Neighborhood Angel

Amy Sorensen
Names have been changed to protect privacy
Neighborhood Angel

To find Jessica Jolene Smith on a Saturday morning, you don’t have to look very hard. All you need to do is drive over to Julif’s park and listen for the high-pitched squeal that could only come from the mouth of little Jessy. The very proud goalie of the Turquoise Tarantulas doubles as the teams enthusiastic cheer leader as she plays her “most favorite game” (Smith J), and helps her team by making 3 saves. The Cabbage-Patch faced 7-year-old jumps as high as she can to pass on her energy to her friends, but quickly shifts into competitive mode to sweep up the bright pink ball and save the day! All of that energy swiftly wears out though as she plays the front line and zones in and out. Her short, wispy blond locks fly all around as she scans the field for her favorite colored ball. While her attention span may switch, her love of the game keeps her motivated so she can be just like her older sister, Lexy, who is also a goalie of her 11-year old team.
After her team wins, Jessy loves to go to her favorite restaurant Gold Star Chili for some steamy chili cheese fries. The little girl can barely hold still as her bright blue eyes stare at her warm plate while she licks her Kool-Aid stained lips and decides which fry to devour first. Apparently forks are not a necessity for this munchkin, but even in mid sentence she is the first to stop and correct etiquette:
“Lexy take your elbows off the table! That is very bad.”
“What?!” Lexy would laugh while Jessy continued talking about her friend with a new cast. Not five minutes later though she would exclaim:
“Okay now we can put our elbows up, it’s allowed now”

Even though she may have chili all over her face, Jessy still babbles on about friends, the soccer game she just won and all sorts of other topics with no sense of order. Lexy and I would just laugh as she would stop talking to take a bite and then ask us what it was she had been talking about.

For someone to truly know (and understand) Jessy’s personal language, you have to have known her for at least a few years. This is exactly why I can carry on conversations with the little neighborhood angel. I have known Jessy for almost her whole life (she moved in next door when she was 6 months old) and some things have still not changed. Her favorite show has been, and probably will forever be Spongebob and, according to Jessy, I should know her favorite candy is a Milky Way. With Jessy though, her favorite candy changes as often as the weather in Cincinnati.

Jessy absolutely loves Halloween! This is her favorite holiday because she loves to dress up and collect candy from all of the houses. Her dad also decks the house out in all kinds of decorations and let’s Jessy carve her own pumpkin to put on display. Jessy is very proud of her dad’s display and loves to show people the lights and fog machine next to her pumpkin cage.
Fall is one of Jessy’s favorite seasons because of all the leaves and of course Halloween. There are dozens of trees outside her two-story house and she loves jumping in the mounds of yellow leaves and throwing them at whomever happens to be passing by. Her free-spirited attitude leads a lot of people to join her and full leaf battles happen often as a result. Jessy also loves bringing over her best friends Maggie and Emily to play in the leaves with her. She says they are her best friends because “they are nice to me” (Smith J). Depending on the day she says that Abby, Becca and Haley are also her best friends. Jessy hopes that when she is grown up she can live closer to Maggie. At the moment Maggie lives up the street and around the corner from Jessy, so by closer she must mean next door. Jessy seems care-free about getting older though.
Eventually Jessy wants to be a veterinarian, which makes sense because she loves her three cats and always wants to play with the neighbor dogs (including mine). She doesn’t really care if she gets married, but wants two kids just like her mommy. Currently though she has around 6 boyfriends (three of which are named Austin), so this leaves her with lots of choices. Jessy would like to go to Anderson High School like all of her neighbors, but wants to go to college at Turpin High School. For some reason I decided not to burst her bubble and tell her this is not possible.
While her idea of her future seems to be pretty simple and set, her past she summed up in one sentence:

“I don’t remember when I was a baby. Oh yes I do! We have pictures! I was a cute baby”.
Jessy is a real character and her mother says she wouldn’t be surprised if Jessy ended up on a stage someday. Her facial expressions are priceless and she is very animated. Because of this she must have a favorite actor and singer. For Jessy the answer was quick and for both she simply says that the Jonas Brothers are her favorite actors even though “I don’t even know if they are in a movie. Nick is my favorite” (Smith J)

Jessy is a very simple little girl, but yet so hard to describe. She is without a doubt the most entertaining little girl on Loisview Lane with all of her enthusiasm and her endless energy and bright smile. She was her mother’s personal Cabbage Patch doll and even as she grows up she still has those rosy cheeks and short, slightly curly blond hair. The feature that stands out the most though is her bright blue eyes. She uses these to get anything she wants and they twinkle when she grins. Since it’s hard to describe Jessy in one view, her neighbors all chimed in to help out with one word descriptions of everyone’s favorite Turquoise Tarantula:
“Fun” (Brown) Jessy’s best friend Emily,
“Energetic” (Copper P) 13-year old neighbor Peter,
“Wild and Spontaneous” (Copper W.P.) 15-year old neighbor Paige,
“Loud” (Hershey) Jeremy the 20-year old brother to Abby,
“Athletic” (Hunt) 16-year old neighbor Jake,
“Weird” (Copper Pa) 8-year old neighbor Palmer,
“Spunky” (Mills) new babysitter Kristen,
“Rambunctious” (Smith L) Sister Lexy,
“Performer” (Smith N) Mother Nicole,
“Spastic” (Smith D.) Father Drew.

As Jessy continues to play her neighbors don’t need to look far to find the fun, energetic, wild, spontaneous, loud, athletic, weird, spunky, rambunctious, spastic performer whom will always been seen to me as the little neighborhood angel.


Works Cited
Brown, Emily. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010
Copper, Palmer. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010
Copper, Peter. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010
Copper, Wendell “Paige”. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010
Hershey, Jeremy. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010
Hunt, Jake. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010
Mills, Kristen. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010
Smith, Drew. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010
Smith, Jessica “Jessy”. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010
Smith, Lexy. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010
Smith, Nicole. Personal Interview. 10/23/2010