I was eight years old and on my way to climb the neighbor’s cherry tree. The cherries were big, yellow and red and sweet as candy. I had my foot on the first branch. “You can’t climb up there,” the neighbor said, an old lady probably born around 1910. Confused I stopped, my brother and I had asked permission to pick from her tree and she had said “yes”. “Why not?” “Because you are a girl. Come down from there!” I stared in disbelief. Was she serious? She was, she even made my father tell me to come down and I was called a word I didn’t know. “Obstinate” was the word and I am not sure my father knew what it meant either. I was deeply hurt and humiliated when I had to stand on the ground and watch my brother climb around in the tree. With a mother who refused to see her womanhood as a barrier, I carried a strong sense that I could do anything boys could do. I could do anything my brother did. I am not afraid of mice or spiders. I love t...