By the time I was 12 I was settling into my new family
well. I knew all the players and all the
places. When I was nine, Pappy, Dad’s
dad, died. Although we did not have many
years together, I was always sure he loved me and wanted me in the family. By the time I was 11 I started doing
genealogy on my new family. Mainly I was
trying to keep all the family stories straight in my head, but I also hoped it
would appease Novelle. It never
did.
My father, used to tell me the most extraordinary stories,
of his Great-Grandfather who fought in the civil war. I began to take my new families history as my
own. I was also hungry, to learn
anything about Oma, that I could.
History was always alive and present in my life. Both my Dad and my uncles were great history
buffs. I went to a historic church and
lived in a very historical town. Grandpa
would also tell me wonderful stories, about the sea and all the different
countries he had visited.
In 6th grade I had a phenomenal teacher named
Debbie Pace (now Debbie Silver). She
always had a smile, had bright red hair, loved science and lived every bit of
her craziness and reveled in her wonderful weirdness. She is the kind of teacher, that had a
dramatic impact, on every student she taught.
She LOVED to teach. It was not
just a job to her, it was her calling. She gave us the beautiful luxury of
letting us be ourselves, and never chastising us for it. I remember speaking with an Australian accent
for about 6 week and she never asked me to stop. She just let me, be me.
Many of us are still glad to call her friend today. She would eventually leave our little school,
and Louisiana for better opportunities in Texas. She now teaches other teachers how to
teach. May you all be blessed, to have a
teacher like her, in your life someday.
Ms. Pace taught all 6th graders science. But that year, I happened to have her for homeroom,
which included literature and spelling as well.
She was also gifted in these departments. Every day we started the day in the same way. The pledge was followed by a few moments of
silent meditation. Before the meditation
everyone was encouraged to say if they had, for lack of a better term “prayer
requests.” Although it was never called
that. You know pray for my mom cause she
has cancer, or my dad pulled another drunk last night, or I am really scared
about the test we are going to take today, etc.
You would not believe what came out of our mouths. Kids talked about family members being sick, about
being bullied, and I think even once or twice abuse was implied if not downright
mentioned. What’s tough about being that
age, is that no one will listen to you.
The silent meditation helped us to get our minds off of what they were
on, and onto our school work, and it showed in our grades.
I am vehemently apposed to prayer in school. You may think everyone should be fine with
shoving Christianity down everyone’s throat, cause you think everyone should be
Christian. But what about the little
Buddhist boy in the corner or the Jewish girl sitting at head of the class?
Everyone’s faith should be respected and I believe in the separation of church
and state. I, however, see no harm in a few
moments of daily meditation and stillness. You could pray or simply sit
quietly, it was your choice.
Also you have to remember I went to small school. No nurse, no security guards, no councilor, no
art and no sex ed. A loving teacher was
a godsend to us. She listened to
us. And not only did she believe us, she
believed in us. I was not a writer until
that year. She had us working on stories
for something and I started getting upset.
She came over to me and I said, “I can’t do this.” She held the pencil in my hand and said, “Yes
you can write.” She was the first to
believe in me. I know many others who
felt the same way.
Although it was widely known in my family that I wrote, it
was never encouraged. Nor was it ever
mentioned, to me that I should or could write for a living. Even when I was in college, I was not
encouraged by the family, to study more about writing. I always believe I was not good enough. I knew my spelling was awful and my grammar
was not the best. I believed no one wanted
to hear what I had to say. I still
struggle with that. I have even had
moments of that this week, where I thought about deleting this blog, because I
feel no one wants to listen to my boring, and ordinary life story. I have resolved I must soldier on, at least
for the moment.
I was having trouble with boys about that time as well. The year before I had been put in braces and
developed breasts, now they didn’t just come in as A’s, no they couldn’t do
that. I never remember being in a
training bra. Nope mine grew in as
B’s. By the time I was in 6th
grade they were C’s. So having large
breasts has always been part of my identity.
Boys began to want to touch my breasts, and pop my bra.
I had braces, so I had to go after lunch every day and brush
my teeth. I don’t know if you remember
the first pump toothpastes we had. I
think mine was Aquafresh. It was in this
hard ass plastic bottle. Now I used to
care that pump in my blue jean purse, along of course with my book. The boys would go to touch me, and I would
wind up my purse like a sling and PAWYAH!
I would hit them with it. They
would just start screaming! “What have
you got in there a brick!” Serves them
right.
About the time I got breast I got my period as well. Thankfully my mother had had the talk with me,
and I knew what was going on. In those
days I would often hide out in the bathroom after brushing my teeth, because I
did not like my 5th grade teacher, and did not want to go back to
class. I often heard girls go in the
stall and begin to scream. They had
started and had no idea what was going on.
Many of the believed they were bleeding to death. I would calm them down. Explain this was natural, that they were not
dying, and that they should talk to their mom when they got home. I would them give them a Kotex and show them
how to use it. I would continue to carry extra protection with me, until well
into high school. I became know as the
one to come to for such things.
As gross as the above story may seem, I want you to understand
that women often do not understand how their bodies work. For many of us in
Louisiana, we were denied that right to learn about our own bodies in school, by
people who put their morals ahead of our education. Some girls never got the talk about their bodies,
or much less about sex. The hormones
that accompany puberty were never explained to me. I remember, that even the encyclopedias that
contained pictures of sex organs, were not on the shelf at my local
library. They were kept under the desk,
and you had to be a specific age, or be researching something in that
particular book to even see it.
In 6th grade I had my first official
boyfriend. His name was Melvin. He had lovely dark black hair, light eyes and
little ears that stuck out and turned red when he was embarrassed or cold. He was so cute. We were set up by friends. He was a very nice fellow, but I didn’t feel
anything for him. He was terrible
shy. I don’t even think we held hands. It lasted all of 6 weeks. Melvin gave me two bracelets. One was metal and one was some simple black
beads on a string. To break up with him,
I public cut the bracelet off my wrist, in front of him on the bus. I was not really mad at him. I was mad at my friends, who kept whispering
in my ear about the two of us. I could
not stand the pressure.
I did not know until much later that Melvin was very
poor. I have no idea where those
bracelets came from, or what they meant to him.
I also did not know until years later, when one of my guy friends told
me, that Melvin had been in love with me for a long time. Finding out somebody loves you changes you’re
perception of them. I began to develop
feeling for him a few week before we graduated, but by then it was too
late.
I was attracted to dysfunctional, bad boys, who used,
abused, or worse ignored me. The kind of
love Melvin offered me was quiet, and slow, and healthy. Things I was not used to. So I passed him by. Something I almost did with Jay as well. When I married Jay, I realized that he and
Melvin shared many characteristic. I
finally understood how much I may have hurt Melvin.
I had the opportunity, at my 10 year reunion to
apologize. But I was so nervous I could
not do it to his face, and so I instead apologized to his wife. She carried the message for me. I saw him recently at our 20th
year reunion. We hugged and we were glad
to see each other. He has been happily
married for many years, to the same woman, and has a family of his own now. I continue to wish them all the best.
Ilsa
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