I was six years old when the snapshot was taken. The photo is of a dimension you don't see a lot these days: it's square. It's one of those odd shaped pictures taken before the standardization of film, I guess. There is even a white border all around to heighten the antique quality ot the photo. It's an impromptu shot; carelessly composed as I lounge on my grandfather's white vinyl recliner in the den. I can't get over the wallpaper we had in the house back then. Crazy 70s pattern -- white background with giant flowers bigger than my head scrawled in a hand drawn style as if some mad doodler went at it with a fat tip marker. It was a black and white sort of room at that time, what with the aforementioned shiny white laz-e-boy and and line art wallpaper. The adjoining wall housed a black leather couch although you can't see it in the picture. Hanging above my head is a pencil drawing of my Uncle Mikey, drawn in the better days of his youth. It's almost as if the drawing was placed there to further create the illusion that the scene was sketched.

I look pretty pleased with myself; leaning way back, one arm draped on the armrest, the other holding aloft a non-descript, dirty looking stuffed toy. Is it a dog? Is it a bear? I'm not quite sure. It's one of those cheap carnival toys, certainly not one of my good plush toys. Lord knows what a huge variety of stuffed animals I possessed. This one doesn't look as if "plush" is an adjective that could ever have been honestly applied to it. The body isn't even made out of furry material. It's wearing a sort of red and white striped tank top and sporting blue legs. It has no shoes. Nevertheless, I wave it at the camera with pride. Beside me -- propped up under my arm -- is a pink and white geometric patterned tissue box. They don't make tissue boxes like that anymore. Mostly I see the floral watercolor types, or else the multicolored marbled foil kind. Oblong in shape, the family size box has a sextagonal opening. Is that a word, sextagonal? The opening has six sides. At any rate, it doesn't seem to be filled with tissues. Instead it houses a secret cache of I-don't-know-what kinds of kid treasure: Barbie clothes and the elusive Barbie shoes, one of which is always lost, leaving the other to stare blandly at you in the vain hope that you will one day find it's pink plastic mate. Dresses made out of tissues (O.K. so there are some some tissues in there.) Other odd bits and things I felt the urgent need to lug around. Perhaps the box served as a boat for the quite sailor like dog/bear. Who knows what was going on in my little head.

It's years before my hair was fated to turn curly. Limp, light brown locks hang down from the crown of my head in a over grown dorothy hammil cut. My bangs are in need of a trim, they bow out to one side in a slight cowlick. The most striking thing about this picture is my clothes. There i sit all in blue. Navy T-shirt, denim overalls; I'd say they were bell bottoms, considering it was 1978. Though I can't really see, I know I'm wearing the ubiquitous tiny gold hoop earrings I wore since my ears were pierced at nine months. I'm also wearing a red heart shaped pendant on a chain. Quite dashing, or at least I must have thought so. And tying the ensemble together are my red basketball sneakers. They look like pro-keds low tops. You might be wondering what's so exceptional about my attire. I can't really think of anything except that twenty years later overalls and sneakers have again become my clothes of choice. That six year old Angela has changed only in size and hair texture. Oh, and the red sneakers. I guess I have out grown those. I prefer blue ones now.