fool head off. To this day, even though I am the one who lost Dolly, (like as in "Hello Dolly") he can't stand to discuss it. He thinks he was the victim of this because he was punished so much worse than my just losing a doll. To me, it's damned funny--since they spent the summer being jerks.

I also love the memory because my dad was like superman. He leaped that fence like it was a curb and was running like the 6 million dollar man after my brother. Back in the day, my dad looked like Lee Majors. So when he went after my brother, all the kids in the 'hood decided he was the 6 Million Dollar Man. He had a shed full of electronics stuff, because that was his job. So my older sister and I told everyone that's what the stuff was for. :) My brother never benefited from that rumor, because he was hunted down by the 6 Million Dollar Man, making him a natural enemy of the state. LOL

Hhhhmmmmmm, think I'm going to email this little memory to my brother!!! hee hee!