Aw man sunshine girl! Whoa man! I met Sunshine Girl when I was five years old. My family had recently returned back to Annapolis from Baltimore. The community we moved to was called “20”. This is where I met her.
Sunshine Girl did not live in “20”. She came to visit relatives there usually in the summer. I saw her for the first time either during the summer after kindergarten or the summer after first grade. She was the prettiest human being I’d ever seen in my life. Big pretty brown eyes that twinkled when she blinked. Real eyelashes that would put these modern fake ones to shame and she had a smile that was brighter than the sun. Hence the name. Her skin was a pretty caramel color that was even prettier when it was tan. She was the first girl that made me recognize “a girl” and I sat up and took notice. At five years of age I did not know what a kiss was but I certainly knew that I wanted to kiss her…..
The amazing thing was Sunshine Girl would actually talk to me and play with me. We would run through the community and to the playground and between buildings, all innocent fun that five and six year old kids will have. She was older than me but I didn’t know that at the time. Her older cousins and two older brothers made sure I kept a safe distance. After the second grade I moved from “20” to my new community Bywater and didn’t see Sunshine Girl for a few years.
Lo and behold one day at my new community me and a couple of friends were hanging outside my house just having fun. There was a girl who lived across the street and down a little bit who was popular with all the other girls. This day a group of girls came over to hang with her. I could not believe my eyes when I saw that one of the girls with Sunshine Girl.
Sunshine Girl had the talent and beauty to be a star. She could have done tv commercials, movies, videos anything. Even though she probably only stood about 5 foot 3 and maybe weighed about a 110 pounds she had a big smile, a big laugh and even bigger personality. She knew how to have fun and to create fun. Wherever she was there was a party going on and I mean that in the truest sense. No building, no place, no space could contain her energy. School could not do her any justice because she had more to teach than to learn. She was a natural actress. There were some people who may have been put off by her combination of beauty and energy but not me. I was fortunate to know her and know how kind hearted she was and how loyal she was, to a fault sometimes.
All through school and into early adulthood I would see her occasionally as we would run into each other from time to time. We never dated but we also had a respectful different kind of friendship. We would occasionally have conversations about who I was dating and I would always ask her family members how she was doing. At this point I haven’t seen her in twenty years or so but she left an indelible mark on me nonetheless.
Sunshine girl taught me a valuable lesson: be yourself, no matter what. No apologies no pretense. She also set a standard for me in the sense that I was comfortable talking to attractive women early in my life. I never judged people based on initial appearance.
And you know what? For me, she doesn’t have to be anybody else. She is Sunshine Girl.
The Real Life Corner 