Sweet Sixteen....

Being a Pices, I am very "romantic" and therefore, wanted to throw a wonderful party for my younger sister the year she turned sixteen. This was to be a big surprise for her and was for both boys and girls. She and my brother had joined a group called Civil Air Patrol about 6 months earlier, and so I contacted her "commanding officer" and asked him if he would help me make this a very special event for her.

Her birthday was on Tuesday that year, and the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) group met on Tuesday evening every week. He contacted all of the cadets and invited them to come to our home for dinner prior to the meeting. Mom and I fixed large pots of chili and bowls of salad and we had a score of different salad dressings plus cake, ice cream, punch, and lots of decorations. All together we anticipated about 15 guests, but in reality there were closer to 30. It worked fine as we had made plenty of food and our basement was an apartment with a separate entrance (it had been rented out for many years to help supplement the mortgage) and it provided plenty of room for guests, tables, and food.

Much to my surprise, I knew a couple of the other cadets from school, one of them a fairly accomplished pianist who enjoyed entertaining us with his music. We had a good time, and she was most definitely surprised. A couple of the older cadets made some pretty jabbed remarks to me prior to their leaving, although I was not sure why. They did not even know me, and they intimated that I thought I was too good to socialize with them. The truth was, I was too shy to socialize with them. This party had stretched me to my limit, and I really had no idea how to be the outgoing, gracious hostess (even at 17). All I could manage was to refill the bowls, and keep the punch coming.

That night, after they all had left for their meeting, I cried because I felt that I would never fit into new social groups. I had my friends at school, but that was all. Even then, my friends had all met me as a very small child, and I was not good at making new friends as the pool of possibilities grew larger. I was in high school, with over 600 students, and I was still friends with the same 8-10 students I first met in Kindergarten.

I thought about that all week and the next Tuesday, being April 1st, I decided to go to the meeting as a visitor to see what it was all about. I also talked with my parents about "pretending to be a confident, outgoing person" and they assured me that they would not tell anyone otherwise if I could pull it off. I went to the meeting, talked, laughed, smiled, and acted like I was comfortable being an extrovert. I also told them that it might be fun to join CAP, but I certainly did not want to have to spend all of my time with the 12 and 13 year old new recruits. The Squadron Commander told me that he would see to it that I had every opportunity to learn all of the necessary information, take all of the necessary tests, and advance as quickly as I was capable of, and that if I really wanted to spend my time with the older cadets (16-20), I could as soon as I could prove myself.

The two boys from the party who had been so cruel to me, offered to help me get through all of the necessary "book work" in order to become a cadet officer. (I guess they thought they had shamed me into checking out the squadron.) They also taught me to march, encouraged me as I practiced the physical fitness activities, and provided plenty of motivation to keep going. Within 4 weeks I had passed the first six tests moving through the non-com ranks, qualified as a drill sergeant, and was ready for my first test to become a cadet officer. At the end of 9 months total, I was a Cadet Major, third in command of our squadron and my wall-flower days were behind me. I was also dating one of those two boys.

What started as an experiment (an April Fool activity if nothing else) ended up being 37 years of activity, adventure, and service. It also proved to be the catalyst to meeting my husband, and when my marriage failed, CAP activity healed my injured pride, gave me a place to put all of the pent-up energy, and accepted me for who I was.

So the question is.... Was it the decision to give my sister a sweet sixteen party or the decision to put on the mask of self-confidence that led me to the adventures, friends, and experiences I had as an adult? What if I had not decided to do one or the other?