Back in the days of feathered hair...

It was 1985. Her name was Shannon Everett. She had the most beautiful feathered hair. She didn't cement it into place with layers of hairspray like other girls. No...even despite the humidity of the Amazon, she had an ingenious way of flipping it back & it would hold perfectly...until the next time she needed to flip. Now that I think about it, she would place her hands under those feathers & flip quite frequently. I wanted to be just like her. So I practiced & perfected my feathered flip.

I think I was a pretty quiet kid growing up at Puraque. You'd have to ask my dorm parents what I was really like. In the picture of our little dorm (all 22 of us 1st - 5th graders), I'm the only one with my head down. I look shy. And when I think back, I wonder if I wasn't more like Grace...just quietly taking things in. Benji Hill is standing there with his tongue sticking out. Not surprising. He & Benji Nordaas once caught a ginormous frog & unashamedly chased after a bunch of ladies with it.
I loved being around the older kids like Shannon. It always made me feel special. Carol, a senior, was my piano teacher. I loved being teased by the high school boys, even though I'm sure I whined at them to "stop it!". Some of my favorite memories were sitting at a table with Steve Borgman, Brent & Kevin Davis. I would pour ketchup & mustard on my rice & beans just to gross them out. And I'll never forget when Kevin licked his finger & stuck it in 8 pieces of dessert, declaring, "This one's mine...this one's mine...", only to have his older brother follow suit with, "You can have it...you can have it..."

As an MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) kid, I always felt a little on the outside with so many NTM (New Tribes Mission) kids around me. But there was one thing that set me apart & made me feel special. No one else had a Dad like mine! I remember hearing him fly over in the middle of school, our Principal, Mr. Lotz, asking me to "identify this plane", having class dismissed, the anticipation on everyone's faces "What's he going to do next?", the toilet paper rolls gliding down, and then the mounds of candy. Some of the bigger boys would lead expeditions later in the week to recover candy that had inevitably landed on rooftops or in the jungle.

I'm don't know if anyone came close to the perfection that was Shannon's mane of hair, but 23 years later, people still remember a quiet little girl and a crazy pilot with a love for fun and adventure.