My Childhood again

Since I can remember I have always loved books. Every night one of my parents would read us a bedtime story. I loved all the Uncle Remus tales, my father would make each character come to life in my imagination with amusing voices and funny little songs. My favorite were Tar Baby and Br'er Rabbit before they were deemed politically incorrect. My mother would read Hans Christian Anderson in a soft whispering pitch that would both entertain and pull you into sleep. As I grew older I read and reread Little Women and The Prophet until the pages were puffed and yellowed with the bitter sweet smell of old books and spilled hot chocolate. When I wasn't reading I would make up stories and play them out with my dolls. I must have invented the concept of "me time." I am mostly an introvert. I would spend many hours alone in my head. Family has a natural way of studying your behavior pattern an concluding "that's just how she(he) is." I was known as the one that spent most of her time alone.

I didn't much care to be around a group of adult relatives. The male relatives or Uncles as they were all known would pull handfuls of change and tell me to take what I wanted. That I didn't mind, the fact that I would have to perform like a circus monkey to get that change has always annoyed me. I would have to sing some Motown Hit, like Jimmy Mack, Baby Love and Don't Mess With Bill. Even at the tender age of four I knew all the lyrics; for added measure I would do my best Supremes impersonation. What annoyed me the most is the fact that no matter how serious I became when I made my assessment of their sometimes(more times than not) drunken behavior or some other strange "grown up" thing. They would laugh and say I was five going on twenty five or something of that nature, as if I were the one being foolish; just because I was the singing circus monkey with the fuzzy tangled ridiculous hair.