I Remember

When I was little, I went through the Barbie phase, as did most normal girls my age, even in the age of feminism and equal rights, we all wanted to look like her, have her seemingly endless money, clothes and, of course, Ken.

One Christmas I got a Barbie camper van. Being the late sixties it was painted flower power orange and yellow and had a big daisy on the side. My cousin lived next door, and at the time we were inseparable. My house had a sloping paved driveway, not a big slope, but big enough. Rapidly, we chucked Barbie and Ken and took that camper van for a spin ourselves. We spent hours...I mean hours...hauling that van up the driveway and climbing on top of it together...we were that little...and riding it down the driveway. I don't remember how long we did that, probably only a couple of days. Years later I remember how fun that was. No adult stopped us. They got a kick out of our antics. So much for Ken and Barbie on a camping trip, we were too busy racing!