Flash Back to 1980

Funny thing happened today.

I was checking out my blog visitors and saw I had a hit from Italy.

Now that's odd... who the heck would know me from Italy?? So I checked the entry page they had come from and it led me to another scrapbooker (that I didn't know). So I looked around her blog a bit - admiring her work and noticed that she's a desingn member over at Scrap Jacked.

I've visited Scrap Jacked before - My BF and sis-in-law Shari has it blogmarked on her blog and it's a cool spot. Someday I'll do a jack and get in the running... Someday when I'm caught up, have time and can see the flat surface of my scrappy room counter top.


So I'm looking around at Scrap Jacked now and looking over the names of the scrappy gals that have been "jacked". And this name pops out at me... Ashley Wren.


Wow - I haven't heard that name for decades...

Ashley Wren...? Ashley Wren...?

I'm pretty sure that Ashley Wren was the girl that lived in the house across the little creek in our backyard - back in 1980 when we lived in Knoxville, Tennessee for one short year.

We were both in the fifth grade and we used to skate together in her driveway and in my basement to the crooning of Barry Manilow. We learned cool tricks like crouching low on one foot while sticking the other out in front - balancing all the way down the curved driveway being careful to swing to the side before we hit the garage door. She had cool roller skates - the kind that looked like sneakers... Mine looked like sneakers too - but the kind of sneakers that had a metal skate buckled to them...

Ashley Wren is the one that first introduced me to the white gloved "king of pop" and Thriller - about 43 plastic surgeries ago when he was still black and before he looked like a girl. (Thanks?) And together we'd go over to Tomi White's house and we'd all three read the book Tomi's mom had gotten her about how girls are different than boys... (gross!) But Tomi was so cool - her mom let her wear make-up and she even wore a bra! She didn't have any boobs - but she had a bra.

So I'm still over at Scrap Jacked and I click on Ashley Wren's name which takes me to her blog... And there's her mini profile at the top - she's in KNOXVILLE! Could this be the SAME Ashley Wren???

I clicked on the link to the rest of her profile and while I waited for it to load I went in the kitchen and called my mom.

"Hey mom? What was the last name of the people that lived behind us in Knoxville?"

"Wren you say?...well you'll never believe this..."

And I told her all about how I'd found the blog after doing an internet "Billy" from Family Circus (you know you've done it too... don't lie...) And I arrive back to my puter chair and plop myself down.

Oh.


This Ashley Wren is only 27... So unless she's REALLY lying about her age, it's not the same one. wow... This Ashley Wren was BORN in 1980... yikes. 40 is gettin' closer and closer...

Oh well. She does really nice scrap work though.