Julia & Me, B.F.F.E

What a pleasure it was to be asked to paint this picture!  

Those two smiling little girls... what a carefree, joy-filled, happy childhood they shared.

My last name was POwell, and hers was REeves. On the first day of first grade when the desks were lined up in alphabetical rows, she was right behind me. That was where it all began. 

We got our first at-school spankings together. (Swinging double wasn't allowed.)

She was a town kid and I was a country kid, so we loved going to each other's houses... walking to hers, riding the school bus to mine.

Dozens of slumber parties where we stayed up all night.

Hundreds of cartwheels and round offs across the yard.

Thousands of flips on the monkey bars on the playground. 

Millions of antics that are just to silly to explain.

That's us in white shirts doing the splits.

My excuse for the pants would be that it was 1976, the Bicentennial year, and everyone was crazy for red, white, & blue; however, when I look at our first grade class photo (I'm front & center) I see that my choice of pants wasn't much better. 

Julia's in the back of the third row... same haircut as me. (I assume that sitting near each other didn't last long as we were talkers!)

My family had a lake down the hill from our house.  I'm sure we'd spent an afternoon on the bank or in the boat. And, I'm also sure that we didn't wear life jackets or have an adult watching us, or carry a cell phone... How did we survive!

As for the fish... I believe we took a butcher knife (as you do as kids...) and cut the top off a milk jug, filled it with water, and she took the fish home where it lived (for a short time, poor thing) in her swimming pool!!

Original Oil Painting on 12"x 12" Wrapped Canvas

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