Spankings, and other things

My parents almost never used physical discipline on us. When we were really young, my mother would slap "our little hands", as she put it, whenever we didn't listen to her and were in danger of hurting ourselves. That couldn't have happened very often because I don't remember any of it, not just about myself but also about my younger siblings. My father would threaten to spank us when we didn't behave, but I can remember only one time when he actually did. My older sister still talks about it, mainly I think because she wasn't on the receiving end and always complained that the rest of us were spoiled.

It happened one summer day after one of those wonderful trips to the lake where we went swimming and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. On rare occasions after these swimming trips we would stop at the Dairy Joy for cones on the way home, always a real treat. This day we didn't. When I realized that we weren't going to stop, I started asking why. Pretty soon my two younger sisters joined in and before long we had turned the request into a monotonous chant. We kept it up even after our father told us several times to stop. Finally, he told us if we didn't stop at once, we would all get a spanking when we got home. Well, by that time, we were enjoying the noise we were making and couldn't stop. I think none of us thought he would really spank us.

We arrived home and unloaded the car. My father went into the house and we were told to go to our bedroom, which the three of us shared. When we got there, he was sitting on one of the beds. He told my two sisters to leave the room and wait in the hall. Then he proceeded to put me over his knees and give me a spanking. I was so shocked and angry I cried even though it really didn't hurt. When he was done, I think he spoke to me but I don't remember what he said. All I remember is the ignominy of the situation, and the wish that the whole day had never happened.

The Day I Lost Santa Claus

I remember vividly the day I finally realized there was no Santa Claus. I don't remember the circumstances leading up to the discovery but I'm sure it was probably a series of little things. I do remember coming downstairs early one Christmas morning and asking my mother if I was right that there really isn't a Santa Claus. She must have decided that I was old enough to learn the truth and told me that yes, I was right. I was happy at the time because I felt grown up and would be able to join my older sister and brother in keeping the secret safe from my younger siblings. It wasn't until we were looking forward to Christmas the next year that I realized what I had lost.

As I watched my sisters and brother anticipating the arrival of Santa, I felt estranged from them and from all of the joy and excitement of Christmas. It wasn't the thought of receiving presents under the tree that kept Christmas so joyous and magical; it was the thought of Santa Claus coming to our house in the middle of the night and leaving us gifts that only he knew we wanted. Without that magic and mystery Christmas seemed kind of flat and uneventful. Thinking about the birth of baby Jesus as the real reason for being joyful didn't impress me either. I guess even as a child I wasn't really a religious person; Santa was more exciting and wonderful than Jesus could ever be.

It wasn't until my husband and I had a child of our own that I was able to recover some of that feeling. Telling her the story of Santa Claus and seeing her excitement at Christmas made even the fact that she would someday feel the loss that I had felt worth the price. And she has now repeated the whole process with her son, and I know she is dreading the day when he too will suffer the loss of Santa Claus.

The School Dilemma

Recent incidents have reminded me of my days spent at school. Even though when I was young teachers were educated to teach their students certain things, the organized school system, whether public or private, failed most of the time. Granted I did learn to read and write, but I would have learned that anyway from my mother. I learned algebra and geometry and enjoyed learning them, but the only time I have ever used them was in helping my daughter with her school work. I studied biology and chemistry and loved those subjects but I've never really needed them in my adult life. And because I love to read and I love to learn, I have taught myself more about those various subjects than I ever learned in school.

However, unlike today my teachers believed they were teaching my schoolmates and me important stuff that we would never learn otherwise. Those were the good old days when the choice of curriculum wasn't led by the various standardized tests administered by the State. Teachers and administrators had more freedom to design their own classwork and decide what they believed was important for their students to learn in each subject. I received a fairly well-rounded education and graduated satisfied that my teachers and I had done well.

It was only years later that I realized I would have been better educated if I had been homeschooled or at least given more freedom to pursue in more detail subjects I was really interested in. I know now that it is impossible to educate students by giving them a little of this and a little of that and consider it done. Most students give up from boredom or a lack of understanding, and either fail or go on to graduate not knowing they have been given little opportunity to really learn. Who knows what our country would be like now if teachers had been educated in learning and then had been allowed to teach their students how to learn.

Holidays

Thanksgiving was always a popular holiday in my childhood home.  My mother spent the day before cooking and baking while we were in school. Then that night she would bake a few more pies and prepare the turkey for the oven. I liked to sit and watch her preparations and learned most of my cooking techniques not from actually cooking myself, but from watching my mother cook. Later, when I was older, I made a few pies, cakes and brownies but no actual meal preparations. It wasn't until I was married that I started cooking for real. Even with that lack of experience I resisted my husband's attempts to turn me into a cook like his mother. She was a good cook but nothing like my own mother. I made do with some of my mother's recipes, a few cookbooks, and most important of all, the original 1940's Betty Crocker Cookbook used by my mother. I loved that cookbook; I still do. It's not in great shape, but I have all the pages complete with my mother's notes. When the publishers came out with a reprint, I bought a copy.

Thanksgiving morning we all were on our best behavior. The delicious smells coming from the kitchen were enough to remind us to help our mother all we could for we wanted nothing to go wrong with that wonderful food. The table in the dining room, which had been transformed from a place to do homework to a beautiful setting for my mother's wedding china and tablecloth, became the favorite room in the house. We constantly checked to make sure everything was as it should be.

When I was young, it was usually just our immediate family with once and awhile a grandparent or two. Later, after my sister went to college, she would bring home boyfriends to share our meal. This made the holiday all the more exciting. The boyfriend of the day was always the one she was going to marry. We always looked forward to her coming home from college to be with us once again.

I tried to carry on the Thanksgiving tradition after I had my own family but it was never the same. I was usually working and only had the holiday itself off, plus I really didn't enjoy cooking, especially large holiday dinners. I felt guilty about this and kept trying to please but after my daughter grew up and left home, I stopped bothering. My husband and I were usually invited to dinner by others and sometimes we went and sometimes we didn't. At other times we went out for dinner with my in-laws to a restaurant but they and my husband would always bemoan the fact that there weren't any leftovers. I finally started hating the holiday because it seemed that everyone around me only cared about the food and forgot about the thanksgiving part. Now I ignore the whole day whenever I can.

A Mother's Stories

My mother didn't always have children's books around when we were little, so she would tell us stories. Some stories she made up; others were based on her childhood. One story in particular she told us as a way to teach us how to take care of each other in times of possible danger.

She had two younger sisters, just as I have, and they would go places together at a very young age. They lived in a small city, and were told by their father to go outside and play whenever he saw them hanging around the house. So,they spent their days traveling around the city streets meeting friends and other people.

One day they met an old man who asked them if they wanted some candy, and all they had to do was go to his house with him. My mother knew better and took her sisters away from him. One day they met him again and he asked if they would go to his house to get some treats. The younger of the two sisters said she would and started off with him. It took all my mother's strength to drag her away. Naturally this sister was angry at my mother and said she could do whatever she wanted. So my mother took them home and waited for their father to get home from work. She told him about the man and how her sister wanted to go with him. My grandfather became very angry and told them never to go near that man again because he was a very bad man and would hurt them if he had the chance. So from then on her sisters paid attention to what she said.

My mother told different versions of this story every so often to make sure we remembered. She also let us have a treat every night from the corner store before we went to bed so we wouldn't be tempted by strange men offering us candy. I don't know if this story was true or not but at the time I believed every word and apparently my sisters did, too.

When my youngest sister was first starting school and walking by herself sometimes, she was passed on the street by a man. At the same time her teacher had been warned about a man trying to lure kids. My sister somehow heard the adults talking about him and connected the man who passed her on the street to this man the teacher was warned about. She was very frightened but didn't tell anyone. She had a few nightmares
but after awhile, she forgot about it. Later, when she was an adult, she went for some therapy and this whole incident came back to her.

So, what does this mean? I've never been able to decide if my mother was right in her methods or if she should have been more discreet and less descriptive in her story-telling. I certainly don't blame her for my sister's buried fear, and I know my sister doesn't. When it comes right down to it, my mother's story was probably not the cause of my sister's reaction at all.

Dark to Light

When I was in third grade, my friends and I sometimes walked home from school. This school was near the library and close to the town center. I lived the farthest away and my friends left me one by one as we walked. The last part of the trip I walked alone but it was very comfortable for me because I knew most of the people in the houses along the way. This was not true for the very beginning of the trip.

The school was set a ways back from the street with a long driveway to the sidewalk that led to Main Street. Unfortunately for me there also was a path which went through the woods to Main Street. I don't know if the town created it or if it was a private drive but most of the kids used it. The first time I walked the path was a time when the weather was overcast and dreary. My friends assured me that it was perfectly safe and they had walked it many times. What they didn't tell me about was the haunted house located in the middle of the woods.

Because the day was so dark, the woods were even darker than usual, and scary. It was hard to believe we were in the center of town. If it hadn't been for the path, I would have been lost. It wasn't long before we reached the house. It was black and run-down with the trees and shrubbery looming over everything. I wanted to run but my friends were acting as if nothing was wrong and I decided I couldn't let them know I was afraid. So, I kept walking and talking and looking everywhere but at that house. Before long we reached the street and safety. Even though I vowed never to walk that way again, every time my friends wanted to walk home, I walked with them and they always took that path. After awhile I got to used to walking past that house, too, but I never forgot how scary it was.

When my daughter was planning her wedding, we decided to have the ceremony in my home town. The caterers we were using said they had a victorian style house not far from the church that they used for special events. We went to inspect it and it was beautiful with indoor and outdoor spaces for entertaining. While I was looking around, I felt a strange wave of emotion pass over me. On closer inspection, I realized that this beautiful victorian house filled with light and beauty was the same dark ugly house, that dark and run-down haunted house, that used to frighten me when I walked that path through the woods to reach the safety of Main Street.

Big Girl Hair

My mother decided one day to take my younger sisters and me to a salon to get our hair cut. I'm not sure why but it may have been that she was tired of combing three heads of long hair and braiding or otherwise styling those three heads for school and church. So one summer day we set off on the local bus for the big city.

The salon wasn't exactly downtown but it was clean and probably inexpensive, and it was on the busline. All three of us had hair below our shoulder blades which had never been cut except for trims by our mother. We couldn't wait to have our long braids cut off. Sometime during the process, the hair stylist talked my mother into having our hair permed. Whatever she did was alright with us. We were happy enough just being there and having someone besides our mother wash and style our hair.

When it was all over, we admired the beautiful new hairdos. I'm sure they looked delightful in the salon, but after the days went by, they changed into strange-looking hair mops. By the time school started, I'm sure my mother wished she had never had it done. Our school pictures show us with hair styles that clearly reflect the attempt my mother made to make us look presentable. We all laugh about those hairstyles now, but at the time we knew we were both beautiful and stylish.

Fresh Start

This time of year always brings back memories of the excitement of starting another school year. No matter how well or badly the previous year ended, I believed that this year all my experiences would be wonderful; I was always optimistic.

A few weeks before school began, my mother would take us shopping for new first-day clothes. This was always one outfit each because with six kids that was all she could afford. But what an occasion it was. Because my mother didn't drive and didn't have a car to use anyway, we would take the bus into the big city. In those days there were no malls and all our shopping was done in the one store where my mother had an account. I don't know how she did it, but she managed to outfit all of us from underwear to shoes.

I remember one year especially when I was in junior high school. I found this beautiful wool plaid straight skirt that I just had to have for school. My mother let me buy it and then proceeded to help me find a matching blouse and cardigan to wear with it. I'll never forget dressing for that first day in my new clothes. My mother kindly suggested that maybe I should save the outfit for another day since the temperature was unusually warm for that time of year, but I wouldn't hear of it. I determinedly got dressed and went to school. As the day passed I got hotter and hotter in my wool outfit but I refused to take off even my sweater because I was sure the desired effect of my outfit would be ruined. I suffered through the entire day but went home secure in the knowledge that my outfit was the envy of all my classmates.

Easter Bunny

My husband and I went shopping today and I couldn't help thinking about all the days I went shopping for new clothes with my mother. Probably the earliest memory I have is shopping for new clothes to wear on Easter Sunday. This time was so special and exciting because we got to buy pretty dresses too good for school, and fancy dress shoes and socks that had to be saved for church. I can still remember the black patent leather flats that my mother bought for me but which my father said were made of cardboard and would fall apart if they got wet. I thought they were beautiful, and every time I wore them I believed that all the other little girls were watching me and envying me my shoes.

One Easter season we didn't have to shop for dresses because an aunt, my father's sister in California, sent us dresses that she had made for us. They were made of  polka-dotted cloth in navy blue and yellow. She made each of us a different dress by using different colored cloth for different pattern pieces. So, even though the dress pattern was the same, our dresses were different but coordinating. We loved them.

On Easter morning we came downstairs and found our Easter clothes laid out on the furniture in the living room with the baskets that the Easter Bunny left us. Even though we had taken part in the shopping for all these new clothes, they all looked so wonderful that we forgot what had gone on before and almost believed the Easter Bunny had brought those, too.

Lost Memories

The lack of memories is a good thing. Or, more to the point, the lack of bad memories is a good thing. When I remember only happy times at school, I know that nothing bad happened to me that year. When I remember nothing about a particular school year, then I know it was a happy year.

When I was seven, we moved to a different town and I entered second grade at a neighborhood school. I had never been to a neighborhood school before and it was a complete change from my previous experience. This school was near my house so I was able to walk there, plus it was small with only two or three grades. My younger sister was in first grade that year but I don't remember anything about her except for a few vague memories of us walking home together. It was a good time.

My first day is definitely engraved in my memories. I remember walking to school. I remember the little girl who was assigned to be my friend for the day and show me around. I remember the playground at recess and how the girls mostly sat on the ground under a huge oak tree and talked about girl things. I remember the boys running around and playing their games. I remember the jungle gym, the slide and the swings which I would play on during many recesses in the future.

I had a wonderful year there with friends from my neighborhood at that small neighborhood school. I remember the fun but the memories are lost and that's a good thing.

Exciting Places

I grew up in a small town. Small towns are happy places in many ways, and in those days, very safe for children. My siblings and I spent many summer days roaming our neighborhood and my mother never worried. In the process of exploring the area, we never considered that our neighbors would be displeased if we used their yards as a shortcut to somewhere else.

My favorite shortcut was on the property of neighbors who lived across the street from us. Their house was set back from the road with a long driveway which led straight to the front door. Some of our friends in the neighborhood told us that there was a shortcut behind this house which would take us to the town center, and one day they showed us the way. We walked down the long driveway straight to the house, then around the house to their backyard, and onto the path which took us through the woods. It seemed to me that first time that the woods went on forever, but we finally burst out of the shade and into the sunshine of a dirt road populated with a few houses and a lot of barking dogs. We followed the dirt road to the end, and arrived at our destination at last. We were thrilled. From then on we frequently took that shortcut whenever we had the urge to go downtown. When my mother found out, she wasn't pleased and told us to get our neighbor's permission. Of course, we never did and continued to use the shortcut. But the constant risk of being caught and hollered at by our neighbor only added to our fun and made our excursions to town delightfully exciting.

Scissors and Braids

When I was in third grade my class was sent temporarily to a school across the street from the one we were supposed to attend. I don't remember why or maybe we were never told but I think our regular school was having some remodeling done.

This new school was actually pretty nice. It had a large room in the center surrounded by the classrooms. The large room was used for a variety of things, but I remember it mostly as a place to cross to get from one room to another. I don't remember my teacher and I've forgotten most of what I did during that time. I guess it was uneventful except for a couple of things.

We did a lot of crafts in that class, always a good way to give teachers a rest. Apparently, my teacher was able to use the mimeograph machine because we usually had pictures to cut out as part of our work. One day we were making something which involved cutting out another picture. Before I knew it my teacher was standing over me and telling me that I was doing a terrible job with my scissors and I should be more careful. Then she used my work as an example of how we should not be scissoring. I don't think I had ever heard that word before but I certainly have never forgotten it. I was embarrassed and also confused because I hadn't understood that my work was supposed to be perfect. I quickly learned that lesson.

Another day when we were working on a craft project, my teacher started harassing another student because he didn't know how to braid. This time she singled me out as the student who did the best braiding, and told me to show my classmate the correct way to braid. It never seemed to occur to her that most little girls know how to braid because they braid their own hair, and most little boys don't.

One other thing that happened to me in third grade was that I had my tonsils out. But that had nothing to do with the teacher.

The Perils of Belonging to a Religious Community

I grew up in a church that focused on a "born-again" version of christianity. Everyone was expected to "accept Jesus as their savior" at some time in their lives...the sooner, the better. This was important not only to save your soul but also for you to become a voting member of the church. Which reason was more important I could not always tell.

My mother was the religious leader in our family. This would have been strange ordinarily because she had had nothing to do with Jesus and becoming saved until she met and married her first husband.  In other words, she was newly saved and very devout.  I don't know anything about her first husband's beliefs but I imagine, from what my mother told me about him, that he mostly put his needs before those of Jesus. On the other hand, her mother-in-law was a very strict godly woman who demanded, because she believed that her christian beliefs were the only true christian beliefs, that everyone had to follow her teachings in order to be saved and have eternal life. Unfortunately, even though my mother was nothing like her mother-in-law, she was indoctrinated with those same beliefs, and brought her children up to believe the same way.

I can understand how my mother was susceptible to these teachings. Her husband joined the Army Air Force soon after they were married, leaving his wife pregnant and alone with his family. She wasn't wanted as a wife for their son, and wasn't completely accepted as the right mother for their grandchildren especially after their son was dead and she  remarried. She was so afraid of displeasing them that she followed her mother-in-law's dictates in every way. Her mother-in-law forbade my father's adoption of her grandchildren, which he wanted to do, because they would no longer have the family name. This meant that my older brother and sister went through school with a different last name then the rest of us in a time when all the children in a family were supposed to have the same surname. I remember friends and teachers saying to me that they never knew that person was my brother or sister, and why do they have a different last name? This hurt me because I never remembered that we had different fathers until someone made me remember. In my own mind, my older sister and brother were no different from my younger sisters and brother.

My mother must have been miserable most of the time during those years with her in-laws. Her one savior was her husband's grandmother who accepted my mother unquestioningly and loved her as as her own. It's possible my mother accepted her husband's family religion out of love for his grandmother, and I hope that was the reason. Her mother-in-law certainly gave her no love, but she did give her plenty of emotional abuse. In the days when I believed in god, I always felt that the death of her first husband was god's way of saving my mother from a terrible life. If her husband had survived the war and come home, my mother would have had nothing but heartache. She admitted this herself to me several times, and from what she told me of her life when she was with him, I know she was right. She loved him but he was selfish and spoiled and she never experienced the same kind of love from him.

After years of believing that I was more sure than others of receiving eternal life, even though I never could accept it completely, I finally came to my senses. I have felt such relief ever since that I no longer had to be afraid of that terrible religion's teachings. It's such a relief to know that I am in charge and answerable only to myself whenever I do something to cause me joy or pain. There is no angry or judgemental god up there watching over me, and in this I rejoice.

Table with Meaning

I have a table given to me by my mother after I got married. It had been in our home since I was young, and was given to her by a neighbor who told my mother that the table had been built by her grandfather. She was of Scandinavian descent, I think Swedish, and her grandfather had used ancestral designs to create this table.

My mother was a housewife most of her married life and seemed happy in that role. When I was in junior high, our neighbor, who was a single mother, asked my mother if she would mind watching her son after school until she got home from work. She didn't have much money to spare, and I don't think my mother asked for any. I'm sure she offered to babysit for free since she was always home waiting for all of us. Anyway, the arrangement was made and we had another little boy around the house for a couple of hours after school each day.

I don't remember much about him; my younger brother must have kept him busy. But, I do remember the Christmas strudel that his mother baked for us every Christmas for years until they moved away. It was the best strudel I've ever tasted. Then one year she asked my mother to come over and choose something from her furniture since they were moving and couldn't take everything with them. My mother tried to refuse but was eventually persuaded that her friend really wanted her to do this. She chose the table.

When I got older, I wondered why this neighbor would have given my mother something that must have been important to her. I now realize that she wanted to thank my mother for helping her out when she had no where else to turn.

Playground

Our yard was a playground for the neighborhood, summer and winter. Summer was filled with fun, but winter was the most exciting. We lived on a hill overlooking the mouth of a river which could only be glimpsed from an upstairs window during the winter. The trees on the downslope within about twenty feet of the hilltop behind our house had been cut down years before. When we moved there, this area was overgrown with shrubbery and a few small trees that my father didn't try to control, except for one area. This was a narrow path created by water from our yard running downhill to a brook which eventually made its way to the river. We used this runoff area as access to the wonders of the woods which we could explore and pretend in to our hearts' content.

In the winter this path furnished the best sliding ever. Not only was it steep, but it also curved around a large tree about a third of the way down before it reached the brook at the bottom. After a good snowstorm, we first had to take our pieces of cardboard and flying saucers and pack down the snow. Once that was done, we were ready to get our sleds and flying saucers and go.. Each trip down the hill made the path icier and faster. The trick was to go as fast as we could to the bottom without crashing into the tree. At the bottom was the brook. If it was cold enough, the brook would freeze over and our route would be extended several icy feet; otherwise, we'd end up in a soggy mess. We spent hours sliding down and climbing up our special hill until we could barely move.  Only then did we feel our day was complete and we could go inside and get warm.

Volunteering

At some time during my school years, probably in junior high, I developed a stammer. I think it had to do with moving from my safe elementary school to a scary older-kids' school. I don't remember when it started, just that my teachers in junior high became concerned, spoke to me about it, and then spoke to my parents. I was taken to a speech therapist who diagnosed it as a slight or temporary problem because I had periods of fluency. And, that was that. No one mentioned it again until high school when my French teacher noticed I had a problem answering questions. He asked me about it and I gave him a short explanation which resulted in him not calling on me in class anymore.

I lived with this speech problem for years and learned to manage it by not speaking in situations where I knew I would stammer. This meant that I didn't speak when I was nervous or excited. If I had to speak, I coped by beginning my sentences with words that usually didn't bother me. Otherwise, I tried my best to speak without the stammering being obvious. I should explain that what happened to me was the inability to say anything at all. I would open my mouth and the sound wouldn't come out, almost as if I were gagging on the word. This happened mainly with vowels, but sometimes with other words if I was very agitated. It bothered me so much that I hesitated about giving my daughter the middle name she has because it begins with a vowel.  Even now I sometimes have trouble saying her middle name.

I have spent my adult life until just a few years ago having to cope with a "speech problem." This resulted in my hardly ever volunteering to speak whenever I felt nervous. Over the last ten or fifteen years the problem has gradually gone away, and I very seldom think about it. When I do think about it, such as now, I wonder if it all started because I was a scared little girl.

Triplets

When we were little, my two younger sisters and I spent most of our time together. We shared a bedroom, and in the early years we even shared a bed. It was perfect for those cold winter nights in an unheated bedroom. Our mother made some of our clothes, and quite often the outfits were the same or very similar. People at our church thought we were triplets because we looked so much alike, and when our mother made those matching outfits, they were sure of it. There were already one set of triplets in our church, and two sets of twins. They didn't need us to be triplets, too, and soon found out we weren't.

Every year our mother would order toys for us from the Sears catalog. She didn't drive, and Sears would let her stay home, charge what she bought and take her time paying it back. She often joked when we were older and knew the truth about Santa that she would get her bill paid off just in time for the next Christmas season. Each year after Christmas, the three of us were given the old catalogs to play with and the first thing we did was start choosing models to cut out for paper dolls. These were our first paper dolls and we had the best time matching clothes to people, and people to people to make families. Of course, after noticing what we were doing, our mother decided to find us "real" paper dolls for Christmas. We were happy with them at first, but it didn't take long for them to bore us more quickly than our home-made ones did.

Later on, our mother discovered Christmas Clubs and she no longer had to rely on Sears. Most years we received identical toys for Christmas. One year she and our father took us to a local store that carried toys and let us tell them which toys we liked. That Christmas my sisters and I received baby dolls. I don't remember if they had picked them out, too, but I had, and I thought it was the most wonderful present ever.
Another year my father ordered sleds for us for Christmas, but a neighbor kid whose father worked at the store told us and spoiled the surprise. It didn't bother us as much as it did our father.

None of us minded being dressed alike and receiving the same or similar toys, at least I don't remember anyone complaining. We played together anyway, and if people mixed us up, we didn't care. It wasn't until we were older, and our teachers kept calling us by a sister's name in class, that we started caring, and insisting on our own identities.

My Mother

I have a difficult time thinking about my mother because she was such a huge part of my life until she died, and I often wish she were still around. She's the main reason I grew up with an open mind and the ability to accept people as they are. Even though she let her first mother-in-law convert her to the "born-again" version of Christianity, she never let the prejudices adhered to by that culture change her sense of fairness. She brought up her children to think the same way. 

She was an intelligent, loving and generous woman. She spent her time at home taking care of us, and every time school was cancelled she was happy, because she liked having us around. At night when she put us to bed, she told us stories that she had made up, stories that we all still remember. She taught us to love reading by example. She taught us to cook by letting us help her. She taught us to entertain ourselves by providing music and songs and inspiration. We all have wonderful memories of her.

When she became ill with what was later diagnosed as pancreatic cancer, we all took it hard. I myself never was convinced in my heart that she was going to die. Whenever I visited, she seemed fine and she would tell me that she was following her doctor's orders. She would also tell me that she was preparing my father for her death by teaching him how to cook simple meals and how to pay the bills. I listened to what I wanted to hear: that she was fine and following orders. It wasn't until after she died that the rest came back to me. My tears came much later.

I still miss her.

Grades Are So Unneccessary

When I was in eighth grade, I had a math teacher who in today's world would have been kicked out of the teaching profession. He considered himself to be a strict disciplinarian, but in actuality, he was nothing but a bully. His method of discipline included shouting at his class, picking on individual students to ridicule, and if all else failed, grabbing the unruly boy by the arm, dragging him out to the hall and slamming him against the wall before screaming at him...up close and personal. He also coached and treated his players the same way.

 I loved math, and because I was so meek in class, he never bothered me. However, I hated his temper, and was afraid of him because of that. I never spoke in class and I don't remember him ever calling on me. I guess as long as I did my homework and kept my mouth shut, he didn't bother me.

One day I realized I would have to speak to him. He had given me a grade which was lower than I thought it should be. In fact, I was sure he had made a mistake. I told my mother about it and she offered to call him, but I had too much pride to let someone else take care of my problem. Even though the thought of confronting him gave me nightmares, I knew I had to do it. It took me until Friday before I made myself stay after school and speak with him.

His classroom was a large room that doubled as a kind of small auditorium, and it was at the front of the building. I can still see it in my mind's eye as clear as I see the room I'm sitting in now. I went in after school, but he was talking to some people, so I went to the back and stood looking out of the windows at the kids leaving. I was too shy to interrupt. While I was waiting, I saw the last bus leave and knew I would have to walk home. Finally. everyone left and I turned and spoke to him. He listened to what I said, checked his grade book, and...I don't even remember what he said. All I remember is the relief I felt as I walked from the room and headed for home. It was a beautiful afternoon and I felt wonderful.

Dad

My father loved the outdoors. As we were growing up, he would tell us stories of how he and his friends would spend their time fishing, hiking, bike riding and swimming whenever they had the chance. They lived in the city but they would head for whatever wilderness they could reach on their bikes. He carried this love into adulthood and while stationed with the army in Florida, he used his time off to explore the surrounding countryside, hiking, swimming, fishing. His stories were always entertaining, and he didn't mind laughing at himself and whatever predicaments he got into.

After he had children, he didn't have much time for games. Once in awhile, on hot Sunday afternoons, he would load the family, and maybe a friend or two, into the car and head for my mother's favorite lake. It was a long drive but worth it. Our old car would struggle up the hills, then fly down them, making our stomachs flip, flop. We would all hold our breaths as we got nearer, waitng to see how crowded it was.  If my mother thought it was too crowded, we would turn around and go home. This happened once or twice, and it was unbelievably disappointing.

Once safely there, we would jump from the car, and into the water. We never went to a beach; the shadiest spots were along the road where we could park close to the water's edge.  My mother sat close to the waves and watched us play in the water with our Dad. All past disappointments disappeared from our minds and  we enjoyed our time at the lake. It was wonderful.

Big Sisters

Before she started high school and spent most of her time away from home, my older sister was like a second mother to us younger kids. With six kids under 14 yrs. of age my mother needed the help. My sister was wonderful to us and we were ecstatic when she agreed to join in our games. She loved having fun and I remember her laughing a lot.  When she started high school, I never expected that things would change. Suddenly, she was seldom around, and when she was around, she was either busy or sleeping. I missed her.

Before long, she was off to college and I inherited her bedroom. My older brother wasn't around much which meant I was now the oldest and in charge. I was the queen bee. When my sister came home on breaks, I would share her old bedroom with her. If she went uptown to see friends or into the city to go window shopping, she would sometimes take me along. I felt special.

 After I finished high school and went to college, I visited my sister and her new husband and baby a couple of times, but after that I was busy with classes, work and friends and I managed to visit her only once more before I got married  By that time she was divorced and remarried and busy with her own kids, new step-kids and work. Her new husband was a strict religious fundamentalist, bordering on fanaticism, and I did not share his beliefs.  Before long I saw my sister give up her own soul to become submissive to her husband as his religion demanded, and allow him to take away her freedom of thought and decision; she was no longer the sister I grew up with. To this day, I've only once or twice caught a glimpse of the person my sister once was, and I feel as if I've lost forever my beloved older sister and friend.

Reading for Fun

I think I may have been a strange little kid. Not that I wasn't liked, but I preferred reading to spending time with my friends. I did all the usual things, played baseball with the neighbor kids, took school-sponsored swimming lessons, and put on plays with my siblings for the other kids, but reading was my joy.

We always had books in the house and my parents gave us free rein to read whatever we felt like. I read everything. When I was old enough to walk to the library and be responsible for my younger siblings, my mother let us go there to pick up books for her and for ourselves. I loved those summer afternoons, and can still picture the cool, quiet rooms of our town library after the mile-long walk from our house in the bright sun and leafy shadows. It was pure happiness.

The librarian got to know us and would choose books for our mother while we chose our own. Later on, she would let me me go behind the desk and choose books from the adult section, forbidden territory for children.  We continued these excursions for years. When I reached high school, this same librarian became the school librarian for our new library, and I eventually had her as my teacher for a couple of English and Latin classes.  When I applied for my first job after college, her reference cinched it for me, and that's how I ended up with the library position that I loved so much. She was one person in authority with whom I never felt like a scared little girl.

One Teacher At Fault?

I grew up feeling loved, happy, and safe in my home with my family. I was secure in my place in the world. I knew I was an important member of my family. My siblings were my friends and playmates. I had no reason to think otherwise that our family was the best in the world. Then, I started school.

I don't really remember much of my younger school years. I have vague memories of riding on the bus, but nothing else, except for the memory of a day in kindergarten that has stayed in my mind like a scary nightmare. The event happened early in the school year, before I had a chance to get used to the whole experience of school. I was sitting at a round table with my classmates happily coloring. Suddenly, the teacher appeared and started accusing me of copying from my neighbor. She was very judgmental and righteous and told me to put my head down on my arms and stay that way until everyone was finished coloring. I was scared and confused and humiliated. I knew I wasn't supposed to misbehave in public, especially at school, and I felt lonely and unloved. The worst part of the entire affair was that I had no idea what I had done wrong. At home I copied all the time. I copied words from books to pretend I was writing; I copied pictures I liked; and my siblings and I copied from each other if we especially liked the other's choice of colors. It was never considered to be wrong. It was part of learning. I don't remember anything else about that day, just that my teacher punished me because I was "bad."

From that day on I became a scared little girl, not at home, but in the rest of the world. Everywhere I went I was afraid and shy and worried that I would unknowingly do something wrong. I always wanted to know the rules first. Even now I always check the rules (regulations, policies, guidelines) before I start anything new. People in positions of authority worried me until I got to know them and believed they accepted me as I was. I needed to be sure of what was considered to be wrong before I could feel safe.

It wasn't until just recently that I finally connected the dots. I had always felt I was just a shy kid; I never connected the trauma of that early experience in school with my fears and obsessions later. I now know differently. And when my daughter decided to homeschool her son, I gave her all the support and encouragement I could to keep my grandson from unschooled and unfeeling teachers.

Paths Not Travelled

When I was in high school, I enrolled in an introductory physics class my senior year. I found the class to be boring and meaningless, and could not understand much of what was going on. So, I dropped it. As far as I was concerned, physics had no connection to my future life. I planned to major in biological sciences in college and go into medical research.

I made up my mind that I would attend a religious-based college which my older sister had also attended. I was a scared little girl and knew I would be safe there, although at the time I thought I was being daring by going "away" to school.. Unfortunately, I soon learned that I was once again suffocating in an organized religious experience. I lasted two years, but before the two years were up I had switched my major from biology to English literature - no more daring moves for this scared little girl.

After graduating from the local campus of the state university, I started working in the local public library, not knowing what else to do with my liberal arts English degree.  There, I worked with an amazing librarian who taught me as much as I wanted to learn. I loved my job, and thought I had died and gone to heaven. Then, I discovered science fiction; first, while I was becoming acquainted with the children's section and then when I branched off into the adult collection.  It was fascinating to me, and I suddenly found myself wishing that I had paid more attention to physics in school...because I wantd to know how and why all this could and would happen.

Since then I have read many more science fiction stories and continued on to read as much as I could find, and try to understand, about space, time and the universe. I learned I had taken a wrong path, but ended up in a good place. I met my wonderful husband at that local university, and then gave birth to a beautiful daughter whom I love very much and of whom I am very proud. I'm still reading and learning, and as a result, I've managed to leave behind those beliefs of my childhood.

For My Daughter

I didn't start life as a scared little girl; that happened later. I put most of the blame on school, but a lot had to do with genes. Anyway, I've spent most of my life being too scared to do things that I wish now I had done.

My parents (mainly my mother) started me off in sunday school at a young age, and I spent my weekends at church until I went to college. I thought what I had been taught to believe was absolutely true, and I never questioned anything until I was middle-aged. I had doubts off and on but I always did my best not to dwell on them.  I got fed up with organized religion long before that, but I never questioned my "beliefs" until several years ago. I was a scared little girl.

I believe now that if I hadn't been a scared little girl I would have rejected those "beliefs" at a very young age. I believe now that if I hadn't been a scared little girl I would have insisted on better guidance from my high school guidance counselor.  I believe now that if I hadn't been a scared little girl I would have or may very well have led quite a different life.