Hey Dammy - Matt Meurs age 6 had difficulty pronoucing his Ts and would thus yell hi to my sister in this way.

Yesterday was my sister Tamara’s B-Day. I will not say which number because people often think members of my family look far younger than their actually years and I don’t want to ruin that guise for Tammy (or for myself)
But I thought I would post some –Things I Learned from Tammy- in honor of her birthday.
Lesson #1 -Sometimes you have to fight for what you want (a great lesson when you have 6 siblings.) When Tammy was in the 7th grade, she and her best friend Betsy tried out for the boy’s basketball team at our small Christian school. Why you ask? Well this will probably date us but they tried out for the boy’s team because there was no girl’s team. Yep that’s right – no athletics for girls. And this wasn’t just because we were a Christian school. Girl’s basketball was a new idea in a lot of schools at that time. Oh except in Iowa where for years they had 3 on 3 basketball which is just a mockery of the real thing. (you could only dribble twice and then you had to pass or shoot. I guess they thought more than twice was un-lady like. There were more absurd rules but I will spare you.) Anyhow the result was that our school began a girl’s basketball team – coached by Betsy’s grandfather I believe and three years later when I was in sixth grade and played for the first time we all took it for granted that there had always been girl’s basketball.
Lesson #2 – When eating Lucky Charms, you should always save the marshmallow pieces for last. This I learned one morning at the breakfast table when I was mad that she still had marshmallow pieces left in her bowl and I only had the sugar coated cereal left in mine. I accused her of hogging all the marshmallows and she replied – I didn’t hog them, I just don’t eat them right away like an idiot. What do you mean? And she said she ate the sugar coated cereal first and left the marshmallow for last. I asked why you would do that and thus delay the whole reason for eating Lucky Charms and she said because she knew how to make a good thing last and I did not. So now I always leave the marshmallows for last. (Consequently this also lead my always eat my veggies first especially peas)
Lesson # 3 – Like “exotic” food and you will get more of it. We grew up in the Midwest, with 4 boys and 3 girls in our family and Tammy and I were the youngest. When there are growing boys in your family you never get the good food or much of any food at all. (I was almost 18 before I ever discovered their was white meat on a chicken, having always just been handed the chicken leg to eat because of course every young child wants to gnaw on that gristly meat on the chicken leg.) But Tammy always got this special food. Food the rest of us didn’t particularly like. Like angel food cake – with confetti and strawberries. Not really exotic food anymore but not ordinary food either when I was growing up. Every year I can remember Tammy got the elaborate angel food cake for her birthday. It would be sitting up side down on a Pepsi bottle so it could “rise”. And she would just look at it and smile knowing that the rest of us liked just yellow cake or chocolate. And tried as I might when I was young I could never get over the texture of strawberries and apparently neither could my siblings so Tammy would get them all.
Lesson #4 – Never wear socks with sandals in public or corduroy pants. I have never down either of these since 8th grade. (Tammy however has done both since but I was so struck by the idea that it was not cool that I have never been able to bring myself to do it. Tammy easily succumbed to peer pressure.)
Lesson # 5 – Know how to tell a good story or don’t tell it. I think the idea was that most people don’t really want to know what you have to say but if you make them laugh they will let you talk. She has this great story about going over the Clinton bridge in the middle of shad fly season and having to try and stop the car to pay the toll and basically just skidding by the toll booth because of all the bugs on the ground. But she would need to tell it in order for you to laugh.
Ok I think that is plenty. Tammy if you read this – HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!