The character of Sherry Ridenhour is based on several girls & women that I have been friends with in my life, although there is one person, I met during the first part of my college career. She was a very positive person, who could pick you up with just a smile or the sound of her laughter (and like Sherry, she was always laughing). I will add that Sherry’s interest in “heavy petting” was not inspired by anyone I was involved with, but a guy, who lived down the hall from me in the dorm. His girlfriend, who had the same name as a Muppet’s girlfriend, was using Playtex Living Gloves and hand lotion on this guy, because she came back to get it off of his nightstand.
The first photo, which I found on Tumblr, inspired the girls in Room 420 of the dorm. They look like they are having fun on a fall day in 1966. The girl on the right, pulling up the other girl’s dress, is what I imagine Sherry looks like at the beginning of the story. I found another photo on Tumblr that sort of looks like the same girl, but I’m not positive.
Last is this photo, which at first I thought was a senior photo from that era, but I have since learned that it is a photo used in beauty shops, to give examples of how a woman can have her hair styled. Sherry invites Mykel to the Alpha Sigma Date Dash on Valentines Day. She and Kathy go to a beauty shop and Sherry has her hair “frosted.”
WIP: DYNAMIC DUO OF THE OZARKS 