My Sister Lisa (Part 1 of 6)

My sister Lisa was born when I was in first grade. In fact, once while we were driving in the car right after she was born, I suggested that we name her Lisa because I had a friend in my school class named Lisa. I guess my parents took me up on my suggestion because that is what we named her.
Several years later, at the end of the school year in Sixth grade a bunch of us kids were goofing off while our teacher was out of the room. We had some text books that were brand new that year. There was a space on the inside back cover to write the name of the person it was assigned to each year. We had written our own names in the back of each book. Now at the end of the year we were getting ready to hand them back in. But it seemed that none of us could resist the temptation to speculate who might have the book the next year. We each started writing names of younger kids who would get each book the next year and the next. My name was written in the book for the 1973-1974 school year. I quickly wrote in the name of someone who would be in sixth grade the next year for 1974-1975. I put my sister Vera down for 1975-1976, then my Sister Karen for 1976-1977, then someone else for 1977-1978, then Julie for 1978-1979, with other people for 1979-1980, with Lisa Loveless for 1980-1981. At that time, (1974) my sister Lisa was actually in Kindergarten. As we were doing this waste-of-time-activity a girl who had not been participating with us looked over my shoulder and saw the name Lisa Loveless. There was another girl in our sixth grade class named Lisa. (Not the same one as I knew in first grade.) The girl looking over my shoulder immediately picked up on what I had written, “Billy wants to marry Lisa! ” she teased. She even told Lisa (the sixth gradder) who was in the class who cringed with disgust when she heard it. Then a guy named James pointed out to everyone that we were just speculating who might have the books in the future. He said, “The Lisa Loveless who he has referred to is Billy’s little sister who is in Kindergarten right now.” He also pointed out the year 1980-1981.” The girl who caused all the fuss decided to just be quiet. All this commotion caught the attention of our teacher who had come back into the room by now. Mr. Wood made us erase all the names except our own.