txsvicki said:
I've heard that lots of people in the South participate in pageants, so I suppose that was perfectly normal of Patsy. Of course, I am sure that it takes quite a bit of money, so many little girls don't get to participate. That's the only problem I have with such things. Pageants and cheerleading are more for people who can afford it and who have been trained in gymnastics since age 4. However, there are plenty of things that most of the other young people can participate in and do.
Actually, it is very, very expensive to participate in the pagents mostly because of the dresses. You would fall over at the price of some of the gowns. We did not have a lot of money so I got sponsers from business in town. I never participated past 16. I was a cheerleader starting in elementery and never had any gymnastic training. I never even went to cheer camp until jr. high when it was required, and again I had to look for sponsers to go. I lucked out in the pag. because my mother could sew and my sis was a heck of designer. The cheerleader uniforms had to be purchased and I never remember them being less than 500.00 for two uniforms pom pom shoes and socks. I worked my money went to my car expense that was my dad's rule, he paid for half of our car and he paid half of insurance we had to do the rest.
The reason I defend these things so is because of the lessons of life, and the memories I made and that has help. me be a sucess in life, but mostly because of the following story.
My dad had a girl poor guy, wanted a boy so bad, but you get what god gives ya and he never treated me like I was not what he wanted. I remember coming home my senior year. I had spent my saved 425.00 plus 175.00 from dad on cheer camp. It was required at that level. I had not had a summer job since I was gone most of the summer. I looked at my dad and he asked how much do you have for the 525.00 (mega phone was 25.00) do you need and I said all of it. In the background you hear my mother ranting you will just have to quit we do not have that kind of money are you nutts!!! He put his head down, he said when do you have to have it I said by Monday that was seven days. He said I will have it for you. Being a teen never gave it anymore thought just thought he needed to go to the bank to get it. I did not see my dad at any of my sport games those seven days, he was not at my first cheer game of my senior year, he was not in the house those seven days. This was a man who never missed any of my activities. Again, being a teen and app. self centered I just thought he was working what they called turn around at the plant he worked at for 37 years. Come Monday morn. sure enough there was a check for me on the fridge. for 525.00 and I went on my marry way.
Many years later I was giving my dad a hard time about the games he had missed that week. He took my kidding but my mom said ask your dad where he was so I did. He smiled and said no where special working. I just never gave it anymore thought. Later the next year I was gonna donate my cheer stuff to school knowing that they sometimes re-use same style. I went to dad's asked where my stuff was and my mom took me to their room pulled this big metal fire proof box from under the bed and in the box was several gowns from pagent days, several twriler uniforms, batons pom poms, all my metals, and ribbons, my trophys were in the throphy room. By the way the reason why there was a trophy room was I never walked out of over 100 comp. for twrilling with out a first place in every event I was in which was at least 3. My dad came in asked what we were doing and I told him, he had a fit said those were his and I could not do that and we kidding him every family event after that about playing with my poms and dressing in my gowns in the middled of the night when no one was watching.
My dad had a heart attack my junior year at U.T. (again my mom said I could not go, we could not afford it and dad said I will take care of it) while talking to friends and remember what a great dad he was and how the only time he missed me preforming was that week, my mom again asked if I knew where he was, sure he said work, why? She told me that day where the man who had been my biggest fan in everything I did was that week. She told me and a room of 30 while we waited for him to come out of tripple bypass surgery. She said, your dad worked 32.25 hours of over time that week on top of his 40 hour week. After working the overtime he came home and did paint and body work on a car to pay for your sports and your cheer (yes had to have money for that too, girls teams had to pay for all their own stuff) She told us of how he insisted she call him at the end of every quarter to tell her the score and how I was playing. I was upset, because he had missed my first game cheering as a senior. He was upset because he was missing me hit a ball. She told us of how he still to that day rewinds the video of me, my first cheer game as a senior and watches. Nope no one in that room was dry eyed. Including 3 professional football players that were friends of my dad's from school, all linemen I might add. Those men told of my dad's glory football days and how colleges recruited him but he did not go because his father was term. ill and he had to work to support family. My dad was the second to the youngest. They said he often told them he did not mind he would have a son and his son would do what he never did. He put his older brother and three sisters through college.
As I got older and was showing my son all the treasures of the metal box under grandpa's bed grandpa came in and says what are you doing with my stuff, it dawned on me why he insisted on keeping all this stuff. I, worked hard to be excellent in everything I did and usually was. I looked to those stands to see him similing and waving and thinking to myself, see I have done well he does not miss the boy he never had. I have not known much failure, guess I am lucky that way. But for all the work I put into those things, they were his blood sweat and tears. That is why the meant so much to him. I had often dreamed of showing those things to my daughter, but since I can't have anymore kids, a boy is what I got and as my dad told me and his father told him, ya get what god gives ya. So, while my son 7 years old plays football and he plays baseball, and he runs track, I sit in those stands with my dad and I watch him. When he needed several hundred dollars to buy things for these events I went to work overtime to get them. So I guess somewhere along the way, my dad, pagents, twrill, and cheer instilled in me a sense of sportman, a sense of pride, it taught me what good friends are that last a life time. It taught me I could do anything I wanted, but most of all it taught me the love the sac., the caring and devotion of a dad.
I never knew of the sac. my dad did make for me and it never occured to me that he sat in those stands to watch me play and to watch me cheer, he traveled after he busted his butt working all day to see me throw a baton in the air. Not because he was my dad and had to but because he was my Dad and he loved to, and if he would have had that son, that is where he would have been for him. My dad recovered and I have spent every friday night with him at my old high schools football games, even when I moved across state I flew home. I sit in those stands with my dad now. Only now I have to help him up and down the stairs.
The other night something occured to me I will never beable to thank him enough for all the things he gave me ya know the stuff money does not buy, fate helpped me give him something no one else did. A way to say thanks, for all the hard work. I said hey dad in a few years we will be watching the kid play here for my old school won't that be cool? He got the biggest smile I even seen and he said I know, I have known all along. So though I can not thank him enough for helping me reach all dreams, I made one of his come true. I gave him a son in the form of a grandson. I suspect fate will do the same to me, so I am expecting a granddaughter when the time comes.
So I guess that is why I defend pagents and cheering so. When people attack them it feels like they attack the greatest man on earth. These are the great memories of my teens, and my twenties, and later. He even has all my awards, promotions and copies of bonus checks from every job I had. Though at the time I did not realize to buy my pom poms and smiled doing it and never let on how hard he worked for thoses pom poms was him showing me that he would always support me.
The point I am trying to make is anyone who really wants to do it can. Just depends on what kind of values their parents give them. Do I think JBR would have ever had to work like me and my dad, nope, but maybe she would have been one of those girls that went to help me get sponsers, that loaned me a dress when I needed it, and would have been someone ones bestfriend for 25 years.
My dad, well he is a very strong and not an emotional man at all. He has only said I love you two times to me in his life, once when he woke up from that surgery the second time was when he was fixing to walk me down the isle and offering to help me make a quick get away if I wanted lol. I say that is the only time he said it. It was shown unheard thousands of times in my life. The father of the girl I spoke of eariler, when I was getting divorced and not worked for years, he hired me to work for his company. Those people that I met and became part of their lives and they mine have been with me every step of my life. I think that some pagent moms make it look bad all the way around. But until you are actually there, how can you judge everyone. When you are juding the Ramseys so. Remember what JR will be missing out in his life, and just maybe through no fault of his own. Remember there is a little girl that might have stood on a field or on a side line cheering looking up to find dad, so she could wave at him, or walking down a runway while here she is Miss America is being sung. I don't know who killed JBR, but I know that somewhere there is a little girl that should be looking up for her dad, is having to look down from heaven for her dad.
IMO
Kat
