The Purple and Pink Plastic Clogs

I don't often get requests but following the moan about life class Psychbloke said I had to post the picture (the one with me in purple and pink plastic clogs, my cousin and her uncle the ronald mcdonald clown). Needless to say I was remembering the pictures wrongly. The purple and pink clogs and the ronald mcdonald clown were on the same trip to America but not in the same photo. Here are the two incidents (oh, and I'd thought I'd throw in a couple of samples of my work from 27 May 1973 which happened to be on the same page in the photo album - the first one is called boat and, while the second one could easily be a spider, it could also be a person with long hair - and I only say this because it doesn't look too dissimilar to the people I drew at that time).




This was back in 1973 (which will account for a whole host of issues such as the poor quality of the photo, although reproductive process didn't help either, the fashion faux pas, the decor etc etc).

I was 3, just. I'm thinking I had a lot of hair for 3 (judging by my neice's efforts in the hair department, but perhaps we grew more in the 70s to compensate for the lack of electricity). My cousin is about 3 days older than me, but she is the baby of a family of boys (which is why I'm thinking she looks more baby-like) while I was a very independent only-child (my world was altered irreversably in approximately 5 months from this time with the birth of my sister).

This was in Oklahoma City, home of the paternal grandfolks. Nanny lived in a single story house with a garage, a carport and a huge garden yard lined with small trees and a sort of gas works thing fenced off in the middle. I very much enjoyed it in Oklahoma when I was this age - Uncle Tom had a massive family of 4 boys and a girl - lots of kids to play with, big games. The boys were afraid of my mum this trip because they thought she was going to make them strip naked to paddle in the pool (as I was prone to doing). Luckily she didn't make them and they got over their fears. On our next trip the first thing Nanny did when we arrived was take me shopping to buy swimming costumes - 2 bikinis to be precise, on the way home when I was being naughty she threatened to paddle me with the table tennis bat she kept in the glove compartment if I didn't sit back and be quiet. The good old days.

Anyway, my cousin had these purple plastic clogs. They were the greatest. My dad bought me a pair. I think I liked them the best because they had no backs. They were also sort of shiny in a plastic kind of way. I was never again allowed to have anything else other than sensible clarks brown sandals until I started buying my own shoes. These were the bees knees. In the middle picture my cousin is looking at her uncle because she isn't quite sure who this clown is, I on the other hand was quite confident that I'd never met him before but he kept tickling me which was funny.