The Summer We Were Sixteen: Part IV - Ozz

In Australia, summer is Dec-Feb, so my 16th birthday was right before the end of the school year. I remember it clearly because as a 10th grade Elective PE student I had the opportunity to be part of the 7th grade swimming lessons program which lasted a week. Being one of the top swimmers I was assigned with the advanced class which had my sister in it. Bad idea, we get along WAY too well. All week we goofed off during the lessons.
The last day of the lessons was a pool party and my birthday. One of my best friends at the time gave me a stuffed toy sheep with a bib which read: Best Friends. It was possibly the coolest gift ever because I have a weird sheep fetish.
The whole day was a blast, and I ended up sun burnt. So my sixteenth birthday party that night I was as red as a lobster. But a few weeks later I had a nice bronze tan and my hair was sun-bleached.
Like most summers, I spent it at the pool or beach, but that year we had really bad fires around and after Christmas. We lived in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney and that area is a tinderbox. When fire season kicks in, the smell of smoke lingers for weeks. But that year was really bad. Before Christmas almost an entire neighborhood was lost, leaving them stranded for Christmas.
By mid-January, a 30km front was heading straight for the line of towns in which we lived. So a burn off was set into place in the bush which our home fronted. I remember we had to take the dogs inside and lock them up because they freaked out, and wildlife slithered and scampered up into the streets as we watch the firefighters set our bush on fire.
It did the trick though. The fire had nothing to burn, so when it met with the burn off, it went out or changed course away from all the homes. I remember at night going to a lookout and seeing the orange glow crawling down the mountainside like a slow lava flow. It felt so eerie.
A few days later, Dad decided he wanted to go take a look at "our" bush. So we hiked down to a small creek with the dogs. On the way back, I slipped on some ash, and underneath embers still smoldered. It stung like crazy, and I obviously cried and the dogs rushed over to lick my face in their dog-sympathy kind of way.
We rushed home to hose my leg off and found a nice burn from my knee down my shin. To this day I still have a small amount of ash trapped under my skin on my knee.
So, that was my summer when I was sixteen.

~Ozz

The Summers We Were Sixteen: Page

Thanks to Christi for asking us to do this. I'm actually going to do two summers, because they relate to each other. The summers that I was fifteen and sixteen. This might be a little long...

My birthday is in November, so I had a whole two-thirds of the school year to be fifteen before I went from junior high (9th grade in AZ at the time) to high school. I'd made the top choir and the JV Cheer squad, and I was so excited to finally be moving up in the world.

Unfortunately, I had a difficult choice to make that year as well. My church had scheduled Girl's Camp the same week as Cheer Camp. Long story short: I chose Cheer Camp.

Wrong choice.

I won't say I didn't have fun, because I did. I learned a lot, and thought I'd made some good friends. The girls on my squad were nice to me, and I was good at everything we did. But the challenge came when I realized that my new "friends'" bad language was rubbing off on me.

I'd never made a habit of swear words. I'd said them in the past, but only once, and only behind the staircase at my elementary school to prove that I *could* but I didn't ever *want* to. The more I hung out with these girls on my squad, the more these words drove themselves into my brain.

Eventually, school started and I was basically swearing. Not constantly, and definitely not at home or in writing or to anyone I knew it would offend, but the words came out of their own accord. The devil on my shoulder was proud of me, and the angel on the other hung her head in shame.

By the time the cheer squad did the first football game and pep rally, I'd come to the conclusion than none of the girls on my squad even really liked me. Not only that, but cheering had a negative effect on my singing voice, and choir was definitely my top priority at the time. So I quit the squad. Soon after that, I realized that I'd dug myself into a bad hole, and that hole was full of swear words.

I remember standing on the steps of my high school waiting for my mom to come pick me up, and something happened that made me utter a curse under my breath. I was completely alone, and (to be a little religious for a second) the Spirit hit me hard, telling me that swearing wasn't the way for me, and I needed to stop. So, I made a conscious effort to stop. A habit like that is hard to break and it took a long time, but I did it.

Then, the summer I was sixteen I was able to go to Girl's Camp with my church. I was also able to attend a program called EFY (Especially For Youth) that members of my church put on each year. It was a whole week of spiritual talks, songs, games, study, and celebration. I met cute boys, made new friends, and had one of the most spiritual moments of my life that I still treasure to this day.

I learned from both summers, about myself and my life. And lessons like those stick with you.

-Page/Darci