I owned a bucket of love in the sixth grade, in 1959, in Scarsdale, N. Y. I carted around a red leather bucket bag with a black silk lining. We were required to wear stockings and skirts to school. We dreamed of boyfriends who would adore us and ensconce us in mansions. Not one of us had dated yet. We held hands with our girl friends wherever we went.
My red bucket bag was a symbol of popularity. We passed our bags around for friends to autograph. The signatures on my bag were always with me as a reminder of how loved I was, or in my case, how needy I was. For me, there were never enough names scrawled, never the important ones. I pretended I didn’t want those girls as friends anyway. |
