The walk to school each morning began with a stop at the corner to greet my newer friend whose father was a professor at the college. She and her dad lived around the corner and her mother, who was from England, lived a neighborhood away, but close enough for walking, about a mile. Kathy and I would sometimes stay the night with her mom, drinking cranberry juice and ginger ale, while listening to our Beatles records.
During the week, though, Kathy and I were walking pals. Kathy was adept at making new friends, and older friends. So often we left early to stop by the home of her 9th grade friend, Christine, who was dating an even older boy in the 10th grade, at Centennial. The art of becoming a teenager is largely observant. By understanding how one does one's hair, applies makeup, puts together an outfit, one assimilates into the culture. So we both sat on either side of her in reverence as she coated her lashes with several layers of mascara (to which neither of us had regular access at home) and ratted her hair into what became a perfectly shaped football accented by completely straight bangs cut just above her penciled eyebrows.
Christine's toilette was fascinating, but not inspiring. Neither of us wanted to have hair that looked like a football once lacquered with hairspray. But her teen angst was worthy of note, and when she met us at the door, eyes swollen with tears to tell us of her breakup with the boyfriend it was clear that the songs about losing the one you love were all true. How perilous love must be, we thought. Unfortunately Christine felt a little older after the breakup and didn't see much of us since she needed to confide in others more experienced in such matters.
Different routes would mean different company as we walked. Sometimes we didn't join company but just observed from a distance. One popular redhead could be observed with her circular skirt swinging from side to side, her sweater draped over her shoulders with the arms tied around the Peter-Pan collar of her blouse.I had been too puzzled by how she happened to attain that sense of motion to think why she would want to until my friend cracked, "I wish I had a swing like that in my back yard!"
Some mornings Kathy had to be earlier or later than me and I walked alone. I preferred Elizabeth Street for the beautiful yards and homes along the walk. I had grown out of an old set of clothes between spring and fall, and my mother had rewarded me with the very latest in Mod fashion. It was nice to look so well dressed without having to worry someone else was going to walk in wearing an identical outfit.
My hair always bleached blonder in the summer sun, which seemed to draw the attention of both friend and foe. And on one particular day, a convertible Mustang belonging to my neighbor pulled up full of Red and white letter-jacketed boys. "Hi, Sherry!" one of them shouted.
I glanced nervously around the street. There were no other people walking within 2 blocks on Elizabeth Street that day.I pulled my hair down over one eye and ducked my head. Surely my neighbor, Sam Ratcliff, knew who I was. He had to see me nearly every day. Sometimes he came over with his friend on a Vespa to play basketball in our front yard. I would climb up in the tree from which the net hung to visit with them as they played. That is how I got asked to Prom in the 8th grade when one of his cute friends was taken with me. (My sister was not amused, my mother was adamant that I was entirely too young, and I was disappointed because the asker was pretty cute. My father promptly took down the basketball net and remarked that the boys were killing the grass.)
If Sam knew who I was he was playing along with his buddies that day, and the teasing went on for nearly a block. Still calling me Sherry the boys asked whether I thought someone named Robbie was home. I was mortified. They thought I was walking by some boy's house. Obviously one of those houses was some boy named Robbie's house and they thought I was Sherry-who-liked-Robbie!
Still no one on the street. Two blocks up to the turn where they had to go one way and me the other. I walked faster, not responding, both flattered to think I looked old enough to be one of their class mates and embarrassed because I didn't know how to gracefully get out of their line of attention.
Then to make matters worse, they started singing "442 Glenwood Avenue" a song about a party at that address. Rats. All this great attention, no girlfriends to share the glory with, and no possibility of it becoming an episode on Father Knows Best or Donna Reed.
Finally I reached the turnoff. What a crummy situation, I thought as I pivoted on one heal and headed up to Freed Jr. High. I hoped when I got to High School someday that High School Boys still wanted to take me to the Prom and had something to say to me when I knew who they were and could have an intelligent conversation with them. Their mouths fell open as they realized the case of mistaken identify. I snickered to myself.
Not a story I could share, I had learned. It was becoming clear that being liked by boys made one a target of hatred by girls less able to easily develop friendships with them.The girls in your own crowd could and would share the names of their secret crushes. They always had a first and last name, like Rusty Samford, or Jimmy Bascom. If the crush was shared your, it could net a letter jacket for a few weeks with the understanding it had to be returned for certain occasions. But only the High School kids had cars to take you to the Tastee Freeze or the roller rink, and precious few of them were allowed to drive on weekends.
Besides, our parents were never going to let us date before we turned 16. So we all had a lot of time to observe, practice, and dream about being date-able girls. On Saturday mornings we cleaned and did our chores fervently so we would be done in time to watch American Bandstand.There we were schooled in the current dance favorites: The Hand Jive, The Twist, The Stroll. Overnight stays were for sharing records and looking through Beatle cards, and dream about Prom.
My tall, chestnut-haired sister with the perfect dimple and the demeanor of a gracious Princess was going to the Prom with the best looking older boy at church. He was really nice, from a really nice family. He went to a different high school so it made for great gossip for my sister and her friends. Mother was making her a tailored Prom dress that could have come from the pages of Seventeen Magazine. Mary was beautiful as always, but more so.
How could I compete with that? I thought. It would be a few more years before I could go to Prom, I supposed. It was hard being just 13.
Two (c) Nita Walker Boles
Curls Courtesy of Plastic Turtles
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Barbara* , the Bain of all New Girls, or How I Was Responsible for a Marriage
The names of everyone mentioned from school in this piece are fictitious, including the teachers, but the deeds are all too familiar.
I was still seven when my mother gave me what was to be the last permanent she would ever give me. Mother meticulously sewed, dressed, and groomed us, with whatever means she had, and that included well-set hair. My hair was so white when I was about 3 that a lady waiting with us for a traffic light to change could not resist reaching down to finger it, remarking to my mother's horror, "My, her hair bleaches nicely."
But by the time I was seven, although still a blonde, just one area of my head was white and the rest ash colored. Thick and unruly, it never behaved well, so mother bought a Tonette and set to work with the rollers. The problem was, although the baby color was gone, the texture was and always would be the same: fine. It was fine as a delicate spider's web and the effect of the chemicals on those almost microscopic strands of hair was quite stunning.
As mother combed through it after the last rinse, tears welled up in my eyes. "I look like a French Poodle!" I choked.
Mother looked like she might cry, too.."It will wash out in a while," she offered, but her face betrayed her own doubt. I can only imagine how badly she wished she could have known to use bigger rollers. But it had been some time since my last perm and her expertise dated back as far as the first commercial perms went. I was her third girl, not to mention at least 3 of her sisters, and her own hair that she had seen after since she was old enough. My hair wasn't burnt, just tightly curled.
To make matters worse, on a trip to the mountains I had hit my front tooth when releasing a well pump handle. The tooth was broken off a quarter of the way up, and I avoided smiling and guarded how I held my upper lip to keep the snaggle-tooth from showing. I hoped to avoid calling attention to myself so much that people probably couldn't keep their eyes off me for trying to understand why I was so odd.
So on my very first day in the 4th at grade at Thatcher Elementary, I presented with insanely curly hair. The teacher, sweet little Mrs. Andrews, announced my addition to the class with my exotic first name, Juanita. It was the only first name I had, and I never considered using the middle name, Ruth, because I just didn't know any Ruths to judge whether it would work as well as Tammy or Linda might have for a better first name. The large freckles strewn across my nose must have made the mop on my head even more bizarre as my face turned crimson.
As we exited for the playground at recess I walked past a girl with shiny, smooth brown hair who was surrounded by a group of well-dressed friends. "She doesn't look Mexican," she said as though I was invisible while clearly, since all eyes were on me, they could at least see through me. I was later to learn from one of the other, less popular girls, that this was Barbara. She and her personality-free Secret Service agents were known widely as The Clique.
Within a week it was clear that I would have precious few friends among my classmates if she had anything to say about it. What I could not understand was why, if she didn't want to be friends, was it necessary so far as she was concerned, to be enemies. What I did that made her so determined to ruin my life would always escape me. But for 4 long school years, Barbara made it her objective every single day to have something unkind to say within my earshot. She seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time on me for someone who so disliked me so much. In doing so, she acquired free rent in my head, where for years after we left Pueblo, into my life as a young adult if I felt socially inept or like I didn't belong she would visit my dreams with her hangers-on.
In spite of her constant interference, I gradually got to know the other less socially important girls, and joined Girl Scouts where The Clique was subordinate to a lot of recited mottoes and stated purposes. The leaders were some of the few adults apparently not charmed by Barbara's social connections and talents in crowd control. They quickly snuffed any takeover attempts in that venue and redirected the group toward more purposeful and fulfilling activities. Girl Scouts became the great equalizer and testing ground for trying out new things and showing accomplishment without feeling somehow inferior. Anyone could get a badge, anyone could advance rank, and no one was better than the other.
Still the daily grind at school was a tough one. It irritated Barbara that I could finish my work before her and make better grades than her. Since our family moved in just before Christmas and Mrs. Lacy discovered quickly that I was a talented artist she had me use the extra time, sometimes half the day, to paint the faces and costumes on a new set of Santa's Helpers that would adorn the staircase at Thatcher that year. Using a blowup projector she enlarged a paper Santa's Workshop I had brought as an example when she asked for ideas from the class. Strangely no one else was privileged to work on this project, which lasted several days, and took me out of class as soon as my work was done. I could feel Barbara's eyes on my back as I left the classroom with the Art Teacher.
On one of the few occasions in which Barbara spoke directly to me she stopped me while we happened to be alone in the hall. "Hey," she said authoritatively with one hand on her hip, "What kind of health insurance does your family have?"
Wide eyed and afraid not to answer, I swallowed and said, "Blue Cross".
"Good!" she said, busily straightening her cashmere sweater. She needed to be certain my family was contributing to her well-being, I suppose. "My father sells Blue Cross."
As she walked away with her perfect hair bouncing over her shoulders I said to the back of her head, "Well my father sells life insurance." Could she possibly respect that our fathers had a shared dependance on the purchase of insurance, I wondered.I had never thought of discussing what my father did with my classmates, and I wondered what conversation in her (much-bigger-than-mine) house had pushed her to recruit from her school mates. If I could get in the Way-Back machine I would probably find out that the date was the one following the announcement of Colorado Fuel and Iron's Steel Mill closing. The ripple effect would take about 3 years to seriously compromise hundreds of families that were dependent either directly or indirectly on CF&I's success.
I crept back to anonymity since our common thread was unknown by anyone else, and I really didn't want to be a part of The Clique anyway. I wasn't shy but most of my friends were, so I was the one who sought them out, and we were mostly members of the Girl Scout Troop.. I visited one friends' fishing cabin high in the Rockies and attended birthday parties at the homes of others. And one popular and talented girl with blonde hair like mine was just as friendly to me as she was to everyone else. It wasn't so bad being Barbara's most hated classmate.
A couple of months after I arrived, a new girl, Esther, was introduced to the class. I watched in amazement as Barbara repeated the same sizing-up she had done with me, evaluating the usefulness of Esther to her group of well-dressed followers and dismissing her initially as unimportant. Esther was the only Jewish girl in our class. She had strongly ethnic features, and gazed straight at you when she spoke with you. I sensed her loneliness very quickly and reached out to her to be sure she had a friend. For a couple of weeks, Esther was my friend alone, but when Barbara learned that Esther's father was a banker I walked into class to find Esther standing right next to Barbara. Both of them looked straight at me, and I took my seat.
She had joined The Clique immediately when invited, but it wasn't long before we were playing together again after school. Saturdays she had Sabbath School and could not play, and Sundays I went to church. I was pained that Esther had been so quick to abandon me but glad when she returned. Still Esther had a quality that allowed her to maintain friendships with anyone she chose and the amazing ability to move within several circles. She and I were friends, but not best friends, and she joined Girl Scouts as well.
After forth grade came fifth, and Mrs Steadmond. Mrs Steadmond had hair that was plastered fast against her head in a severe bun. Her mouth was permanently fixed in a thin, grim line beneath a short, snooty nose and two eyes knit together in the middle by the frown of disapproval she wore solely for me. She would never call on me in class and kept her attention fixed on the shining social stars. She couldn't find fault with my test scores but she would dismiss writing that I knew was above my own grade level as superfluous. After reading an especially deep book I thought I would ask if she had read it. She listened, a look of annoyance on her face as I attempted to explain the story line of The Ghetto, a recount of the Warsaw Jewish experience. World War II had ended less than 20 years before, and I had seen the numbers printed on Esther's mother's hand. When she did not respond, I offered, "I write poetry, Mrs. Steadmond." She looked at me evenly and said "Oh, a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None." It was a long year. She really preferred to chat during playground time with Barbara and the Barbettes. I began writing more.
In the sixth grade, my mother had long since stopped trying to perm my hair to control it, so it was wavy and unruly. Mr. Melton was a big, jovial man with a good sense of humor. He did give me credit for a brain, but I cannot remember a single thing he ever said other than to ask me in front of the class if I had combed my hair with an egg-beater. Whatever I was doing, it wasn't working for me in the hair department. Barbara's favorite hairdo was a little flip with a bouffant pouf pinned in the back. I described it to my mother and she helped me pin the bouffant under. As I approached the classroom, Barbara's sycophants had already reported my change of hairstyle to her. She leaned against the door frame watching me through half-shaded eyes and said dryly as I entered, "Nice try, Kiddo."
For the first time I looked right back at her and said,"You know, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." She left me alone the rest of that year. Mr. Melton seemed contrite after witnessing our conversation but my mother also had taken special interest in his egg beater remark. It is possible she delivered him an ultimatum he couldn't refuse, because he began to ask me questions directly when he could see I knew the answers rather than wait for my hand to come up. He seemed to make a special effort to treat me just as he would the rest of the class.
When we started Junior High School, the addition of new friends from a broader cross-section of our part of town diluted some of the effects of Barbara's efforts. There were several equally popular crowds, and of course all of them, including Barbara's had a Cheerleader for its' showpiece. That cheerleaders and football players went hand in hand had never occurred to me. But across from me in my eighth grade math class sat a tall, friendly football and basketball player, Jeff, who first introduced himself to me, and then for the majority of the year continuously talked and joked with me.
Completely across the room from us sat Barbara, shooting withering glances my way as I tried to keep the banter quiet to avoid getting in trouble with the teacher. I thought it was just Barbara's way of being superior, not causing a ruckus by not sitting somewhere next to somebody who wanted to talk and joke. But we were assigned seats by the teacher so I was there through no choice of my own. Jeff took every opportunity to crack jokes, sometimes at my expense, just audible to everyone around us. There was a lot going on in that corner of the room, but we were just friends having a good time, I thought. It never occurred to me that Jeff might have Boyfriend potential. He was fun like my big brother was fun, and I was going to marry Paul McCartney.
Over the year as Jeff's attention persisted, Barbara became more and more frustrated. She spent her one of her CIA agents to determine whether or not I had romantic inclinations toward Jeff. I told her she was ridiculous, and that we were just friends. But after class one day the teacher asked whether Jeff and I were a "pair". When I insisted we were only friends he raised an eyebrow in disbelief and nodded his head.
I left wondering whether it was possible people really thought I liked Jeff and that he liked me when we never saw each other nor really spoke outside of class. I thought about sock hops and whether I could ever remember dancing with Jeff, and I really couldn't. Barbara had admitted to her friends that I was a "good dancer" once at a sock hop where I never lacked for a partner. They were probably trying to figure out why no one asked them to dance when they were so important and popular. Since I loved to dance it also never occurred to me that in the social scheme of things, any one of my dance partners was a Potential Boyfriend. Maybe I had danced with Jeff. It was a big school. Sock Hops lasted a couple of hours. You could dance with a lot of people in that amount of time if each record was 3 minutes long.
The next day as I walked toward Math class, I could see a sort of parade of populars trailing behind the tall head of Jeff, but couldn't see who was next to him until the bottleneck formed at the door. Barbara turned with a little smile and stepped into the classroom with a glance back at me. Jeff sat down silently across from me, never to tell another joke again. For the rest of the year, Jeff walked Barbara everywhere to class. I would miss the fun a little, but I had other things to worry about.
We were moving after school was out to be near my older brother, who had cancer. I had told my close friends, and was trying to wrap my head around the concept of leaving Colorado for the Desert Southwest of New Mexico. The Steel Mill had been closed for a year or more and Daddy's business had virtually stopped as the economy of 1962-1963 plummeted. He was going to farm in New Mexico again after some 15 years of making a living in the city.
Our family moved on to Lubbock, Texas after less than a year, and I met and married my husband after high school there. Like my mother, I loved to sew, so I got a little job in the fabric department of one of the more elegant department stores, Hemphill Wells. When they opened a new store at the mall, they hired a new girl, Jan, to work in the fabric department with me. We warmed up right away, but she sometimes stood staring at me. "I just know we've met before," she said.
We went through church, college, sororities, social clubs, and finally high schools. I went to Lubbock High School, but she went to Centennial, in Pueblo. My mouth fell open. What year? What Junior High? It was staggering to think she could remember me from so many years before. I hadn't changed, apparently, although my hair was now honey brown and well-behaved. Who did you know, we asked each other. I ran through the list of Choir friends and Girl Scout Friends. She knew most of them, and I wondered how we had failed to connect at Freed Jr. High with so much in common.
Then she asked if I knew Barbara. I said, yes, we had gone to grade school together and were in the same Girl Scout Troop. She said Barbara was her best friend. I couldn't suppress the gasp, but I walked back through the past several months of working with Jan to examine any evidence of unkindness. She was always, always nice, I concluded. "Well, are you still in touch?" I asked. When she affirmed that they still wrote I wondered how long our friendship was going to last now.She ran through who had dated who in those years after we left Pueblo, and who was married to who now. Barbara had married Jeff.
I could hardly believe my ears. We were in the eighth grade. Had she held onto him all four years of high school or did they ever see anyone else? Had I haunted Barbara as some kind of force to be reckoned with when I managed to thrive despite her seeming desire to crush me like a bug? Was marrying Jeff, who came from a poor family like mine, a decision that began with taking away something she thought I had? I was never going to ask Jan.
Jan was getting married. She and her fiance had finished college, and would be moving to a farm homesteaded by his grandparents. It sounded like a wonderful life, and she held my admiration as future wife of the American Farmer gone Agribusiness. We stayed in touch and wrote for several years we added to our little families and worked out the American Dream. Barbara never came up in conversation again. Jan never cooled in her friendship with me, and I quit having dreams about Barbara on a bad day not long afterwards. So far as I know, she and Jeff, my never-even-considered-it boyfriend, are still married.
I was still seven when my mother gave me what was to be the last permanent she would ever give me. Mother meticulously sewed, dressed, and groomed us, with whatever means she had, and that included well-set hair. My hair was so white when I was about 3 that a lady waiting with us for a traffic light to change could not resist reaching down to finger it, remarking to my mother's horror, "My, her hair bleaches nicely."
But by the time I was seven, although still a blonde, just one area of my head was white and the rest ash colored. Thick and unruly, it never behaved well, so mother bought a Tonette and set to work with the rollers. The problem was, although the baby color was gone, the texture was and always would be the same: fine. It was fine as a delicate spider's web and the effect of the chemicals on those almost microscopic strands of hair was quite stunning.
As mother combed through it after the last rinse, tears welled up in my eyes. "I look like a French Poodle!" I choked.
Mother looked like she might cry, too.."It will wash out in a while," she offered, but her face betrayed her own doubt. I can only imagine how badly she wished she could have known to use bigger rollers. But it had been some time since my last perm and her expertise dated back as far as the first commercial perms went. I was her third girl, not to mention at least 3 of her sisters, and her own hair that she had seen after since she was old enough. My hair wasn't burnt, just tightly curled.
To make matters worse, on a trip to the mountains I had hit my front tooth when releasing a well pump handle. The tooth was broken off a quarter of the way up, and I avoided smiling and guarded how I held my upper lip to keep the snaggle-tooth from showing. I hoped to avoid calling attention to myself so much that people probably couldn't keep their eyes off me for trying to understand why I was so odd.
So on my very first day in the 4th at grade at Thatcher Elementary, I presented with insanely curly hair. The teacher, sweet little Mrs. Andrews, announced my addition to the class with my exotic first name, Juanita. It was the only first name I had, and I never considered using the middle name, Ruth, because I just didn't know any Ruths to judge whether it would work as well as Tammy or Linda might have for a better first name. The large freckles strewn across my nose must have made the mop on my head even more bizarre as my face turned crimson.
As we exited for the playground at recess I walked past a girl with shiny, smooth brown hair who was surrounded by a group of well-dressed friends. "She doesn't look Mexican," she said as though I was invisible while clearly, since all eyes were on me, they could at least see through me. I was later to learn from one of the other, less popular girls, that this was Barbara. She and her personality-free Secret Service agents were known widely as The Clique.
Within a week it was clear that I would have precious few friends among my classmates if she had anything to say about it. What I could not understand was why, if she didn't want to be friends, was it necessary so far as she was concerned, to be enemies. What I did that made her so determined to ruin my life would always escape me. But for 4 long school years, Barbara made it her objective every single day to have something unkind to say within my earshot. She seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time on me for someone who so disliked me so much. In doing so, she acquired free rent in my head, where for years after we left Pueblo, into my life as a young adult if I felt socially inept or like I didn't belong she would visit my dreams with her hangers-on.
In spite of her constant interference, I gradually got to know the other less socially important girls, and joined Girl Scouts where The Clique was subordinate to a lot of recited mottoes and stated purposes. The leaders were some of the few adults apparently not charmed by Barbara's social connections and talents in crowd control. They quickly snuffed any takeover attempts in that venue and redirected the group toward more purposeful and fulfilling activities. Girl Scouts became the great equalizer and testing ground for trying out new things and showing accomplishment without feeling somehow inferior. Anyone could get a badge, anyone could advance rank, and no one was better than the other.
Still the daily grind at school was a tough one. It irritated Barbara that I could finish my work before her and make better grades than her. Since our family moved in just before Christmas and Mrs. Lacy discovered quickly that I was a talented artist she had me use the extra time, sometimes half the day, to paint the faces and costumes on a new set of Santa's Helpers that would adorn the staircase at Thatcher that year. Using a blowup projector she enlarged a paper Santa's Workshop I had brought as an example when she asked for ideas from the class. Strangely no one else was privileged to work on this project, which lasted several days, and took me out of class as soon as my work was done. I could feel Barbara's eyes on my back as I left the classroom with the Art Teacher.
On one of the few occasions in which Barbara spoke directly to me she stopped me while we happened to be alone in the hall. "Hey," she said authoritatively with one hand on her hip, "What kind of health insurance does your family have?"
Wide eyed and afraid not to answer, I swallowed and said, "Blue Cross".
"Good!" she said, busily straightening her cashmere sweater. She needed to be certain my family was contributing to her well-being, I suppose. "My father sells Blue Cross."
As she walked away with her perfect hair bouncing over her shoulders I said to the back of her head, "Well my father sells life insurance." Could she possibly respect that our fathers had a shared dependance on the purchase of insurance, I wondered.I had never thought of discussing what my father did with my classmates, and I wondered what conversation in her (much-bigger-than-mine) house had pushed her to recruit from her school mates. If I could get in the Way-Back machine I would probably find out that the date was the one following the announcement of Colorado Fuel and Iron's Steel Mill closing. The ripple effect would take about 3 years to seriously compromise hundreds of families that were dependent either directly or indirectly on CF&I's success.
I crept back to anonymity since our common thread was unknown by anyone else, and I really didn't want to be a part of The Clique anyway. I wasn't shy but most of my friends were, so I was the one who sought them out, and we were mostly members of the Girl Scout Troop.. I visited one friends' fishing cabin high in the Rockies and attended birthday parties at the homes of others. And one popular and talented girl with blonde hair like mine was just as friendly to me as she was to everyone else. It wasn't so bad being Barbara's most hated classmate.
A couple of months after I arrived, a new girl, Esther, was introduced to the class. I watched in amazement as Barbara repeated the same sizing-up she had done with me, evaluating the usefulness of Esther to her group of well-dressed followers and dismissing her initially as unimportant. Esther was the only Jewish girl in our class. She had strongly ethnic features, and gazed straight at you when she spoke with you. I sensed her loneliness very quickly and reached out to her to be sure she had a friend. For a couple of weeks, Esther was my friend alone, but when Barbara learned that Esther's father was a banker I walked into class to find Esther standing right next to Barbara. Both of them looked straight at me, and I took my seat.
She had joined The Clique immediately when invited, but it wasn't long before we were playing together again after school. Saturdays she had Sabbath School and could not play, and Sundays I went to church. I was pained that Esther had been so quick to abandon me but glad when she returned. Still Esther had a quality that allowed her to maintain friendships with anyone she chose and the amazing ability to move within several circles. She and I were friends, but not best friends, and she joined Girl Scouts as well.
After forth grade came fifth, and Mrs Steadmond. Mrs Steadmond had hair that was plastered fast against her head in a severe bun. Her mouth was permanently fixed in a thin, grim line beneath a short, snooty nose and two eyes knit together in the middle by the frown of disapproval she wore solely for me. She would never call on me in class and kept her attention fixed on the shining social stars. She couldn't find fault with my test scores but she would dismiss writing that I knew was above my own grade level as superfluous. After reading an especially deep book I thought I would ask if she had read it. She listened, a look of annoyance on her face as I attempted to explain the story line of The Ghetto, a recount of the Warsaw Jewish experience. World War II had ended less than 20 years before, and I had seen the numbers printed on Esther's mother's hand. When she did not respond, I offered, "I write poetry, Mrs. Steadmond." She looked at me evenly and said "Oh, a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None." It was a long year. She really preferred to chat during playground time with Barbara and the Barbettes. I began writing more.
In the sixth grade, my mother had long since stopped trying to perm my hair to control it, so it was wavy and unruly. Mr. Melton was a big, jovial man with a good sense of humor. He did give me credit for a brain, but I cannot remember a single thing he ever said other than to ask me in front of the class if I had combed my hair with an egg-beater. Whatever I was doing, it wasn't working for me in the hair department. Barbara's favorite hairdo was a little flip with a bouffant pouf pinned in the back. I described it to my mother and she helped me pin the bouffant under. As I approached the classroom, Barbara's sycophants had already reported my change of hairstyle to her. She leaned against the door frame watching me through half-shaded eyes and said dryly as I entered, "Nice try, Kiddo."
For the first time I looked right back at her and said,"You know, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." She left me alone the rest of that year. Mr. Melton seemed contrite after witnessing our conversation but my mother also had taken special interest in his egg beater remark. It is possible she delivered him an ultimatum he couldn't refuse, because he began to ask me questions directly when he could see I knew the answers rather than wait for my hand to come up. He seemed to make a special effort to treat me just as he would the rest of the class.
When we started Junior High School, the addition of new friends from a broader cross-section of our part of town diluted some of the effects of Barbara's efforts. There were several equally popular crowds, and of course all of them, including Barbara's had a Cheerleader for its' showpiece. That cheerleaders and football players went hand in hand had never occurred to me. But across from me in my eighth grade math class sat a tall, friendly football and basketball player, Jeff, who first introduced himself to me, and then for the majority of the year continuously talked and joked with me.
Completely across the room from us sat Barbara, shooting withering glances my way as I tried to keep the banter quiet to avoid getting in trouble with the teacher. I thought it was just Barbara's way of being superior, not causing a ruckus by not sitting somewhere next to somebody who wanted to talk and joke. But we were assigned seats by the teacher so I was there through no choice of my own. Jeff took every opportunity to crack jokes, sometimes at my expense, just audible to everyone around us. There was a lot going on in that corner of the room, but we were just friends having a good time, I thought. It never occurred to me that Jeff might have Boyfriend potential. He was fun like my big brother was fun, and I was going to marry Paul McCartney.
Over the year as Jeff's attention persisted, Barbara became more and more frustrated. She spent her one of her CIA agents to determine whether or not I had romantic inclinations toward Jeff. I told her she was ridiculous, and that we were just friends. But after class one day the teacher asked whether Jeff and I were a "pair". When I insisted we were only friends he raised an eyebrow in disbelief and nodded his head.
I left wondering whether it was possible people really thought I liked Jeff and that he liked me when we never saw each other nor really spoke outside of class. I thought about sock hops and whether I could ever remember dancing with Jeff, and I really couldn't. Barbara had admitted to her friends that I was a "good dancer" once at a sock hop where I never lacked for a partner. They were probably trying to figure out why no one asked them to dance when they were so important and popular. Since I loved to dance it also never occurred to me that in the social scheme of things, any one of my dance partners was a Potential Boyfriend. Maybe I had danced with Jeff. It was a big school. Sock Hops lasted a couple of hours. You could dance with a lot of people in that amount of time if each record was 3 minutes long.
The next day as I walked toward Math class, I could see a sort of parade of populars trailing behind the tall head of Jeff, but couldn't see who was next to him until the bottleneck formed at the door. Barbara turned with a little smile and stepped into the classroom with a glance back at me. Jeff sat down silently across from me, never to tell another joke again. For the rest of the year, Jeff walked Barbara everywhere to class. I would miss the fun a little, but I had other things to worry about.
We were moving after school was out to be near my older brother, who had cancer. I had told my close friends, and was trying to wrap my head around the concept of leaving Colorado for the Desert Southwest of New Mexico. The Steel Mill had been closed for a year or more and Daddy's business had virtually stopped as the economy of 1962-1963 plummeted. He was going to farm in New Mexico again after some 15 years of making a living in the city.
Our family moved on to Lubbock, Texas after less than a year, and I met and married my husband after high school there. Like my mother, I loved to sew, so I got a little job in the fabric department of one of the more elegant department stores, Hemphill Wells. When they opened a new store at the mall, they hired a new girl, Jan, to work in the fabric department with me. We warmed up right away, but she sometimes stood staring at me. "I just know we've met before," she said.
We went through church, college, sororities, social clubs, and finally high schools. I went to Lubbock High School, but she went to Centennial, in Pueblo. My mouth fell open. What year? What Junior High? It was staggering to think she could remember me from so many years before. I hadn't changed, apparently, although my hair was now honey brown and well-behaved. Who did you know, we asked each other. I ran through the list of Choir friends and Girl Scout Friends. She knew most of them, and I wondered how we had failed to connect at Freed Jr. High with so much in common.
Then she asked if I knew Barbara. I said, yes, we had gone to grade school together and were in the same Girl Scout Troop. She said Barbara was her best friend. I couldn't suppress the gasp, but I walked back through the past several months of working with Jan to examine any evidence of unkindness. She was always, always nice, I concluded. "Well, are you still in touch?" I asked. When she affirmed that they still wrote I wondered how long our friendship was going to last now.She ran through who had dated who in those years after we left Pueblo, and who was married to who now. Barbara had married Jeff.
I could hardly believe my ears. We were in the eighth grade. Had she held onto him all four years of high school or did they ever see anyone else? Had I haunted Barbara as some kind of force to be reckoned with when I managed to thrive despite her seeming desire to crush me like a bug? Was marrying Jeff, who came from a poor family like mine, a decision that began with taking away something she thought I had? I was never going to ask Jan.
Jan was getting married. She and her fiance had finished college, and would be moving to a farm homesteaded by his grandparents. It sounded like a wonderful life, and she held my admiration as future wife of the American Farmer gone Agribusiness. We stayed in touch and wrote for several years we added to our little families and worked out the American Dream. Barbara never came up in conversation again. Jan never cooled in her friendship with me, and I quit having dreams about Barbara on a bad day not long afterwards. So far as I know, she and Jeff, my never-even-considered-it boyfriend, are still married.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Being Thirteen: Part One
"And now," said The Great Stoneface, "for a really, really big sheewww..." It was quite possible that everyone knew Ed Sullivan as the Great Stoneface, but tonight it didn't matter what other people's fathers called him, because the Beatles were on and it was clearly an event for all time. My father eyed me and my sister watching enthusiastically as screaming adolescent girls drowned out the cute mop-headed band members. We had heard them on KDZA just a few times, but we liked them because they were different. And they were from England, we explained to Daddy, who looked at us from under a now-raised eyebrow. He politely waited for a commercial before he explained that he could walk out on the street and find four young men and himself produce a band equal to the Beatles.
"No, Daddy," we shook our heads, which were covered in metal spiked brush rollers for the next day's smooth flips that would bob up and down as we discussed the night's events with our girlfriends. "They are REALLY neat!"
He nodded, his look a little jaded. We knew he didn't understand but he was not a girl, was he?
Over the next months we acquired overseas pen pals, because you really needed a girlfriend in England if you loved the Beatles. You and she could share details about what was exciting in your two respected and admired countries that could then knowingly be told to your un-penpalled friends. And while my sister went on to High School and acted normal, I went to Jr High School and along with all my equally Brit-enchanted friends acquired an English accent to be used while out riding the bus or shopping, or in any other public occasion. Six or more of us on a single bus could command the attention of every wary adult who could neither understand a single thing we said, nor why we would wear the leather caps or knee length boots that had become a sort of uniform.
My mother was so impressed when my friends and I all chattered in our Brit Brogue that she had to tell one of her friends about our call to the radio station asking a record be played that we knew had been released in England but not yet in the US. She was certain we had convinced the station we were VIPs from across the water. She sewed mod outfits enthusiastically for me and my sister. Since she was able to literally reproduce an outfit from a magazine photo we were on the cutting edge at all times.
My friends and I collected Beatle Cards in huge stacks. Mine were taken away by a teacher who found them a distraction and at the end of the year my mother, though still impressed with my linguistic skills did not go sign them back to me, so they were forfeited. Since I couldn't have chewed the gum that they came with at school, it must have landed in the trash can just outside the gymnasium where the sock hops were held every other Friday.
A local DJ would spin our requests and we could wear off calories and boundless energy and enthusiasm for the bands we stayed up late at night to hear. All of us without visible means of support-very few of us got such thing as an allowance-resorted to a 10 cent ice cream sandwich for lunch and saved the rest to buy 45 rpm records at Globe Discount City, the precursor of KMart and WalMart.
On Saturday mornings we would start our trek south toward the bridge on West 4th street and meet each other along the way. Dressed in our Pep Club uniforms with maroon corduroy skirts and matching sweaters declaring our membership in gold letters around a golden mascot Ram we were unavoidably American. The walk gave us ample time to discuss boys, boy friends and boyfriends, and to sing "My Boyfriend's Back" along with The Angels via Linda's transistor radio. At the game, we worked in concert with the cheerleaders. We were a chorus to be reckoned with, and surely insured the success of our outstanding football team whose members all were, of course, cute boys.
The walk home took us past Globe and we could there acquire the prize 45 rpm of the week for less than a dollar. It only required a few days of ice cream bars to provide a library of fab records. And a month of restraint could lead one to own the latest album. Later, in one or the other of our homes we would gather around the stereo and no one really minded at all that 5 or 6 of us were actually singing over the voices of our idols, because that was, after all, what we did-in a kind of trance. We had the words memorized and the tones and inflections duplicated perfectly. We were choir geeks of the first kind, having been chosen for our superior talents to sing in the Performance Choir.
Later that night after KDZA signed off we would tune into KOMA and Wolfman Jack to stay in touch with the broader USA, who were also enchanted with everything British. So the announcer in the echo chamber that chanted off the names of raceways having big road blasters also listed the bands most of us would never see: Herman's Hermets, The Searchers, Manfred Mann, The Moody Blues, and of course a mix of American bands all going to cities no where near Pueblo.
We would write a note about the game and our record purchases to our pen pals, and whisper a little longer on the phone trying not to be caught up late. Finally we would go to sleep with the radio still running under our pillows.
There were only a few of us who really did see the Beatles at Red Rocks. I won't forget their names, Mary Jane who loved Ringo, and Linda, who loved Paul and was the first of my friends to have 3 inch long white shag carpet in her living room. Those lucky girls. Most of my friends saw A Hard Day's Night first run. I could not come up with the money in time even if I skipped the ice cream bar, so I ruefully stared at the marquee from across the street at the park as I waited to meet up with them.
When the movie was out we all got on the bus and put on our British accents before getting off at a little shop downtown to order some hot tea with cream and sugar. My fortunate friends didn't let me sulk at all, but gave me a moment-by-moment detail of the entire movie. Behind the counter the waitresses whispered back and forth to each other something that must have been like,"Well, there's some more of those kids acting like they're from England again. They must have just come out of that ridiculous movie with those long-haired singers. Yep, and since all they can afford is a cup of tea, there's not going to be a tip, either."
"No, Daddy," we shook our heads, which were covered in metal spiked brush rollers for the next day's smooth flips that would bob up and down as we discussed the night's events with our girlfriends. "They are REALLY neat!"
He nodded, his look a little jaded. We knew he didn't understand but he was not a girl, was he?
Over the next months we acquired overseas pen pals, because you really needed a girlfriend in England if you loved the Beatles. You and she could share details about what was exciting in your two respected and admired countries that could then knowingly be told to your un-penpalled friends. And while my sister went on to High School and acted normal, I went to Jr High School and along with all my equally Brit-enchanted friends acquired an English accent to be used while out riding the bus or shopping, or in any other public occasion. Six or more of us on a single bus could command the attention of every wary adult who could neither understand a single thing we said, nor why we would wear the leather caps or knee length boots that had become a sort of uniform.
My mother was so impressed when my friends and I all chattered in our Brit Brogue that she had to tell one of her friends about our call to the radio station asking a record be played that we knew had been released in England but not yet in the US. She was certain we had convinced the station we were VIPs from across the water. She sewed mod outfits enthusiastically for me and my sister. Since she was able to literally reproduce an outfit from a magazine photo we were on the cutting edge at all times.
My friends and I collected Beatle Cards in huge stacks. Mine were taken away by a teacher who found them a distraction and at the end of the year my mother, though still impressed with my linguistic skills did not go sign them back to me, so they were forfeited. Since I couldn't have chewed the gum that they came with at school, it must have landed in the trash can just outside the gymnasium where the sock hops were held every other Friday.
A local DJ would spin our requests and we could wear off calories and boundless energy and enthusiasm for the bands we stayed up late at night to hear. All of us without visible means of support-very few of us got such thing as an allowance-resorted to a 10 cent ice cream sandwich for lunch and saved the rest to buy 45 rpm records at Globe Discount City, the precursor of KMart and WalMart.
On Saturday mornings we would start our trek south toward the bridge on West 4th street and meet each other along the way. Dressed in our Pep Club uniforms with maroon corduroy skirts and matching sweaters declaring our membership in gold letters around a golden mascot Ram we were unavoidably American. The walk gave us ample time to discuss boys, boy friends and boyfriends, and to sing "My Boyfriend's Back" along with The Angels via Linda's transistor radio. At the game, we worked in concert with the cheerleaders. We were a chorus to be reckoned with, and surely insured the success of our outstanding football team whose members all were, of course, cute boys.
The walk home took us past Globe and we could there acquire the prize 45 rpm of the week for less than a dollar. It only required a few days of ice cream bars to provide a library of fab records. And a month of restraint could lead one to own the latest album. Later, in one or the other of our homes we would gather around the stereo and no one really minded at all that 5 or 6 of us were actually singing over the voices of our idols, because that was, after all, what we did-in a kind of trance. We had the words memorized and the tones and inflections duplicated perfectly. We were choir geeks of the first kind, having been chosen for our superior talents to sing in the Performance Choir.
Later that night after KDZA signed off we would tune into KOMA and Wolfman Jack to stay in touch with the broader USA, who were also enchanted with everything British. So the announcer in the echo chamber that chanted off the names of raceways having big road blasters also listed the bands most of us would never see: Herman's Hermets, The Searchers, Manfred Mann, The Moody Blues, and of course a mix of American bands all going to cities no where near Pueblo.
We would write a note about the game and our record purchases to our pen pals, and whisper a little longer on the phone trying not to be caught up late. Finally we would go to sleep with the radio still running under our pillows.
There were only a few of us who really did see the Beatles at Red Rocks. I won't forget their names, Mary Jane who loved Ringo, and Linda, who loved Paul and was the first of my friends to have 3 inch long white shag carpet in her living room. Those lucky girls. Most of my friends saw A Hard Day's Night first run. I could not come up with the money in time even if I skipped the ice cream bar, so I ruefully stared at the marquee from across the street at the park as I waited to meet up with them.
When the movie was out we all got on the bus and put on our British accents before getting off at a little shop downtown to order some hot tea with cream and sugar. My fortunate friends didn't let me sulk at all, but gave me a moment-by-moment detail of the entire movie. Behind the counter the waitresses whispered back and forth to each other something that must have been like,"Well, there's some more of those kids acting like they're from England again. They must have just come out of that ridiculous movie with those long-haired singers. Yep, and since all they can afford is a cup of tea, there's not going to be a tip, either."
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