Smelterville: Second Grade (2) Friends, Recess, & Barbie Dolls

By the time I was in the second grade, I got to visit more friends that I had made who lived in Smelterville. KV, DS, SM, MM, and LJ were just a few. One time I went to see KV, and she was standing on a chair doing the dishes. I asked her if she could play, and she said not until she finished the dishes. "How long will that take?" I asked. "Two or three hours is what it usually takes me," she replied. Two or three hours? I thought I'm sure glad my mom doesn't make me do the dishes before I can play. She told me she had to do the dishes every night, because she was the only girl in the family. Boy, they had a lot of dishes, too.

At recess, on of my favoite things to do was to swing. Silver King had some of the largest swingsets I remember. They seemed so tall, I could almost swing to the sky. Swings were a first-come recreational item, so I would run to try to beat others to them, and see how high I could go. Sometimes my friends and I took turns pushing each other in the swings to make them go as high as possible. They were so much fun!

Second grade was also a time for Barbie dolls. I got my first Barbie that year, probably for Christmas. She was an original Barbie, but unlike the typical Blonde Barbie, mine had a Brunette pony tail. Since my hair was brown, I thought she was great. My friends and I would play Barbies on the stairs outside during recess. Barbie was my alter ego. I could be anything when I was Barbie. My Pinehurst friend PJ also had an original Barbie with a blonde pony tail. Since PJ was a blonde it seemed fitting. We played Barbies together all the time and would share back and forth when our Barbies got new outfits.

Sometime between 2nd and 4th grade, I lost my Barbie's head. I was upset, but I did have a Midge doll and a Ken doll to play with. Then one day, I went with PJ and her family to the White Elephant store in Coeur d'Alene. (Her family shopped in Cd'A quite a bit, but my family rarely left the valley to shop). At the White Elephant, we were looking at Barbie stuff, and I found a Barbie head with three wigs. The head had molded plastic hair, but the wigs fit over that hair, so I could change her look. One wig was blonde, one red, and one brunette. My favorite was the bleach blonde bubble look wig. My Barbie wore that wig most of the time, and I longed to have hair just like hers. She looked like Marilyn Monroe in her wig, and that made her beautiful to me.