On    One autumn evening, when the northern winds began to pick up, and the colors of the once vibrant leaves faded, my friend, Anna, and I decided we wanted a record deal, and fame.  We both believed our voices rivaled the angels in heaven, our style was cool and fresh, and we already had two fans—our mothers.   Now, Anna and I were nine years of age at the time.  Our “cool and fresh” style resembled that of a 90’s kid on a “Barney the Dinosaur” TV show, and our voices sounded more like squeaky ducklings.

            While laying on our bellies with Crayola colors and scrap paper from the printer I had horded in one of my pink folders, we made a list of all we needed to accomplish to successfully reach the end of our journey to fame. 

            The first step was to record our angelic, nine-year-old, voices on my nifty Fisher Price cassette player I got for Christmas.  I scrambled in the toy chest to retrieve the already tarnished cassette player. 

            As for Anna, she was a very precocious little girl.  Her straight blond hair, her Delawarean accent, and funny way with words made her a kindred spirit.  I decided, while choosing which crayon to use, that I would hire her as our song writer.  She would be perfect. 

            On play-dates that usually involved adventurous, imaginary games that involved beloved beanie babies, this journey, in our young minds, was going to take us farther than the back yard.  I didn't know much about Hollywood, only Hollywood MD which, trust me, isn’t anything like that far away Californian destination.  Our dreams were big, and dreaming about the future was more fun than the silly pretend games with our beanie babies.  

            Becoming famous singers couldn't be too hard we decided.  Anna’s mom wasn't go to pick her up for another two more hours which was more than enough time to prepare for fame. 

            Our list on the journey to fame read:

            1.  Pick out cool outfit. 

            2. Buy camera for band photo shoot.

            3.  Ask mom for a ride to Wal-Mart to buy the camera.

            4.  Find a cassette tape I won’t get in trouble recording over.

            5.  Write a song.

            6.  Figure out how to spell.

            7.  Name the band…

            8. …..

            Sadly, number eight never came for the two hours were up, and the dreams would have to wait due to the fact Anna’s mother arrived in toe with her four brothers.  The dreams of fame would have to wait.