THE FOREST FAIRIES ASK FOR HELP

Enchantress, Queen of the Snow Fairies

Annalisa, Arabella and Annie were enjoying a hearty breakfast by the fire and planning what would come next.  Poor Gerda was still wandering around Lapland with that reindeer looking for Kay.  How would they get to that distant country?  They could not remember the spell!

"Annie, dear, what country is this? said Arabella.  "Is it near Lapland?"

"We are in Denmark, Arabella, but I don't know where Lapland is.  I've never been to school so I am very ignorant," said Annie.

"Nonsense!  You're smart as a whip; you just don't know things.  Annalisa, doesn't Mama's cousin, the Queen of the Snow Fairies, live in Denmark?"

"Enchantress?  Indeed, yes.  Goodness, I haven't seen her since Briar Rose's christening and we know how that turned out!  I think she gave the little princess the gift of music.  She would help us surely--she has her own Book of Spells!  Enchantress could transport us to Lapland AND help Annie.  She could set up regular deliveries of food and firewood....

"Have new clothes made for Annie!" cried Arabella.  "And thick boots..."

"Send Annie to school so she can learn where Lapland is!"

The sisters were filled with excitement and turned to Annie, knowing she would be overjoyed.  But the little girl was crying.

"I don't want you to go!" she sobbed.  "I have no other friends."

Immediately, the sisters threw their arms around Annie and kissed her. Their fairy kisses felt like soft, warm breezes on her face and Annie began to smile.  "You will come back and visit me, won't you?"

"Of course, we will, of course," cried the sisters.  "We will have wonderful times together.  We will have raspberry tarts with whipped cream!"

"Do you promise?" said Annie.

"Yes, we promise you we will return," said Arabella.  "And now we want you to meet our Aunt Enchantress who is very lovely.  We will wish for her and she will appear."  The sisters closed their eyes and wished very hard.

And Enchantress appeared before them.

GRADUATING TO THE VAST UNKNOWN

 Graduation 1960

We were the very first class to graduate from Riverview High and I took this honor very seriously.  We had been together since elementary school and our bonds were strong.  What do I recall about that important night in our young lives?  Almost nothing.  I wanted to remember every small detail, but the evening passed quickly in a blur of music and color and speeches and tears.  And then it was all over and when autumn came most of us would be gone.  Somewhere.

We were all innocents, smiling into an almost unrecognizable future.  There were no black students in our graduating class.  Not a single one.  Most women didn't have careers; they worked until they got married.  Some of the boys would go to college; others would work in the family business.  We looked forward to peaceful lives, probably in the same pretty town in which we had grown up.  But change was about to explode.

Schools were integrated, often forcibly, and the Civil Rights movement was born into conflict and resistance.  President Kennedy was shot as he and Jackie rode in an open car in Texas.  There were marches and Freedom Fighters and Blacks being beaten when they sat at lunch counters For Whites Only.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rose to prominence only to be assassinated at a motel.  Women began to question their role in society.  There was nothing wrong with being a nurse or a teacher or a secretary, but they wanted more.  There was more, wasn't there?  Feminism became a movement too--more conflict and resistance.  And in a distant country few in the United States knew much about--Viet Nam--there was conflict and for reasons many of us still don't understand, American men were being drafted and sent into war.  Many came home wounded and maimed; many didn't come home at all.  And the survivors still don't want to talk about it.  Change was everywhere.

But on Graduation Night in June, 1960, we knew nothing of what was to come.  We laughed and cried and hugged one another.
Little did we know......

THE FOREST FAIRIES WORK THEIR DUBIOUS MAGIC

Arabella, Annie and Annalisa

"Annie, that is a lovely name.  We are worried that you will catch pneumonia since you have no coat and you are barefoot.  We are freezing too and we all need warm clothes," said Arabella.

"But how we will buy winter clothes?  I have no money," said Annie, sadly.

"We can perform magic," said Annalisa with more confidence than she felt.  She remembered only too well that they were supposed to be in distant Lapland helping Gerda find Kay.  And yet....they weren't.  "We don't have Mama's spell book with us, but we can remember some simple spells, can't we, Arabella?"

"I remember nothing," said her sister which was only too true.

"Well, let's confer over here," said Annalisa, grabbing her twin's arm. "Wait here, Annie, we'll be right back.  Now let's try to conjure up some coats first and then we'll ask for something to eat."

Annie watched the fairy sisters intently as they waved their arms about and cried out strange words.  Were they speaking French?  Had they gone crazy?  Now they were dancing in a circle around some dead plants and chanting.  Were they holding mice?  But nothing was happening!  Then...

Suddenly, Annie was surrounded by three confused little goats.

"Coats!  We wanted coats!" cried the sisters in unison.  "Begone, tiny goats.  We need coats before we freeze!"

In a flash Annie and the fairies were dressed in warm coats and mufflers.

Annie and the Fairies dressed for winter

"Voila!" cried Annalisa.  "Coats!  And mufflers too.  Oh, I'm so excited!"

"Let's order Christmas dinner!  With all the trimmings--I'm starving!" said Arabella.  "And perhaps some raspberry wine."

Annie stood dumbfounded in her new clothes.  "I'm so warm!" she said, wonderingly.  "But I am hungry too."  Her stomach grumbled loudly.  The girls laughed together and very soon the fairies produced a most excellent Christmas dinner.  They gathered together under a large tree and the sisters spread out the delicious dinner while Annie built a fire with her last match.  The three girls laughed, ate heartily and drank a little raspberry wine until at last they lay down near the fire under the thick, soft eiderdowns the fairies had wisely ordered along with dinner and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

I GO TO THE SENIOR PROM......NOT

Senior Prom 1960

In 1960 the Senior Prom was a big deal.  At Riverview there were many rules governing whom you could actually bring to this hallowed event. The Prom capped your senior year and the girls wanted a beautiful and romantic night.  I think the boys were hoping to score, but I could be wrong about that.  To bring a young man who was not a Riverview senior or junior, the couple had to be engaged.  The engagement had to have been announced in the paper.  These rules were created to AVOID TROUBLE.  Apparently, an engaged couple would never go wild and behave inappropriately.  All righty then.

I finally had a boyfriend, but I could not bring him to the Prom.  First of all, he was a professional trumpet player with a beard!  He played in night clubs where who knew what went on.  He had a red sports car and most heinous of all, he was twenty one!  Dick looked like the pictured young man who may or may not be Ewan MacGregor.  (Maybe it's the real Dick!)  He had taken me to clubs to watch him play which was extraordinarily exciting.  I'm surprised they let me in since I was barely 17 and looked 14.  In spite of the decadence of the setting, Dick did nothing shocking or illegal at these clubs; he merely

played his trumpet.  I think I can safely say

that he would have been a complete gentleman at the Senior Prom.  But it was not to be.  While he was not allowed to attend my Prom, he played his trumpet at the Sarasota High Senior Prom and met a gorgeous young woman named Tina who was part of a very famous Circus family.  We will never know what happened to Tina's actual prom date, but at the end of the dance Tina and Dick left together while I sat innocently at home dreaming about my next date with the handsome musician.

Years later I was visiting my dad who was reading Playboy instead of talking to his daughter, when he said, "Isn't this that girl who went out with your boyfriend?"  In Playboy?

I grabbed the magazine and sure enough there was beautiful Tina sitting on a trapeze wearing nothing but very heavy makeup.  I suddenly saw with shocking clarity why my girlish charms could not possibly have competed with Tina's all too obvious attributes.  I wondered if Dick ever read Playboy.

I