Seriously?

OK. What you are looking at is not a casting call for Hollister, A&F, Limited Too or Roxy Girl models. It's a pic of some local graduating 5th-graders.



I don't know about you, but 5th grade for me was unruly hair, orthodontia, and glasses if I needed to see the board for any reason. Life is much easier when you're pretty(or so I've been told), but I didn't know that kids around here bypassed the Awkward Years. Girls go from being little cutie pies to being graceful young women without bothering to stop at Acne, Braces, and Glasses and collecting $200.00. It's the trippiest thing.

I moved here in 1996 from a middle-class urban city about 15 miles from here. I lived in a tattered blue-collar neighborhood. The whole area was grey...the streets, buildings, and even some of the people. Most of the kids around there were pale, lethargic, and/or obese. Teen-agers had acne, either had orthodontia or needed it badly, and there was a jarring number of pregnant teen girls. Sure, there were organized sports, but mostly soccer and baseball. The beach was a world away, and a huge undertaking in terms of travel.

The first thing I noticed when I moved here was the kids: Lean, tan, overwhelmingly blonde, mostly "pretty", active and vigorous. The beach was their playground, and many of them had surfed/skimboarded/body-surfed from the time they were toddlers.

What really killed me was how Pretty they were. Kids were everywhere: in the store, out in the neighborhood, at the beach, at the park...everywhere. Each and every one of them was Pretty. My neighbor at the time, Kathleen, had wondered if Our Town was a breeding ground for Pretty.
I have to wonder sometimes...