Tell Me A Story: P E R I O D: From Twisting to Twerking

Mary Marcia
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

P E R I O D
From Twisting to Twerking
Copyright 2013 Marcia Norwood

Baby Boomer
A baby boomer is a person who was born during the Post–World War II baby boom between the years 1946 and 1964.

Twist
A simple dance that became a craze when Chubby Checker recorded the song, "The Twist," in the late 1950s. To perform the Twist, stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Hold your arms out to the sides with your elbows bent. Rotate on the balls of your feet while twisting your hips, feet and shoulders back and forth. The Twist was the first international rock and roll dance of its kind, inspiring dances such as the Mashed Potato, the Monkey and the Funky Chicken.

Twerk (The Urban Dictionary)
To dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance. The term made it into the Oxford dictionary, and was most recently used to describe Miley Cyrus' lewd bump and grind move at the MTV awards.

I'm a Baby Boomer who has always loved to dance - even with my cousins. I still TWIST and SHOUT with the best of them. I went gaga over Elvis Presley's appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, on September 9, 1956. I played Elvis' 45 record, Love Me Tender, on the Hi Fi in my bedroom, and innocently dreamed of kissing a boy.

(Circa: 1954) Cousins: Tandra and Marcia

Girls today are highly connected. They carry the internet in their pockets, and are bombarded with adult sensual messages on their iphones, Androids, ipods, MP3 players, and YouTube.

Miley Cyrus made headlines this week with her risque performance at the MTV awards. She performed a her party song We Can't Stop, and Robin Thicke's summer hit Blurred Lines while twerking furiously with the singer-songwriter.

Katy Perry “lost her discretion;” “tried on” a girl and brags: “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked it.”

Lady Gaga’s trashiest refrain yet in Love Game begs, “I wanna take a ride on your disco stick.” Disco stick being Gaga’s self-proclaimed euphemism for penis.

Gaga says with a wink: “I’m just trying to change the world one sequin at a time.”

Not on my watch. I want my daughters and granddaughters to learn about sex from me.

This morning as I smoothed on estrogen crème, I pondered how the world has changed since I was a girl. I was ten years old in 1959, when my mother, Natalie, gave me The Talk about the birds and the bees. Mom told me the same time she told my sister, Gloria, who was eight. That should give you a clue about my level of maturity at the time. I think Mom would have put off telling Gloria and I the facts of life even longer…if it hadn’t been for Cynthia Smith.

My friend, Cynthia, lived in our neighborhood. Cynthia and I rode the same bus to Ridgeview Junior High in Liberty, Missouri. I vividly remember the day in 1959, when Cynthia came to supper at our house, because earlier that day Cynthia asked me if I knew what a certain four-letter word that started with “F” meant.

I brought up the subject at the dinner table just as Mom was pouring the ice tea.

“What did you say, Marcia?” Mom asked.

I repeated it: “What does “F__ __ __ __” mean?

MOTHER: “Mary Marcia Lee Bush! Don’t say that word again! Where did you hear that word anyway?”

Mom put down the pitcher of ice tea so hard that some spilled out on our psychedelic orange and pink plastic placemats. I knew instantly it must have been a bad word because Mom said my full name.

ME: “Cynthia told me.”

MOM: “Cynthia Lee Smith. I’m going to talk to your mother about this.”

Before Mom called Mrs. Sally Smith, she turned her attention to my father, who was trying to hide his smile behind the Liberty Tribune.

MOM: “And what do you think about all this, Jewell Edward Bush?”

Cynthia shot me a look that let me know I was in trouble with her, too. Somehow, with one little four-letter word, I had gotten myself, my friend and my father in trouble, and all before dessert.

DAD: “Talk to the girl. Pass me the mashed potatoes and gravy.”

The next day, Gloria and I sat on the hardwood floor in our living room, watching “The Howdy Doody Show” on our black and white Zenith television.

Mom called us into the kitchen for The Talk.

She said, “My mother, your Granny Lucille, never talked to me about what I’m going to tell you. I learned about it from the girls at school and they never got it right. I want you girls to know the truth. But remember! This is PRIVATE. It’s not your job to tell any of your girlfriends about what I’m about to tell you. Do you promise? Marcia? Gloria?”

We promised.

We lied.

Marcia and sister, Gloria (Five Years before THE TALK.)

Mom talked to us about menstrual cycles and how married people make babies. I could hardly believe it!

ME: “You mean to tell me that you and Dad have done that four times?”

I was the eldest of four children. I didn’t say I was the smartest. I was thrilled with this new information, and instantly felt compelled to share it with my best friend, Debbie Dale. I walked straight out my front door, across King’s Highway to my best friend, Debbie Dale’s house in Westborough, and spilled my guts. I told Debbie everything…just the way my mother told it to me.

Mother never used proper names for body parts….both male and females had privates. It’s just as well because Debbie wasn’t keen on the details, anyway. She got the overall picture. She didn’t like it and she didn’t believe it.

“If that’s true,” Debbie said, “That means my parents have done it two times…to get my brother, Greg and I! ”

“Well how do you think I feel?” I asked Debbie. “My parents have done it four times to get Gloria, Bret, Terry and me. Not to mention that Dad must have done it another time because he has a daughter from his first marriage. No wonder they don’t like to talk about his divorce.”

We got silly. We started saying the first names of our friends’ parents (something considered disrespectful in the 50’s) and counting (according to my hypothesis) how many times they had done it.

ME: “Faye and Ralph have only done it twice. Judy will be glad to know that.”

DEBBIE: “If that’s true – Rhonda’s family (that just moved in down the street) have the record. They have six kids! It just can’t be true. That’s gross. I’m going to ask my Mom.”

ME: “Oh! You can’t do that, Debbie. You promised me you wouldn’t tell your mother.”

She promised.

She lied.

Debbie spilled her guts to her mother, Mrs. Edith Dale.

MRS. Edith DALE: “Mary Marcia Lee Bush. It’s time for you to go home now. I’m going to call your mother.

Debbie had the last word: “By the way, Marcia, Mom said your mother was wrong. We don’t know HOW your parents got you – but that certainly isn’t the way my parents got me or my brother Greg. I believe my mother.”

Edith lied.

Debbie eventually found out the truth about the birds and the bees. I think it was later that same year when our entire girls’ gym class …attired in matching orange jump-suits for PE/Health Class …watched a movie at Ridgeview Junior High about menstrual cycles. Two girls threw up in the middle of the reel to reel presentation, and someone at school had to call their mothers.

I wanted to do it right when I became a mother in the 70's. Rod Stewarts’ songs, Do Ya Think I’m Sexy, and Tonight’s the Night; and Donna Summer’s Bad Girls; filled the airway. Song lyrics grew more persuasive in the 80’s with Madona’s, Like A Virgin. Even Olivia Newton John was singing: Let’s Get Physical, Physical.

When the time came for me to give The Talk to my own daughter, Kristin, I didn’t want to be vague, like my mom. I wanted to be informative in a creative-sort-of-way.

My daughter, Kristin, and I had more than one talk about sex as she grew older. I included more details with each talk; and unlike my mother’s unisex term for privates: I called a penis a penis and a vagina a vagina…much to my daughter’s chagrin.

I added: “It’s like God has placed an ALARM CLOCK inside each of us. When it’s time for you to become a woman, your ALARM CLOCK will go off! Everyone’s alarm doesn’t go off at the same time. Some girls and boys mature faster than others. There is no right and wrong time. God has preset everyone’s alarm for their own special time.”

KRISTIN: “I’m going to get into the shower, wash my hair, and forget everything you told me.”

She washed all thoughts of menstrual cycles (periods) right out of her mind.

I waited.

Just before school one morning, I was sitting at my teacher’s desk in my Kindergarten classroom at Independence Christian School, when Kristin ran into my room.

KRISTIN: “I’ve got a mess on the back of my skirt, Mom. I need to go home.”

ME: “It’s time! Your ALARM CLOCK has gone off!”

KRISTIN: “No! Mom! It’s ink. It’s not my ALARM CLOCK. It’s ink.”

My poor little sixth-grade-girl was still in denial. We got in our Dodge van, and raced home. This was The Day those Kotex pads in the linen closet would come in handy. My thoughts stopped abruptly when I heard the sound of sirens. I spied a black and white police car in my rear view mirror. I pulled over to let it pass. I was surprised when the black and white parked behind me. An unemotional officer got out of the black and white, and walked up to our van. The window of our van was broken, so I opened the door and started walking toward the officer.

Kristin screamed at me: “GET BACK IN THE VAN! He’s going to shoot you!”

She buried her head in her lap.

“Get in the van,” ordered the stoic officer.

ME: “Was I speeding, officer? I’m sorry. You see, this is a very special day. Today my daughter has become a woman! She just started her PERIOD for the first time, and we are on our way home to change her clothes.”

He melted: “Get in the van, lady. Go home. Slow down.”

I didn’t get shot. I didn’t even get a ticket. Finally at home, I handed Kristin the Kotex pads from the linen closet. She reluctantly handed me her soiled skirt to put in the washing machine.

KRISTIN: “It’s INK, Mother.”

And so it was.

It would be another year or so until Kristin’s ALARM CLOCK would go actually off.

Kristin married her high school sweetheart, David Stovall, in 1990. She gave birth three times to: Joshua, Emily and Caleb. Soon it will be Kristin’s turn to give The Talk.

I became a mother again in my 50’s through the miracle of adoption. I have two teenage daughters, Sarah and Faith, and four grandchildren. I’ve shared my Alarm Clock Story with each of them, and with many of their teachers and coaches.

My youngest daughter, Faith's Alarm Clock went off while she was at school.
"I'm bleeding in a very bad place," Faith told her teacher, and so it goes from one generation to the next.

We've come a long way, baby, from twisting to twerking, and Lady Gaga may be trying to change the world "one sequin at a time” -- but I’m out to change the world, one story at a time.

And why shouldn't I?
Girls still talk about the birds and the bees and about PERIODS...and somewhere, there will always be men wondering WHY we talk about it at all.