Best Friends Forever... Roller skates, Licorice and Benji

When I was a little girl, growing up on a US military base in Southern Georgia, my best friend and I would roller skate our way to the local movie theater every Saturday. We would lace up our metal skates, careful to tuck the laces inside and roll off down the road to catch the coolest movie playing that week.

Savannah Ga is hot in the Summer, not just hot, but muggy. The kind of humidity that makes a white girls hair curl up to full afro in 10 minutes or less.

Cynthia and I were acclimated to this humid heat. We would see who could speed down the road the fastest without catching the cracks within the sidewalk or streets when we had too.

Sweat running down our backs, we could care less. Wearing our favorite blue jean mini skirts, our ruffled pink shirts, we were stylin’ and profilin’. We were 10 years old, had 50 cents in our pockets, and no grumpy adults to warn us of our reckless ways.

We looked forward to making it first in line at the cinema to get the good seats. Cynthia always had a few extra dollars to spare and would always buy me licorice, both of which we would bite off the ends and plop into our soda pops to suck up the sugary treat during the great adventures of Benji or The love bug.

Back in the day, we were quite the scene. A black and white girl as best friends. See, being that it was 1980 in the deep south, we were treated just like best friends who were living in 1960 anywhere else in the country.

Racism goes both ways ya know. I can’t remember how many times I was beat up by the local bully.

I remember her clearly. Her name was Vera, she stood about a foot taller than me and liked to grow out her finger nails nice and long just for beating me up real good. See, Vera was black girl. She endured a ridiculous amount of racist bullshit most of her life. She also had to put up with an abusive father at home. Vera, like most black girls in my community were dealt a tough hand.

Hell, if I were Vera, I would of kicked my ass too. Here I was, this skinny white girl getting it easy in life. I was the low hanging fruit in the world of middle school victims. Entertainment for the other lesser bullies seeking to let of some steam after a long day of not paying attention in class.

And here I was, best friends with a black girl. Not just any girl, but Cynthia Miller. One of the prettiest girls in school and was rich too. I remember the first time I got to see her house from the inside, omg, she had one of those 4 poster white beds with the pretty pink draperies. And toys? She had all the pretty barbie dolls and condo to boot.

She had beautiful art hanging in her bedroom, like you would see in the movies. Cynthia had the plush life and she was my best friend.

I could just imagine how angry Vera was at life. I could just hear her now thinking she was going to find the first little white girl with a family that did not care and whoop the living day lights out of her.

See, not only did I get beat up at school, I got my ass whooped at home too. I was tough little white girl, still am. I knew how to take a punch like most boys did. I would fight back. I was quite the sight to see. Tall, lanky white girl throwing punches like she had a chance. LOL.

I have good memories of growing up on that military base in Georgia. Us kids, all kinds of different races, would spend all day and most of the night, running the streets, building forts and getting into all kinds of trouble. We were like a little gang of happy kids who made it their mission to go on grand adventures every day.

I remember when we all decided it was a good idea to roller skate in the large cement tunnels and ditches that caught run off from the flash floods we would have in the summer.

Someone had brought their pet gerbils to let them run free in the large paved areas of the tunnels and it was too cool of a thing not to miss. I knew that we would get in trouble if we got caught. Those tunnels were 100% off limits.

Two or three hours later, after many hours of belly laughs at fat little gerbils sliding down the side of the ditch or too much candy… we were all pretty close to delirious when I heard a familiar screech, omFg, my grandmother was running towards us with one of her shoes, from one of her feet, cursing at the top of her lungs. Yep, that’s an ass whooping coming in hot.

All the way back home, with Grandma Shirley speeding us along, Cynthia and I were whispering "so worth it, lets do it again tomorrow."

My childhood was a challenging one, filled with great sadness and abuse, but my friends made up for the hard times with impromptu street parties with boom boxes and bbq someone stole from their mothers kitchen and secret hide away forts made out the trash we pulled from the dumpster at school. We were wild and free kids who did their best to enjoy the freedom we were given by our parents who did not know any better.

I feel for the children today who cannot run and play like this. There are so many real world monsters looking for an opportunity to cause unimaginably horrific harm to children, I can understand why parents have to hover, have to keep their babies safe.

Cynthia and I were almost abducted one Saturday by a few white men who drove up past us, then pulled over. They tried their best to get us in the car with them, but something didn’t feel right and besides, we had our bad ass roller skates man, who need a lift from some creepy white guys?

Please read my story on children in the USA who are abused and committing murders here: https://steemit.com/news/@thewayiseeit/guns-are-not-the-problem