Snowflakes

when i was wee, cookie dough tasted much better. gitte haenning sang songs about cowboys and i would pout every time that grandma changed the radio frequency by turning the big dial on the right.
i was betty rubble because my hair was dark. my barney and the flintstones would meet me every afternoon. the men would hunt bugs and earthworms and us women, we would pluck blossoms off flowers and grind them between two stones until the dirt under our fingernails was yellow and blue and red and pink. in the summer, we would play badminton on our street until it was dark and the moths got fried flying into the bright xanthous light of the street lamp in front of our house. in the winter, we would wear moonboots and pull our sleighs up mountains that seemed unconquerable. one winter, i drove my sleigh into a barbed wire fence and tore off the left sleeve of my new winter coat. mom was angry, but only a little. “doing your own stunts since ’86″, she said and picked the snowflakes out of my hair.