Risk-a-licious by Kathy Bosin

So, it’s 1969 in Limestone Acres.

A dynamic year – Nixon inaugurated. Man on the moon! Viet Nam. Woodstock. Haight Ashbury. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Easy Rider.

I was eight and my sister was six.

We lived in a very quiet, conservative suburban community where kids rolled on bikes all summer long. The pool was 2 blocks away. I remember the first time a teenage boy (omg) referred to me in public as “Bosin!” I was horrified and delighted.

This post is a remembrance and a toast to Meg Glover.

Who?

She was a tall, slim, super white skinned, black haired beauty, about 15 years old. She and her sister wore long dresses – religious? I have no idea. Fashion? Doubt it. Yet – incredibly dramatic! It was rumored that they went to “charm school” – an item that my mother often used as a threat. She’d say “keep that up and you’ll have to go to charm school like Meg and Lisa Glover.” Horrors!! We heard they had to wear long white gloves and walk all day balancing telephone books on their heads. Big threat to us slackers. Being sent to charm school was the major fear for good girls like us in 1969.

But when she was hired as our babysitter, we couldn’t hide our excitement! Meg Glover, whoa! (How cool are we?)

On the first evening she came, she said “let’s make pizza!”

Gasp!

My sister, 6 years old, knew this was a danger – “we’re not allowed to use the oven!”

Meg looked at me, the eldest.

I shivered inside. “Yes, we can. Do it.”

She took four slices of white bread and squirted ketchup on them. Spread with a knife, and covered with a slice of American cheese – all of which, of course, were in the 1969 house refrigerator (white).

She put them in the OVEN.

OMG!

And pulled them out ten minutes later.

Even though it tasted nothing like pizza…I loved it. It was the challenge, the risk, the courage to do it!

So tonight, when I came home after a long day and Kevin had two entire lots of tomatoes making spicy ketchup on the simmer, I knew what we were having for supper.

Yup. In honor of Meg Glover, we had “pizza”. It rocked. I didn’t even have to put in in the oven and melt the cheese to remember that moment of freedom, risk, choice.

POWER!

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