The year was 1977, the fall, I believe. My parents, sister and brother and I were out on the porch eating dinner. Everything was going fine. Why wouldn't it be? At this time I was five, my sister four, and my brother, fifteen. Dinner concluded and we were standing up to move back indoors. I got up and spun around to look outside. Some leaves were still lingering onto the branches while others were already on the ground waiting to go back into the soil. Also one or two leaves were falling as I looked out. My dad noticed I was looking outside and turned to watch the day turn to night. Suddenly a girl and a dog went jogging past our blue ranch style house. For some odd reason I blurted out that she is so pretty. My father looked at me and said, "You mean the dog, right? Not the girl?"
I was so taken aback by the vitriol in his voice, I, of course, said, yeah the dog. I don't like dogs. Never have and still don't. He knew this. The whole family did. I felt so ashamed and humiliated for something I didn't really know why that I ran into the house and to my room and cried. Why couldn't I think the girl is pretty? He rather me think a dog is? To my five year old mind it seemed backwards and downright gross to find an animal pretty. That was the day I stopped voicing any opinions and became the isolated, introverted teenager and young adult that I was.
