"I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too!"

                                          
The Wizard of Oz is the first film I remember watching as a child. I was visiting my aunt's and uncle's along with my family and I went looking for one of my older "grown-up" cousins leaving my folks in the kitchen with the other adults. She was in her room upstairs. I remember her bed, her guitar, and her TV switched on broadcasting the film. I sat down on her bed Indian style and watched the whole film. It was unbelievable. I think my attachment to Tv began right then and there.

Pretty soon after this episode my cousin's younger sister, whom we all endearingly call "Nannina", started baby-sitting me and another younger cousin (we were 4 girl cousins. The female streak was interrupted when my baby brother was born). She taught me how to read and write, she indroduced us to  pumpkin seeds, bit'o honey, and bubble gum. She taught us how to blow bubbles, dye Easter eggs, dance to disco music and to John Denver. She taught us about Halloween and took us Trick or Treating. And she would have us re-enact The Wizard of Oz. Of course, she was the Wicked Witch of the West, the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz and Glinda, the Witch of the North, whom she liked best. She was reaallllly good as the wicked witch. I was usually Dorothy and our other cousin would take turns being the other characters, but then we would exchange roles just to be fair.

My childhood was just so much richer thanks to Nannina. She was only a young teen herself, but to us she knew everything. We loved her company and were often enthralled when she was baby-sitting (oh, which I learnt later she didn't particularly like doing!!!! And all this time I thought I had been an angel!! go figure...). She had a significant impact on my following childhood years because I was constantly curious about everything. I was naturally inclined to learning and it was quite easy.

When she went away off to college, TV took her place. However, during one of her visits back home she lent me a book. It awakened something inside me. It was a book on witchcraft. I was still too young to really understand much about it, but it had left its mark and I believe that since then I have been searching for the right moment to regain that knowledge and get my life back. Funny that almost 20 years later, she had given up on Catholicism and had preferred Wicca and had once again been the one to start me off on the right path.

Thanks Nannina.