The Secret Order of the Sugarhouse Hoppy Taw Society

The first morning in our new home, we spotted Lorri Christensen in the back yard as we ate breakfast. I asked why a girl was in our yard and the finer points of duplex living were shared with me. OK, I didn't mind sharing. "Limes, she looks near your age. Why don't you go out and make friends?" I was a child who wouldn't look a parent in the eye and say "no", but I did all right at simply remaining seated, saying nothing. My father knew I could use a little help in the ice breaking department and took me outside. Dad started a conversation I joined within moments. Lorri and Limes became fast friends very quickly.

She showed me around the back yard where her father had installed a swing set complete with slide and seesaw, a sandbox, a spot for a wading pool and a painted-onto-the-black-asphalt-driveway hopscotch course. We talked about the things we liked to do. She had a little pee wee bike upon which she was a hellion in the neighborhood. I said that I was getting a bike this summer. She had Mr. Potato Head and I had Cootie. She owned a ViewMaster, while I claimed a record player and all the Mickey Mouse Club records, including the Davy Crockett theme. She loved a toy accordion and I was proud of the piano Uncle Ralph and Aunt Martha had given me. We liked jumping rope and we loved to Hula Hoop, but the activity that could eat up entire afternoons in the sun was hopscotch.

Lorri asked me that first morning how many hoppy taws I owned. I didn't understand the words. I looked at my dad and he didn't seem to understand, either. Lorri got a little heated, saying, "Hoppy taws - for hopscotch!" We were still drawing a blank. "Wait here!" She huffed off into her side of the duplex. She reappeared, carrying a small flannel bag with a drawstring. From it, she pulled some articles that resembled hockey pucks. These were round, real rubber (not plastic) disks about 2 1/2 to 3 inches in diameter. They were rather flat and they were wildly patterned with swirls and whorls of many colors. Dad and I still didn't understand. I managed to squeak out, "I don't have any of those." She gaped at me. "Well you're going to need some." She stepped up to the hopscotch course with one hoppy taw in her hand. With a small flick of her wrist, she landed it in the square marked "1". She hopped scotch exactly the way that I did, but she used her hoppy taw in place of the rock or crumpled paper or small plastic toy I'd always employed. She moved the hoppy taw along with her hand, by tossing it, or scooted it ahead with her toe, just like the rules of hopscotch required. My father and I caught on pretty quickly to how the hoppy taw was used, but we still didn't understand that it was a requirement where we now lived.

Lorri seated us on the back porch and proceeded to teach us the ropes of hopscotch culture in Sugarhouse, circa 1958. If a girl had no hoppy taw, no other girl would want to play hopscotch with her. If a girl owned one hoppy taw, she was barely alive. Lorri seemed certain that three hoppy taws were the best number to have, and I noticed that she had three. A girl was highly regarded if she had a drawstring bag in which to carry her hoppy taws, but was regarded as a dabbler if she carried them loose in her hands or her lunch box. Dad asked why a girl needed more than one hoppy taw, and Lorri replied that maybe she would switch them each day or use one hoppy taw for "evens" and one for "odds". Maybe one favored hoppy taw would be a girl's good luck charm, or certain ones might be used only for school or only for after school. Then Lorri let us know that girls who carried five or more hoppy taws were just show-offs and usually delayed the games with little rituals of using all their disks in every game. Excessive hoppy taw use was not considered good form. A few minutes with 5-year-old Lorri had put us in the know!

My dad is a practical man. Where did one buy hoppy taws and was Lorri certain three was the correct number and were the drawstring bags purchased along with the hoppy taws? The hoppy taws could be purchased at the mom-and-pop store down a very long block of 6th East. No street crossing was involved in getting there. The hoppy taws cost 10-cents each and no two were alike. One's mother had to make the drawstring bag and that gave Dad and me a little pause, because my mother didn't . . . well, let's get the hoppy taws first. I was given the princely sum of $1. Lorri and I walked that long block to the store with wooden floors and spent a proper amount of time and consideration selecting three hoppy taws sufficiently different from one another to give me legitimacy. There was enough money left in change to buy two bottles of YooHoo which we enjoyed on the long walk back home. Mrs. Christensen had quickly sewed me a drawstring bag while we were on our shopping expedition, and I was in business!

There followed many, many months of hopscotch. We played it at school, we played it at other girls' homes, we hosted tournaments in our own backyard at which we sold lemonade and cookies. I became good at hopscotch because I played it incessantly. I tore chunks out of my bloodied knees from falling on burning asphalt and frozen asphalt alike. I got good at more things than simply navigating a simple course by hopping on one foot. Hopscotch is the first activity I can remember that called upon me to strategize, to size up an opponent, to predict what another player would do (after observing her through many, many games), to learn the strengths and weaknesses of other players. It was the first arena in which I spotted cheaters with my own eyes and I concluded that some people had to win - it was all that mattered to them. My father is a man who believes a person should pursue any activity he or she takes on with total spirit, total commitment. He believes we learn from every single thing we do and, therefore, every single thing we do is important. He talked to me about hopscotch. He coached me at hopscotch. He encouraged me to chase after something I loved, and to be good at it, drawing every lesson I could from it.

These are the things I learned about myself on the hopscotch court, something I recognized decades later: I am fair and honest and big enough to lose if someone else beats me. I am not aggressive, needing to win and also crush my opponent. I am a keen observer of people and situations. If I am quiet and absorb what is happening, I can draw on that information later. I can be cautious and aware that others in a situation are bigger or more experienced than I, but that doesn't give them the win. I can look the dragon in the eye and roar back. And I learned that a kid with Father Now's DNA was never, ever to fold. For any reason. Bad weather, nasty tumble on the asphalt, too tired, bored. Uh-uh. You don't walk away or stop trying about anything that's important.

In my 30s and 40s, I was a kickin' labor union rep, a position I landed upon by defying seemingly all odds. I was not educated or experienced to do this work. I had to work hard to win the privilege. The employers of our members always, but always, hired attorneys to meet with the union for contract negotiations, disciplinary hearings before the school boards and other matters of labor relations. I have seen grown men blanch at the thought of going up against this shyster from that law firm or a fabled hired gun. Trust me, reader, I have qualms about many things, but meeting a giant in the board room never terrified me. Because I'm fair and honest and big enough to lose if someone else beats me. I'm not aggressive, but I'm unfailingly assertive and I'm still a keen observer of people and situations. I still absorb information and draw on it later. I'm cautious and keenly aware of an opponent's strong points, but that still doesn't give them the win. I can look the dragon in the eye and roar back. And I never, ever fold. I won far more hearings than I lost. I settled contracts that people said would never be settled. I'm not a braggart, or even particularly remarkable. I'm simply saying that what I learned on the hopscotch court helped me to be successful in life. You see, The Secret Order of the Sugarhouse Hoppy Taw Society really did prepare young girls for future life.

True story: I lived in Salt Lake City in two separate residencies with some L.A. in between, and never after age 13. For decades, in California and Nevada, when adult women friends talked about their childhoods, the subject of hopscotch would come up. I never failed to ask about other womens' hoppy taws. I never failed to get blank stares. Not one friend had ever heard of such a thing. What, did that old man of the mom-and-pop store whip hoppy taws up in a laboratory behind the house and only sell them out of their tiny store? Were Sugarhouse girls the only kids in the world to have known about such things? I began to think I was delusional and eventually stopped bringing it up. One doesn't like to feel others think she's just a bit odd. I've not asked anyone about hoppy taws since before the age of the internet. I decided to try one time in the privacy of my own office to research online about hoppy taws before writing this post. No one would know. I didn't have to be embarrassed.

The information highway is a wonderful thing! Guess what I learned? Hoppy Taws, LLC, is a Salt Lake City business, operating for many, many years. No wonder I didn't connect with others who knew about them. I wasn't mingling with Salt Lake City women. It pleases me that hoppy taws can be purchased online everywhere now. Maybe the word will spread and before I am doddering, I can say "hoppy taw" to another woman whose eyes will light up at the memories. By the way, hoppy taws cost upward of $4 each online. I'm no John Maynard Keynes, but I'd say that's quite a lesson in economics from a 50 year perspective.

In my ears right now: Still the Rolling Stones, "Waiting on a Friend". I posted the lyrics on my blog sidebar. I'm planning a short post to tell why something I found on YouTube charms me, as related to this song. When Justin came in from his route yesterday, he said, "Limes, that same song was playing when I left here this morning!" "And all day long, Justin."

Something that charmed me: I have a new Salt Lake City friend. More specifically, she is a Sugarhouse friend. I have $1 that says she knows about hoppy taws, and her daughter(s) and her granddaughters.

True Colors

When we worked for the union, Ex and I were swept away for 2 weeks each year to headquarters for some intensive training on varying topics. In election years, it was about political action, without question - we represented public employees whose income came from tax money. When important laws came down, we could expect deep immersion into the newest protected class under the Civil Rights Act or the finer points of objecting to random drug testing of school bus drivers in California (state law vs. federal law). As collective bargaining laws changed, we were the first to learn about the impacts on our members.

Annual training was always fun until we had a baby - then was a bit tougher. But the dynamics of 250 labor union business agents in a hotel ballroom for days on end was a beautiful thing. The egos are uncontainable. The passion is unequalled, because one can't do this work if one doesn't have the fire in the belly. If one isn't questioning, curious, rebellious, creative and gutsy, one is not respected by peers or the employer. If one cannot emote at a hearing like Clarence Darrow in the courtroom or write the post-hearing brief like a Supreme Court Justice, one should look for other work. The annual gathering gave us a chance to brag for and learn from our peers who covered every inch of California.

There came a year that we were losing disciplinary hearings at an alarming rate. Careful review showed strong evidence that in most of these losses, the rep had carefully prepared a case built on the accused member's version of events . . . and been derailed in the hearing because the member's version matched no one else's. Brainstorming sessions of battered representatives suggested that if only we could really understand what makes people tick, we could succeed for our members despite themselves. Now, where to locate that manual on human behavior?

Enter True Colors® ( http://www.true-colors.com/ ). We all got teasers preceding the training event: "Here's your manual on human beings!" True Colors® is a simple model of personality identification for people of all ages that improves communication through recognition of a person’s true character. Utilizing the colors of orange, green, blue and gold to differentiate four basic personality types, True Colors® is easily learned and is the real deal - recognized and used by mental health professionals around the globe. True Colors® training is always entertaining - participants absorb and use the information as they see fit. Some are briefly charmed to learn their dog Frisky is a green, while their third son is a glowing orange. Others become so connected to this method of understanding people, they become rabid. I would be one of those. I am a certified True Colors® facilitator and trainer.

At breaks, the reps milled around laughing, chatting, "accusing" one another of being "orange" or being "blue". Whether they would ever use this stuff again, they clearly understood the rudiments of it immediately. Soon we all looked beyond our best friend and toward, perhaps, our supervisor, spouse or the nemesis who sat across the table during contract negotiations. "Oh! I get it that when I say "X", he hears "Y". For his personality, I need to express it in these terms." By the end of the session, we all understood that every person is a rainbow, possessing each color to some degree. The point is that we all tend to lead with our strongest color most of the time and that is what defines us. After two weeks, we warbled Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" and went our separate ways.

Some reps never used it again, preferring to use facts and logic to win cases rather than messing around figuring out human beings. Those people are green. Some used it forever after, seeking peace and harmony. Those people are blue. I cannot say what an impact True Colors® had on me. You see, I'd never understood other people at all. Now I had a roadmap! I've used it for 25 years now - it is part of me. I apply it to bosses, people I supervise, potential partners, girlfriends and store clerks. I knew Amber's rainbow was identical to my own by the time she was 2. It helped me to understand what she needed and how it needed to be presented to her. I have trained thousands of people in True Colors® and it is some of the most fun I've ever had.

True deal: True Colors® is so ingrained in me that one can take me to a cocktail party and have a bit of fun. Send me through a group of people I do not know and give me 5 minutes with each. I can go off to a private room and list these folks' rainbows, in order, with a little explanation beside each color. When I present these rainbows and ask if I'm correct, most people are pretty startled. I'm no Criss Angel, but I can work a little magic!
This won't surprise the reader - I use True Colors® daily. It's what makes me strong at booking jobs, at calming the angry customer, at helping a struggling home dude, at encouraging someone who is down, at getting my own needs met . . . I understand - at least at the surface, which is where we always start - what people need from me in terms of communication. That makes me feel powerful, because I can give whatever information I need to present in a way the listener will understand and value.

Should LimesNow sound just a little too full of herself to the reader, please consider this: I didn't make this stuff up. I don't own it. I'm not that good. It's just a tool that worked and works for me as I sit rambling on the bus trying to connect with others.

For a little fun, go take a free True Colors® test and learn something about yourself. I took one this morning and nearly fainted. I know myself well in True Colors® terms. Imagine my shock this morning to learn that I'm not what I once was - and I am what I thought I couldn't be. My faintest color for decades is right up there now. I think that attests to things I've achieved and a new mindset. An old dog can learn new tricks!

In my ears right now: What else? "I see your true colors shining through, I see your true colors and that's why I love you . . . "

Something that charmed me: Finding myself Green/ Blue/ Orange/Gold! I worked for years to stifle my gold a little and punch up my green. Or maybe it's just appropriate that Limes is green.