Another Portrait of the Blogger as a Young Girl

Fishing with dad, 1976.

There was a Jamesway, a sort of proto-Wal-mart, in the Burg back in the day, where families would buy bean bag chairs, Converse sneakers, and those upside-down 7-Up glasses. The summer when I was five, I got a Pittsburgh Pirates ball cap at Jamesway, and it stayed plastered to my head until the team won the World Series.

One day that summer when I was five, dad took me, hat on head and plastic sunglasses on nose, to Jamesway to get some fishing bobbers when a lady asked me for my opinion. She explained she needed to buy a present for a boy, and she couldn't decide between two Mickey Mouse watches. Would I tell her which one I preferred?

She leaned over and held out the two watches: one with a dark navy blue band and one with a medium blue band. This was a very serious decision, which I undertook quite gravely, and I deliberated for several seconds in the flickering fluorescent light before selecting the medium blue one.

"Oh, now I don't know what to do," she said to my dad. "That other little boy over there liked the darker one better, but he likes the other one."

"Probably because she's a girl."