Shannon Decker was my best friend in fourth grade and we lived completely different lives. Shannon had what could be called in the 70s "hippy parents" and the house teemed with children. Her father was a striking man with unruly black hair who once worked in a pit crew for A.J. Foyt. It had been rumored that he stored worms in his mouth when he fished. My dad was also a fisherman, a renowned one at that, but after hearing about Shannon's dad's unique habit, I decided her dad was infinitely better. Shannon's mother was a very pretty woman with wild, copper hair, a feature that Shannon shared. Her mom had not cut Shannon's hair since the day she was born and Shannon prided herself in being able to show anyone her actual baby hair by hauling her tremendous mane to the front of her body, revealing the mismatched curl of fine golden hair at the tip. Unfortunately, Shannon hadn't brushed her hair much since the day she was born and it took several hours of convincing during slumber parties to let her friends pull the rats.

Shannon was the oldest sibling. She shared a room with the third child, another girl, and her brother's room next door was designed like a forest, complete with actual stuffed raccoons and squirrels hanging from the hand made, tree limb frame. She had two other brothers; one was potty training age and the other a baby. I remember one morning after I stayed over, the toddler came into our room to tell Shannon he needed to pee. She rolled over, pulled her trash can near the boy and said, "Go in there." Unfazed by this suggestion, he did, right through his big boy pants. He then turned around and left her room. As I watched through half shut eyes, I thought of how my own mother would have certainly killed me if I did that. But, at Shannon's house, these moments were common and forgivable, especially when it came to peeing. 

It seemed like every time her parents finished loading the kids in their van a voice from the back would say, "Mom, I've got to pee" just as the gravel moved under the tires. "Get to the back, I'm not stopping," she would say. "Get to the back" meant pee in the plastic tub behind the last van bench. If my mother ever witnessed this, she would have fallen over dead. My mother was incredibly picky about where she peed. When we traveled, she would send my sister and me into gas station bathrooms and return to the car with a cleanliness report. If it didn’t pass, we drove on. On one trip, after two Phillips 66s, one Shell, and a Sinclair station failed Sarge’s examination, I was begging for a plastic tub. Note: arbitrary peeing wasn’t always allowed at the Decker’s. There was a sign on the outside of their above ground pool that read "Welcome to our OOL, there is no P in our OOL, keep it that way."

Being at Shannon’s meant feeling a freedom that I never felt at home. It meant learning skills like how to toughen your feet by walking barefoot on hot cement because as her dad said, "You never know when you might need to run barefoot". She and her family were incredibly creative and encouraging. They were always game for helping us make puppet shows or makeshift movie theaters out of cardboard boxes. For our 5^th grade music contest, when others like me were singing songs about little flowers or “Sunrise, Sunset”, Shannon boldly and flatly sang “Dust in the Wind”. Courage like that comes from great support.

I loved her house because her family was what a family should be. They clearly adored each other and accepted each other for who they were. Sure there were times when I would stretch across the carpet and find hidden treasures of old food or broken toy parts buried within the shag, but it was truly a home. Her mother never let the house get in the way of the family. If my mother ever saw their house, she would have said it looked like Tunket, but she would have missed the point.

As I look at my own living room and see tossed shoes and a Buzz Lightyear face down on the carpet, a watercolor painting secured to the wall with a Tinkerbell sticker, and China Doll who, with my encouragement, has painted her own face like a…well, I don’t know what she was going for…I realize that I am becoming more like Mrs. Decker than my own mother. I don’t use the plastic tub but I have hung a few bums out the car door on the shoulder of the road. I don’t want to live in Tunket proper, but a cute suburb on the west side would be just fine.