Do You Know What That Means???

They say that you go into middle school as lambs and come out as lions, well in the spring time of 1992 I was no longer a lamb.

I began to have real crushes and I got my first razor and a gaggle of girlfriends when prior I only really hung out with Trenton. My skin was bronze from the La Jolla sun and my ear drums rattled from the plans of Top Gun over head ever day and every night. My hair was golden and my eyes were just starting to fade into a hazel glow.

My best friend at the time was a toe-headed girl named Kimberley Morgan. I absolutely adored her for her sweet demeanor and golden long hair and the fact that she had two little sisters that I had adopted as my own. I was a regular member of the Morgan flock as she was a member of mine. We seemed to always be in each other's company. I taught her little sister CJ how to ride a bike, granted my step-dad hadn't taught me until I was near 5th grade. Perhaps I was stubborn and didn't want to learn at first but I was dying to teach.

Her mom and dad had divorced like many military families, but her mom was quit different. I didn't know at the time that she liked the company of other women and I didn't care. You don't understand those things as a child, or at least you didn't back then. I would joke with Kimmy saying things like, "When I grow up I want to be like your mom and have slumber parties all the time with my girlfriend." Remember, we had no idea? This was before there were any real gay icons and even then what child is really going to understand Richard's Simmons?

She told me years later and even then I didn't care. I always subscribed to the notion even as a small child that if you loved someone, truly loved someone what's to stop you from being with them. I remember asking a grown up when I was little, "If I loved my best friend and she was a girl why couldn't I spend my whole life with her if I loved her?" The idea even then seemed limiting.

As most military brats we did mockeries of our parents profession in the backyard. Games of fort and military tactics seemed routine and based on age as rank with Jorge always the commander and chief. It was Jorge, Kimmy & Me, Felipe, Emilio, Pamela, CJ and whatever other kids wanted in on the turf. There wasn't much in terms of forest, it was Miramar for goodness sakes and this was before it got handed over to the Marines, back when Top Gun was still on everyone's lips and all eyes were on the sky.

My mom was a newly wed and she did try to make my dad happy. He drank, but she didn't care he was young like she and bound to make some mistakes along the way. He did, but I never found out until I was 18. It was like that in a military town the carpet had so much swept under it that you wondered how you could walk at all or if you even dared.

Kimmy would always accompany me to family outings and I with her. I won a trip for four to Universal Studios off of a Fox Kid's network promotion for a film I've still never seen, Backdraft. We went up when the whether was less than desirable. We ended up pulling over frequently on a count that the rain was harder than anything we'd ever experienced in the Northwest.

San Diego had better schools and actually had two extra levels for advanced placement. I was in the GATE program and enjoyed and relished in the idea of excelling. When I moved to Oak Harbor I was told that I didn't need to finish the last month of 6th grade and that I would be far ahead of the 7th grade class.

Kimmy and I discovered boys quickly and I had my eyes on two of them. A young man named Corey Matthews (no relation to the popular sitcom of the time) and another boy named Randy Edwards. Corey had tried to ask me out a couple of times, but I wasn't sure what that would really entail in all honesty. I had gone on chaperoned dates with Kimmy and Felipe & Emilio and their parents. Felipe was younger than me and was always my date and Emilio was far to young to even think of going out with Kimmy, but she did so anyways.

Felipe was a sweet heart from the start. My mom would often poke fun at his loyalty. I remember one year he dragged his baby brother with him to my door and handed me a large Valentines card with a pink heart and a smile. I kissed him when I moved but he twisted it and told all the neighborhood boys that I slipped him the tongue which simply wasn't true!