Goddesses past and present

Dec. 1, 2005

Dear Patty

Cheerleaders were goddesses at my high school. At least they seemed to be and were treated that way. They yelled themselves hoarse leading cheers at pep rallies and football and basketball games. They were serious about preserving and revving up the school spirit that had been lodged in their care. They worked hard but never sweated.

Debbie Baker and Peggy Reid were my favorite cheerleaders. They were goddesses and probably homecoming queens who were regular people. They smiled at you and spoke to you in the hall. Not all goddesses do.

High school and college cheerleaders are much more gymnastic now than they were then. At least as athletic as the teams they cheer for, goddesses now fearlessly leap high into the air and expect people to catch them.

Our niece Casey is on the dance team at Dexter High School in a small town to our south. Our niece Carly is on the flag team in the marching band at her high school in Cincinnati. Her sister Kim is on the high school soccer team. Goddesses now sweat.

Carly wasn't in town when DC and I visited my sister's family in Cincinnati last weekend. She and the 300 other members of her high school marching band were performing in Hawaii. The morning after we arrived Kim caught a flight to Dallas to play in a soccer tournament. She means to play for a major college someday. That night their college student brother, Kyle, flew in from New York City, where he is an intern on a TV show.

Each one stays in almost constant touch with friends on their cell phones and by e-mail.

Each generation is both awed and appalled by the next. I'd never been on a plane when I was that age. My high school marching band couldn't have found Hawaii on a map. My version of a college internship was a summer job good enough to make car payments.

Their young lives are more expansive, exciting the way a video game is, but they take the multitasking mayhem in stride because it's all they've ever known.

My only concern is whether life as we know it in the 2000s could come at some kids too fast.

My first car was a 10-year-old Renault with bad brakes that cost $125. Kim's father wants to give her his sleek black car from Germany when she turns 16. She wants to turn it down, hoping for something other than a "parents car."

Carly's car was in the shop. Driving isn't one of her talents her dad let on, but a friend of Carly's has had six accidents in the past year. Not all of them were accidents.

The friend is a cheerleader whose car was "keyed" rather dramatically one recent night. The paint was thoroughly scratched up, and shaving cream on the car formed into the words "Die slut."

One suspect: A former fellow cheerleader thrown off the squad when the school administration discovered her porno Web site.

Sometimes life in the 2000s is too fast for me.

Where have you gone, Debbie Baker? Where have you gone, Peggy Reid?

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.