From Tracie: The Turtle and The Green Collection

Sunday, October 21, 2012

The Turtle and The Green Collection

There was an old, metal turtle near the swings.

Not the swings that were too tall. When I sat on those tall swings, my feet wouldn't quite touch the ground, and that made for bad swinging. It was by the shorter swings that sat in front of the chain link fence.

One summer Sarah and I spent hours on those shorter swings; trying to swing so high, we would circle the top bar. Sarah's brother swore he did it once, but I didn't really believe him.

I think I liked a goal I knew was unreachable - it meant neither Sarah nor I would win or lose. We would reach the same height, until the chains in our hands grew slack and we fell back, feeling the laughter infused wind rushing through our hair.

But this was a new year, and the swings were old news.

This was the year of the turtle.

He was mostly yellow, with dented-in spots of red and green where water would pool after a rain. The metal was warm, but not hot, thanks to the shade of a very large oak tree standing guard over him.

We wanted to start a club. It would be about writing letters, and making stationary. We would sell the stationary, and one day have enough money to move out of our parent's houses. Whatever we didn't sell would be used for letters of our own. This seemed like a solid business plan in our third grade minds.

Markers and paper were snuck out to the playground.

We sat on the turtle and worked, heads bent over notebooks, shadows dancing over our paper from the leaves on the guard tree. We used those leaves and shadows for inspiration, tracing and making rubbings of the leaves for our stationary, and placing it in a pile we called the green collection.

I tried to create a turtle collection one day, but my drawings of turtles looked like lumpy rocks. The idea was quickly abandoned.

I'm not sure that we sold a single sheet. Not even to our parents - who, in their defense, might not have felt very flattered that we were planning to use the profits to move away from them as soon as possible.

When it turned to winter, the turtle became too cold for sitting, and we abandoned our project. Hiding on a limb of the guard tree, snuggled deep into our jackets for warmth, we made a new plan. It involved making beads, and sewing sequins onto denim jackets. This time the move from our parent's houses would lead us to New York, former home of Stacey McGill of Baby-Sitters Club fame.

Whispers of our plans carried on the wind to the turtle below us. Sitting under the guard tree lonely and cold, he waited for spring to come, so his friends would return.

Did you start a club in your school years? 
If so, I want to know what it was all about, and if it was successful!

62 comments:

  1. I love this whole post and can totally picture you as a little girl making stationary. I didn't start any clubs, but my bestie and I crocheted bookmarks and sold them door to door. We also made earrings and clay painted pins. Surprisingly, we did not make enough money to move out of our houses. But it sure was fun!

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    1. You were very crafty! Even if you didn't make enough money to move out.

      Fun counts for a lot.

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  2. No clubs that I remember. But then again, I don't remember a lot from that long ago.

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    1. I have a freakishly good memory for certain things.

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  3. I believe the neighborhood kids and I had a candy club, which involved buying candy on the way home from school (we walked and there was a neighborhood deli that has since been turned into a hugely tacky house) and storing it in my playhouse. I was an awful child. This post is so descriptive and evocative, though.

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    1. Since it was stored in your playhouse, did you get a bigger share? I totally would have gone for that as part of the deal if I had organized that club.

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  4. If I remember right, there were multiple clubs. The creation of a new one was dependant on how quickly our interested faded in the current one.

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  5. I'm sure my pals and I had clubs, but I don't remember specifics of any of those.. but this post did remind me of the time I sold my chalk on butcher paper sketches to passers-by in my neighborhood. I was about 10 or 11 years old, and the coolest part was that the snow cone truck lady bought one from me and asked me to make another because she liked it so much. Every bit of money I made was spent on snow cones and cotton candy... the whole $2.00! ;) Great post, Tracie! P.S. Interesting note - all of my artwork was of pretty, sad little girls. Go figure. =P

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    1. That is just plain awesome!!

      I want to make chalk art and sell it for snow cones and cotton candy.

      That interesting note is very interesting. <3

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  6. See you were inspiring even back then. Such a great story. thanks for sharing it, smiles all around

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  7. Oh love this, you! It screams of youth and fun and innocence and most of all: Dreams!

    {Also? Babysitters Club! Swoon!}

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    1. Thank you!

      Babysitters Club. I loved them so. I also love that now my daughter reads them. It is a full circle kind of thing. And a great excuse to revisit my old, childhood friends ;-)

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  8. I wasn't really the club starter, but I would go along with just about any plan that wouldn't get me in trouble. I don't really remember any clubs that lasted for more than a day. I do remember the Treasure Island Times newspaper Amy Sullivan and I used to write from time to time. She was always (and still is) a great idea person. Lots of dance routines and recipes and bonfires.

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    1. I imagine that it would have been a lot of fun to grow up with you and Amy. Maybe one day we can have some sort of dance routine and bonfire at a writing or blogging conference.

      Treasure Island Times Newspaper is a great name.

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  9. Your writing is vibrant with new life and energy lately, Tracie! Love this!

    Closest I can come to a club was our rather informal gathering of nerds and geeks in an unused closet (with one narrow window) on the 2nd floor of the old castle like building where I went to high school. Did we form any clubs at earlier ages? Probably but the memories of those days, and details, are in hiding. =)

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    1. Thank you. I feel that vibrancy - it comes as a side effect of a heavy dosing of hope, and is a beautiful thing.

      I think I would have enjoyed that club in the unused closet.

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  10. This is so lovely. You write so well, and so effortlessly. I know you're busy, but if you're ever stuck with an extra few minutes, we'd LOVE to have you back over at Trifecta.

    In the meantime, I'll just keep on clicking over here. xx

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    1. Thank you Lisa (although I'm not sure about the effortlessly, but I'm going to hold out hope that it will happen).

      I need to make my way back over to Trifecta soon. It is a great group.

      xoxo

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  11. Love the pictures your words invoke! I'm lonely for the turtle now.

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    1. Thank you! That school moved to a fancy new building a few years later, and they left the turtle behind. It was sad.

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  12. Oh nostalgia! I'm sure I did, but I can't quite remember. It was probably me and a lot of stuffed animals.

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    1. Those are one of the best kinds! I think I had one or two of them myself.

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  13. "This time the move from our parent's houses would lead us to New York, former home of Stacey McGill of Baby-Sitters Club fame."

    I love this! I was an ardent reader and collector of the Baby-Sitters Club books, and desperately wanted to start my own club, just like theirs. Recently while my parents were packing up their house to move they found my entire collection, and I spent some happy hours going through them all. They are just a good as I remember :)

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    1. That is SO much fun!! My daughter recently started reading them (I wish my parents would have held onto my extensive collection so I could pass them on to her) and I have enjoyed revisiting them.

      I always wanted to start my own Baby-Sitters Club, too, but it never worked out.

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  14. Such a great memory!

    I love the way that you described the swings. I remember that feeling of being yanked back.

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    1. Thanks. It is one of those great memories that feels so real even now.

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  15. That sounds so sweet and adorable! I was SO in love with the babysitter's club books when I was little, I actually wanted to have diabetes to be more like Stacy!

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    1. I really loved them too! They were my favorites.

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  16. Oh, I love the innocence in this post!

    I was never in a club. I was, however, deliberately excluded from the clubs -- but that turned out to be OK as I'm just fine now.

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    1. I'm sorry you were excluded. That is not fun, and not very nice at all.

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  17. I felt like I was a kid again reading this. I was a dork, but eventually I grew up and people had to be nice to me. ;-)

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    1. I was a dork, too!

      You are pretty easy to be nice to. ;-)

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  18. Very well done, Tracie. I am impressed with how you transported me with you.

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    1. Thank you Pamela!! I appreciate that so very much.

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  19. Kpise, kids part in saving earth. My two bffs joined , nothing really happened but we do all remember it to this day.

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    1. It is fun that you are still friends with your childhood BFFs.

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  20. "until the chains in our hands grew slack and we fell back, feeling the laughter infused wind rushing through our hair." Thanks for that. The whole post took me back to playgrounds and friendships of my childhood. I don't remember starting any clubs, but business ventures, yes! We went door to door selling soap made out of a toxic concoction we created from items under the kitchen sink - until my horrified mother put a stop to it...

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    1. That soap story is pretty funny. It is probably a very good thing that she found out and stopped you.

      Thank you for your kid words.

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  21. This brought back so many memories of plans and schemes of youth. Well done!

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  22. Wow.
    Your words and the pictures they painted were beautiful. So full of innocence and hope until you get to the end and remember the turtle.
    Beautiful job!

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  23. Ah, The Babysitter's Club. I always wanted to start a babysitter's club of my own but never quite got around to it.

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    1. I wanted to start my won babysitter's club too, but it never worked out.

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  24. You really brought me back to those early autumn days of a new school year, recess, and the way the crisp clear light of autumn comes through the leaves.

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  25. Poor forgotten turtle but this was so cute! Believe it or not, I was in a book club way back where we past around books and read scandalous (not really) parts out loud. We read "do patent leather shes really reflect up" and other such books.

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    1. Ha! I remember passing around a few of those scandalous (not really) books when I was a kid.

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  26. Loved The Babysitter's Club books! Great post!

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  27. Great images and story telling! I remember all kinds of plans and schemes and clubs we formed and quickly forgot. I'm connecting to the innocence and energy you described. I'd love some of that back! Great job!

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    1. I would love to have some of that back, too. It would be nice.

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  28. Oh yes! We had the No Little Sisters Club. And every friend I've ever had, I've tried to write a book with

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    1. Clearly I need to spend more time with you, so you can get me to write a book. I'm short on motivation these days.

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  29. I, too, loved this post.

    I once started a petition to get Shirley Temple back on the air. I also started a neighborhood "preschool" that happened once a week for about a month (during the summer). That's the extent of my "club" ideas that come to mind :)

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    1. Those are both AWESOME ideas!

      I loved Shirley Temple. And actually this has reminded me that Katarina hasn't seen enough Shirley Temple movies, and we need to fix that.

      So, I guess you were starting early on your teaching career.

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  30. I probably would have had a crush on you back then. Love this story.

    We boys had a club we "hired" and "fired" kids from. I got fired all the time, because I'd talk to kids who weren't hired. I couldn't help it.

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    1. Good for you! That is a great reason to be fired. I wouldn't have been able to ignore the kids who weren't hired, either. I'm pretty sure that is a good thing.

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