I turned down the FIRST final rose…with pee in my shoes.
After the FIRST final rose. While I love sharing favorite things, I love sharing favorite stories too. With another season of ABC’s The Bachelor in full swing, I’m reminded of a story from my childhood. I like telling stories. This story is about a bachelor, shoes, and pee.
My first memories of childhood are in Brewton, Alabama. I have memories of riding bikes and fishing in the neighborhood pond, and I have lots of memories of Mrs. Peavy’s Kindergarten. Back then, public schools did not offer kindergarten, so in small towns, you either went to a church kindergarten, an established kindergarten in someone’s private classroom, or you didn’t go. ***Info about all photos at bottom of page***
Mrs. Peavy was all business. Her kindergarten, which I attended at age five for the 1972-73 school year, was in a big room in the back of her home. She meant for us to learn a lot, and we did. She wasn’t warm and fuzzy, but she loved sharing information with us and exposing us to new things. Dramatic performances were her forte, and she produced a kindergarten play and an elaborate graduation ceremony every year. I don’t think any of us thought, at the time, Mrs. Peavy loved us, though looking back, I’m sure she did. She wanted to provide us with the best early education possible, and she succeeded.
Mrs. Peavy might not have been warm and fuzzy, but she had the best playground in town. With a child size gas station, pedal cars, a teeter totter, monkey bars, and a child size “house,” it was awesome. That is one thing everyone I’ve talked to seems to remember…the awesome playground. I still wonder what happened to the vintage playground equipment when the house was torn down. To see or purchase vintage pedal cars like the one pictured below, clickhere.
As mentioned before, her forte was dramatic productions, and in 1973, she lined up a fantastic production for our kindergarten play, Ole King Cole Takes A Wife. I was cast as Little Bo Peep. I’m sure I was cast in this lovely role for my short stature (she is LITTLE Bo Peep, after all), and not my singing talent. I loved my little blue and white costume full-length dress, bonnet, and shepherd staff. My mother’s friend, Martha, found a big shepherd’s staff, and she and my mother wrapped it in pink ribbon, tying a big bow near the top. I remember going to her big, old house with the wraparound porch on Belleville Avenue and standing in her yellow, gingham kitchen while they worked. I had the best costume.
I know what you’re wondering…how do Little Bo Peep and Ole King Cole go together? Well, in this production, all the ladies/girls of Nursery Rhyme Land were competing to become Ole King Cole’s bride, like an early version of The Bachelor! The king’s courtiers would bring in each potential bride, one at a time. There was Old Mother Hubbard, the Widow Humpty Dumpty, Peter Pumpkin Eater’s Wife (ex-wife? I guess she escaped the pumpkin shell…played by my friend, Cindy Finlay Fleming)…you get the picture. As luck (the script) would have it, Little Bo Peep was the last one called to see the king.
Over the course of the play, Little Bo Peep (played by me) was waiting in the wings, and after all that waiting, not surprisingly, I needed to go to the bathroom. Mrs. Peavy was standing beside me behind the curtain. I remember exactly where I was standing. I looked up at Mrs. Peavy and said, “I need to go to the bathroom.” She responded angrily, “Too late now! You should have gone earlier.” I knew I’d never make it through my appearance without squirming. My five year-old self thought, “Humph! No, it’s not too late.”
As I mentioned before, my costume was a full-length dress, so unbeknownst to Mrs. Peavy, I set my feet apart and peed…right there in the wings of the stage…standing up. It was a calculated decision. Wearing a dress meant there was no visible wet spot on my clothes (which I realized in advance), so no one in the audience would know.
My shoes were a little squishy as I walked out for my moment in the spotlight, but no one in the audience knew I had just peed standing up or that I had squishy shoes. I turned around quickly and looked at the puddle on the hardwood floor as I walked away. Mrs. Peavy saw it too…too late now! I glanced at her and could almost see the steam coming out her ears!
After the king proposed marriage to me (Little Bo Peep), I sang my solo, “I’ll Never Give Up My Sheep For A King” (yes, I can still sing some of it). He wanted to marry Bo Peep, but he didn’t want her sheep to come to the castle.
No dice.
So technically, I guess I turned down the final rose way before The Bachelor was even an idea! And I did it with pee in my shoes.
My family moved from Brewton to Spanish Fort when I was in second grade, and a few more times after that, but when Facebook came around, I reached out to some of those old friends from Mrs. Peavy’s Kindergarten. I’m proud to say Ole King Cole is among my friends, as are Peter Pumpkin Eater’s Wife (ex-wife?) and the Widow Humpty Dumpty.
When I was driving from the beach to my mother’s house last summer, I drove through Brewton. As I rounded a corner in downtown Brewton, I saw vendors in a park. There, among the vendors, was Ole King Cole.
I parked the car along the curb across the street from the vendors and walked across, and Ole King Cole and Little Bo Peep had a reunion right there, but this time I didn’t have pee in my shoes.
So, yes, Mrs. Peavy and her kindergarten made quite an impression on me. Some of my favorite childhood memories are from Brewton and her kindergarten. She was a great teacher and a great piano teacher to many in the community, as well. I’m grateful Facebook has made it possible to reconnect with childhood friends. I’ll share more childhood stories another time.
In the meantime: Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver, the other gold.
And yes, Ole King Cole is gold.
P.S–Kindergarten Classmates: Does anyone else remember the dog’s tail falling off as he crossed the stage? I think the dog was played by a boy whose initials were K.I. I won’t put his full name, in case I’m wrong. Anyone?
***Photo info below***
Mrs. Ella Mae Peavy
PHOTO INFO
*I am the little girl in the green and white dress in the headshot.
*The next two photos are from the graduation ceremony for my class in 1973.
*The black and white photo is from a 2012 story The Brewton Standard did on Mrs. Peavy. It is a photo showing the 1974 graduating class at their play, or as the article called it, their “operetta.”
*The cute little girl in the red outfit in the snow picture was Peter Pumpkin Eater’s Wife in the play. Her name is Cindy Finlay Fleming, and the picture is from the Great Southeastern Snow Storm of February 1973. It was the first time most of us had seen snow.
*The photo of two adults near the end is a photo of me and Keith Pugh, also known as Ole King Cole, when we reunited last summer.
*The photo of Mrs. Ella Mae Peavy is from an article in The Brewton Standard in 2012. Mrs. Peavy passed away in 1993.
Since starting Kelly Mattei’s Favorite Things on Instagram, two of the most popular posts are related to each other: a post about Hungry Girl Magazine and a post about one of the easiest recipes from the magazine, the Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Mug.
Food-related knick-knacks are the norm at Hungryland, including an ice cream sandwich bench and a portrait of the Hungry Girl logo made from colorful General Mills cereals. All videos for the website are made right there in the Hungryland test kitchen, where you will find the pink small appliances and barstools, and the multicolor knives that are often featured in her videos. Look at the photos of the test kitchen, and you also see a clock made of multicolor spoons and a giant box of Barnum’s Animal Crackers, familiar to all of us from childhood. Oh, what I would have given to decorate my room with that when I was growing up!
*If anyone asks you what Hungry Girl Lisa Lillien is like, you can tell them you have it from a reliable source that she is the kind of person you want to hang out with…warm, happy, positive, and she has a great sense of humor. She and Gina (my new fake cousin…you know, those friends you bond with and you feel like they’re your cousins? Well, she’s my new fake cousin. She’s awesome! She’s in the pic with me…wearing the beautiful fluffy collar. I would tell you Lisa is my new fake cousin too, but y’all would never believe me.) went out of their way to make us feel comfortable on their turf as we discussed holiday plans, gifts, and things to do in LA. Lisa Lillien is an absolute doll, and she surrounds herself with other great people…like Gina (also a doll)! Lots of my photos were taken at Hungryland in December. If you’d like to meet Lisa, consider the Hungry Girl Cruise in April. It would be a great girls’ trip! Oh…I so want to go! I’m still trying to figure out how I can make it happen since I return from another vacation just a few days before. For info on the Hungry Girl Cruise, click 
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