From about the fifth grade on, I insisted everyone call me “Big Rhon”. I signed all of my school papers, poems, art and letters as “Big Rhon”. Everyone in my home town still calls me this, even my brothers.For years I always wore a faded red welder’s cap with big white polka dots on it. Until my mom threw it away. (I know she did.)
I used to make illustrated magazines with different topics in each issue (sharks, insects, motorcycles, ect) and sell them in elementary school. I had an ever increasing subscriber base and took this publishing business *very seriously*. My magazines cost a nickle. No credit.
Maybe my brothers were stealing from under my pillow. Or maybe that cheatin’ tooth fairy was fucking me and keeping the change?! All of the other kids were getting bank plus bonuses. Because their teeth were bigger? No one to ask because you aren’t supposed to lay eyes on the tooth fairy. Cuz then she could disappear or disintegrate or something.
I hung out with all boys from kindergarten on. They bet me I could not write my name while peeing. So I took their money and preceded to do a scoot around squat thang, printing my name quite legibly. Ha! No one said I had to do cursive. My mom caught me, cash in hand. It was basically a feminist statement I was making, but I was always misunderstood, see.
I set out to research dinosaurs when I was really young. When I was 5, I met my grandmother for the first time. I said, “Wow, I didnt know you were real, grandma! I thought you were PREHISTORIC.” That’s not one of those stories my family laughed over and told again and again. Nooo. No knee slapping. It was pretty much quiet when I said that. LOL That’s why I remember it.
Grade 2… I penned my first story. A tragedy of course — a character driven dramatic piece about the heart-rendering decline of a has-been pencil. Chewed, used, and broken…left with so very little lead.
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