Thanks Mike! I'll never forget Pearl Harbor, thanks to you!

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is an important day in history and one I will never forget. And while I would like to thank my history teachers for the fine job they did, I cannot give credit to anyone but one of my first boyfriends, Mike D, for searing this date into my brain for eternity.
Today is the anniversary of my first date with Mike. He taught me a lot. He was a Navy brat (his words) and had lived all over the world it seemed to me. He was smart, and I loved to listen to him talk. He had the sexiest blue eyes that just melted my young insides to butter. And he was so charming, he called me his beautiful Aphrodite. *Sigh* How much more charming could you get to a teenage girl?
But he taught me a lot more than an important historical date. He taught me to never brag to your friends about how good-looking your new boyfriend is until you've seen him without his cap!
I met Mike at Indian Lanes and he made my heart flutter with his blue eyes and cute little posterior. But he wore a cap and I couldn't see his hair. We all know how important the hair is! By night's end however, he had my phone number and we had set our first date for December 6th, 1979 to see the Senior class play, Boys and Ghouls Together, at Satsuma High School. I was so excited!
He arrived to pick me up and I went to open the front door. Shock! His hair! I had bragged to all my friends about how cute he was! But that hair ruined it! It was almost a "little boy meets GI Joe" haircut. All I could see from that point forward that night was his hair.
But I was polite, although a bit cold probably, looking back on the night. We went to the play and I sat hoping no one would see us as I listened to him talk about random stuff. But I will never forget him asking me, "Do you know what tomorrow is?"
No, I was clueless as to what tomorrow was. But Mike went on to explain to me what Dec. 7th represented and why I should care. Well, it stuck. I still remember 32 years later.
And I still remember that date with Mike above most others too. I went home intending to never go out with him again. My God, could you blame me? Did you see that haircut!?!
He called me up a couple of days later and asked me out again. I turned him down. But he was gutsy enough to ask why. I was cruel (and shallow) enough to answer him honestly.
He must have really thought I was something special, because he offered to change his hairstyle. So I said okay. And at his request, I told him how I thought his hair should look. We dated for 8 months or so after that. And he taught me many more little life lessons and I think he might have made me a better person. I no longer judge people by their haircuts at least.

Change your profile pic on Facebook?

There's a lot of buzz going around right now about the Facebook user campaign to change profile pics to raise awareness of child abuse.  There's also a lot of talk about it being started by a pedophile as an attempt to entice children to approve their friend requests to them.
First of all, I think it's a wonderful thing that we as individuals can influence and inform so many people through social sites like Facebook.  But I think we would all do better to donate $5 to our favorite cause rather than change our profile picture.  Of course, it wouldn't hurt to do both! There's nothing wrong with having a little fun and being even a bit silly at times.  But how much more good could be done for all these causes if we took even a small amount and donated it to legitimate organizations that work for our favorite causes.
As for the pedophile angle, here's my two cents worth.  Even if this was started by a pedophile, would that really change anything? If you're being a responsible parent, you're monitoring your childrens' activity on Facebook and the computer in general. And while we can't keep an eye on our children every moment of every day, there are things that we can do to protect our children.  A couple of very simple things to do are to keep computer use in a public area of your home and check your computer's history occasionally.  Hold your children accountable by having their passwords for the sites they visit that require them and then occasionally poke around and see what they're up to.
Is that spying? Well, it may border on it, but in these days of technology, parenthood is a whole new world.  It's my personal opinion that we have to be a bit nosy for the good of our children.  After all, if we don't care, someone else will.  And it might just be that pedophile.