The Brett Incident

I had spent much of my teenage years wanting to be an Oceanographer, like Dr. Bob Ballard.  I even ran my bath scalding hot, so I might prepare for diving in the hot water around the underwater volcanoes.  When I tried to get into LSMSA, see Cold Hands, I had to take the SAT’s.  I began to understand I was smart, but not that smart.  Math is the bane of my existence.  I also began to understand I would have to leave the state to study, something I was not prepared to do.  I did not want to leave my family.  I also did not want to leave the area, go away, build a life, get married, have kids, own a home, and have to give up everything many years later, to come home and care for aging and dying parents.  I am an only child.  I don’t get the luxury of handing it off to another family member.  It is going to be me, doing it all, in the end.  I was brought up to believe you do not put your loved ones in a nursing home.  It is dishonorable and distasteful. 

So I knew I could not be an Oceanographer, although I loved writing, I figured I could never make a living at it, besides I knew I wasn’t very good at it.  I knew people who could write circles around me.  I didn’t want to be a teacher like my mom was working on becoming, and two of my Aunts were already.  I didn’t want to be a nurse like my other Aunt.  I had been training in the wifely arts of cooking, cleaning, sewing, and hand work since I could remember.  My mom always said she wanted to prepare me.  So I thought I am a pretty good cook and I love food, maybe I will be a chef, so that is what I started out going to college to do.  I was also in love with the Frugal Gourmet about this time.

As my senior year approached I began to look at colleges.  My father then stepped in and said, “You may only apply to colleges where I may get to you in less than a day’s drive.”  That sealed the deal, no Oceanography for me.  I remember measuring off the distance and marking my large US map with my compass and setting up the radius.  I decided to apply in state.  I asked, my family, for help filling out the forms for both financial aid and college applications, they refused.  It taught me how to do them though.  I always found it odd some colleges required you send a picture.  What the hell did that tell them about your brain or who you were???  I applied all over the state: to Northwestern in Natchitoches, LSU in Baton Rouge, USL in Lafayette, Louisiana Tech in Ruston, NLU in Monroe, Southeastern in Hammond, and McNeese in Lake Charles.  I got in to all of them.  I was very surprised I got into LSU, but I did. 

I was so ecstatic when my letter came from Louisiana Tech that I had been accepted.  My entire life my father had told me, “You’re going to college.”  I never had a say in it.  I wanted to go to Tech, desperately, like my father before me.  I have always wanted to be just like my Dad.  I still remember going into the living room to tell him.  He held the letter and said, “That’s great, but you can’t go there.  You will have no one to watch over you.  You can go to NSU, where you Mom is attending, and she can watch other you, or you can go to USL where your aunt can watch over you.”  I was devastated.  All that work, applying to all the other colleges, only to be told, again that what I wanted, didn’t matter.  I am sure he had his reasons, but he broke my heart that day.  Still makes me angry to this day.

I thought for a moment.  I wanted to get as far away from my mother as possible, and I knew others from my school were going to NSU.  I was terrified the bullying would continue there, so I said, “I guess I will go to USL then.” 

USL became my battle cry, it became my hope, and thinking of going there and getting away from the daily abuse, which was only getting worse now that Cajun Rink had been added to he bunch, became my refuge.  Cajun helped crank the daily taunts up to 11.  But I was trying so hard to be a good Christian and turn the other cheek, and to do what my parents asked.  But with every word he hurled at me, I died inside.  He even went so far as to paint penis on my car windows, in shoe polish. I am still thankful for the cheerleaders who helped me remove enough from my window, to drive home, with spit and a Kleenex, and held me while I cried.

Into my life came Brett.  He was beautiful or so I thought.  He had this long curly black mullet.  He was of Native American decent, and covered in pimples.  I didn’t care.  I was on him like white on rice.  He was fresh meat and I wanted him.  In my mind he had not been tainted by my tormentors.  So it was game on.  He was from Shreveport.  He was always crying, come to find out his father had recently died.  His mother had remarried.  She and her new husband had moved to Keatchie.  Brett and I became fast friends.  I was always trying to comfort him, rubbing his back and trying to help him through this difficult time. 

As I sit here looking at my annual, I don’t know that we were ever officially boyfriend and girlfriend.  I was invited to a bonfire at his house.  Our parents met and they liked each other.  They encourage us to be together.  I went to a Christmas party at his house, where he danced with me.  He gave me a cassette single of Dwight Yoakam’s “Fast as you.”  I spent hours listening to it, to see if Brett was trying to give me a secret message.  I hate that song now, it reminds me of all of this.

Brett was strange.  He spent hours on his hair and although it was my guess he liked me, he didn’t want to hold my hand, and kissed me only once.  When he kissed me it was not like Adam’s kisses, full of passion and want.  No it was like kissing a rock.  I was confused.  I liked him, was falling in love with him, but he did not seem to reciprocate.  I knew, deep down, it was going to be another one of my one sided love affairs.  I often fell “In love” with a guy and then waited for him to say he liked me, even tried to buddy up to some of them, but none of them ever got the hint.  So it was always on sided.

Brett, me and our families went out New Years Eve to the American Legion Hall dance.  Brett was prone to migraines.  He had one that night.  I would learn later he faked it to get away from me. 

Not long after we were due to give blood.  I talked all my friends into doing it.  It ended up that I could not because had an ear infection and was on antibiotics.  Brett, Sonya and some more of my friends gave blood.  A few weeks later Brett received a letter, or so I was told, that said he had a devastating medical condition.  I wrote him a letter and told him how much I loved him and I would stay beside him through this diagnosis.

Within a few days later I was given a note from him, by Sonya, he said wanted nothing to do with me anymore.  I was devastated.  For once in my life, I thought I had found love.  I have always said the worst thing about all of this, was that for a few weeks, I had hope that I was not this horrible, ugly, fat, crazy monster that everyone told me I was.  When I read his letter, all that hope was destroyed.

It was not just the relationship that hurt, what did the most damage is what came after.  Sonya, my best friend since 2^nd grade, was also friends with Brett.  What I didn’t know, is that many nights that I was on the phone with Brett, she was quietly listening in.  He had called her, before he called me.  I didn’t know until later that she was acting as a conduit to help get him hooked up to another friend, who Brett began dating a few weeks later.

This friend he dated, a few months later, when the relationship was over, turned to me in class and said, “He lies doesn’t he?”  I said, “Yes he does.” 

I still do not know what was said.  I don’t know what rumor was spread, but from the time that Brett broke up with me in January of 1994 until about a month before I graduated in May of 1995, I was basically shunned.  Suddenly none of my friends, or anyone for that matter, would speak to me.  No one would eat lunch with me.  I was treated like a pariah.  My only clue is what one friend said to me one day.  He had the courage to break whatever taboo they had set against me.  He said, “They have told me to hate you and I just can’t do it anymore.  You have always been nice to me.”  And he sat with me and ate lunch.  It was finally over.  He was the first, more would join us as they year drew to a close. 

I cannot tell you how desperate I was.  I cannot tell you how many nights I wanted to kill myself.  How I wanted to jump from the river bridge.  In one swoop I had lost everything I understood.  My people, my tribe, my friends, or however you want to call it.  My sociology professor years later, would call it a “social death.”  When I finally got up the courage to talk to my parents, tell them what was going on and I was suicidal, my Dad said, “Oh It’s just puppy love.  It will pass.”  Twenty-Two years later it hurts, almost as bad as it did when it happened.  At least I now have some understanding to go with all of this.

I stayed friends with Brett’s parents.  I have seen his mother several times over the years.  When I saw her, I told her all that had happened, and she confirmed for me what I had begun to suspect many years before.  Brett was gay.  I now understand what he did.  He used me for cover.  He was pretending to be interested in me to appease his family and hide his homosexuality.  That I could have lived with, and would have even happily participated in it had I known. 

I found Brett many years ago on Facebook, we discussed much of the above.  To say he has a different idea of what happened is an understatement.  He said we were never in a relationship and he never cared for me, that he has always been gay.  I am sure there is much truth to that.  I have known for a long time what I felt for him, was not reciprocated.  I had hoped for an apology, but that will never happened.  Never got one from Sonya either or knew what was actually said about me.  Would love to know now, if someone wanted to PM me, I would be open to hearing it now.  Ten years, after all this, I would see Sonya again.  Who just hugged my neck and could not understand why I was so mad at her.  What a Bitch!

While all this was going on, all I could do was pray and count the days until I would go to USL.  I was in Hell and I had to find my own way out.  I was like Rapunzel.  I was trapped in the tower, no one was coming to save me, I had to cut my hair and save myself. 

There was a young man in my class who came in everyday, with the most beautiful smile.  As corny as it sounds his smile, gave me hope.  Seeing him smile, and hearing him laugh helped me in ways he has no idea of.  I even developed a little crush on him, but my fate was sealed and I was too broken and afraid to try to find love again.  I was leaving for Lafayette after I graduated, and that was that.

I began what I called “Smile Therapy.”  I would force myself to smile, just for a few seconds every few hours.  I noticed when I did so I would feel better.  Turns out smiling releases all kinds of endorphins in your brain, that are good for you.  Slowly, ever so slowly I feel it began to pull me out of the worst of my depression.  The first few weeks were the worst.  I would get two or three seconds and then burst into tears again.  I cried so much during class, during this whole thing, me a woman who hates to cry and used to see it as a sign of weakness. 

A few weeks before we graduated someone told me something I would never have dreamed.  They said, “Melvin has been in love with you for years.  He would have done anything for you.”  I remember sitting in our drafting room, looking at him and just smiling.  I have no idea if it was even true, but it helped me none the less.  And today I regret not doing anything about it.  The idea that Melvin had once loved me, along with my friends smile, gave me comfort in one of the darkest times of my life.  Stupid and corny, right?  I know.  But I love stupid and corny. 

Ilsa

 

 

 

 

 

Cold hands, warm heart, dirty feet and no sweetheart

So my Sophomore year in high school, we were still in the temporary buildings after our school had burned, waiting on the new school to be built.  Some recruiters came around and told us about LSMSA (Louisiana School for Math, Sciences, and the Arts).  It is a college prep school, run by the State of Louisiana, for Juniors and Seniors only.  It is located in Natchitoches on the NSU campus, where the students live.  Here they offer college level classes, and only the brightest kids in the state get in.  These recruiters told us they would be offering a slot to one of the students our school, should we met their entrance requirements. 

Mary and I both applied.  We both desperately wanted a better education, and the chance to learn more, something most of the kids in my school could have cared less about.  To get in we both had to take the SAT test, and go through an interview process.  Mary got in and I was named an alternate.  I still remember the disappointment I felt.  I had lost what I felt could have been a major opportunity for my life, and one of my best friends.

Now I hate to toot my own horn, as I was taught not to, but I am really, really smart.  I think we have talked about this before.  But I was never smart enough.  I wanted, most of my life to be in gifted and talented classes, but I always missed the cut off on the test by a few points.  I was named to Who’s Who every year, was always at least on the Honor Roll and about half of that time on the Superintendant’s List.  But I am an A and B student, never was a straight A kind of person.  I was civic minded and was in 4-H, National Honor Society, SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving), volunteered at the library and nursing home, and  I even tried and failed to form a Library Club.  My Jr. year or so I also rejoined the Girl Scouts, in hope of working my way into earning a college scholarship.  That did not happened, but I had a great time, mentoring those little girls. 

My yearbook is full of descriptions of me as beautiful, crazy, and kind.  I was smart and I reveled in what knowledge I could pick up.  Sometimes my classes were boring, so I brought my crochet, or another book to read.  I still remember reading “Food in History” during the down times in my World Geography class.

My favorite teacher about that time was Mr. Brian Gallent.  He was super cool.  He was tall with glasses and black hair.  He had worked for the Shreveport Journal, and then when it folded became a teacher.  He taught me Civics, World History, and World Geography.  I followed him around like a puppy dog, mainly because he was one of the few persons I could have an intelligent conversation with.  I think he helped really kick my love of other cultures into high gear.  I competed in both World Geography and World History at the regional level (called the Scholastic District Rally) and went to state in World Geography. 

I was one of the first to be enrolled in what was then called Tele-learning.  It was a Fine Arts Class.  We met during lunch.  It was being broadcast from NSU all around the state, and coming to us over the satellite.  It was being beamed not only to us, but to other schools all around the state.  We had a TV, microphones, and a pad we could write on.  Information appeared on a big TV screen of what we were to take notes on.  It was the for runner of an online class.  We could talk back and forth to the teacher at NSU my pressing the button on the microphone, but we were discouraged from talking to the other students.  My favorite thing to do was to talk an old boy from Oberlin.  He sounded like a trucker and was often hard to understand.

So I was smart, funny, being bullied, depressed, often suicidal, being told I was fat by those who loved me, told on a daily basis I was crazy, and very, very lonely.  Now I come from a different error my young friends.  Girls did not ask boys out, or so I was told.  If you did so you were very forward.  You had to wait until a boy liked you and told you so.  That was not part of my world.  I came home at night and talked to Sonya on the phone, helped mom with her homework, did mine, read, often cooked dinner and did chores, some nights I covered up my father with a blanket in his chair, after he had fallen asleep watching TV from drinking too much, and at the end of many, many days walked in my room, closed the door and wept.  Yes I was very, very lonely. 

I watched in jealousy as others around me feel in love, had sex, got pregnant, and seemed to be having a grand time of life.  I am sure all of them had their problems though.  Sometimes I watched as a boy I had a crush on, dated another girl.  If I was asked out, it was always as a joke.  Now you have to remember, in a class of 47, there were only 26 boys, 13 of them white, I was not allowed to date non whites.  No Blacks, No Indians, and No Chicano’s was my father’s rules.  He added no welders to that list a little later.  Of those 13 white males in my class, 4 were my bullies.  Of the remaining 9 or so who could potential date in my class, most of them had girlfriends in other towns or schools.  So to say the pickins were slim I think is accurate.  And to tell you the truth, I think most men were turned off by me because of my brain and my reputation for being crazy.  If the word “Nerd” had existed in my day, I am quite sure I would have identified myself that way.  Sad but true. 

 I even went stag to my Jr. Prom.  My parents chaperoned.  Most people showed up drunk and I remember dancing with a bunch of guys in a group and smelling liquor all over them.  The only slow dance was with my dad.  I would not go to my Senior Prom because of the whole Brett incident. 

Ilsa

My Freshman year in High School

My freshman year in high school would have some momentous life events in it for my whole class. 

On August 17^th, 1990 a few days after we started school, we would lose Heather and Becky.  They along with their boyfriends, would be killed on a well site, when it exploded.

You have to remember we were all from a small town. There was no place, where kids might hang out together, drink beer and make out.  What was done in those days, is that kids would go down on a well site and party.  Well sites, are old oil well sites, where the rig has been removed, and now have only collection tanks remaining.  These sites are usually down a dirt road, and in those days rarely protected, by a gate and / or a lock.  These places are often secluded and hard to find.  I frequently heard my father tell tales of finding old, long abandoned well sites, when he was working on a new pipeline.  I am not sure, in those days, that even the oil companies knew, where all their well sites were.  On a well site you have these huge natural gas tanks, that sit on a large gravel or dirt area,  that have been cleared and can easily accommodate a large crowd, and most of the time 5 or 6 vehicles easy.   Their seclusion, large cleared area, and easy accessibility made them natural gathering spots for teenagers. 

The tanks on these well sites are called 210’s, meaning they can hold up to 210 barrels of natural gas.  A natural gas barrel is 42 gallons, you have to allow for the natural expansion and contraction of the gas.  That means just one of these tanks can hold 8,820 gallons of natural gas.  These tanks are usually 12 ft tall and there can be 1, 2 or as many as 4 on a well site.  One thing most people don’t know is that natural gas sweats, and when it does it produces a condensation that is as powerful as jet fuel. 

My knowledge comes from living here all my life and having a father in the natural gas business, and years of going on these well site locations with him.   Now I should be clear, I only heard of these parties.  I was never cool enough to be invited to one. 

Somehow a spark was made and it ignited the gas tanks. It shook houses a mile away, and broke windows a good distance away as well.  Becky who was tall and slender like her sister, was two years older than me. Heather was in my same grade, but we were not often in the same class.  I have always regretted that we were not closer. 

As much as I suffer with that guilt, I know others it has eaten alive.  Other who were supposed to have been at the party that night, but for whatever reason never made it.  Heather and Becky’s death taught me to be grateful for every birthday, because not everyone gets to be this old. 

After Heather and Becky’s deaths I saw a great effort on the part of the oil companies, to mark and lock their well roads and other properties.  Today you rarely find one open.  I have no idea if parties on the well sites continued after their deaths, or it they still happen today.

The same year we lost Heather and Becky we lost our school as well, on the evening of February 4^th, 1991 our school began to burn.

I got a phone call, from one of my uncles long before dawn.  I remember him saying, “Ilsa, schools on fire.” I said, “Okay,” and went back to sleep.  I woke up just about the time Daddy was getting ready to go to work.  I caught him just before he left.  I told him of the phone call.  At that point I was not completely sure I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing up.  I asked if he would drive by the school, and come back and tell me what was going on.  He said he would.

Now Logansport is a small, quiet town.  In those days I could sit on my porch, and listen to the football games.  I always knew when we made a touchdown, because I could hear the crowd cheer.  While Dad went to go check, Mom and I looked in the general direction of the school and saw an orange glow.  Daddy returned a few minutes later to say I was correct.  I didn’t dream it.  The school was indeed on fire.

Now I know it’s almost every student’s ardent hope and wish, that their school would burn too.  I must tell you we had all wished for such a thing, until it happened to us.  One night affected our lives for the next year and a half.

Mom and I hoped in the car and immediately drove to my school.  We could see it’s flames long before we ever got there.  My ancient 2 story high school was engulfed.  I will never forget driving past the blaze and the windows in the car being too hot to touch.  At that point my school was just a shell.  I would find out years later, that the original school had been wood.  Some years later it had been bricked over.  So when all was said and done with, the interior of the building was gone, but the brick facade remained. 

There were fire trucks and fire fighters everywhere.  I wonder now if they called in mutual aid from adjacent fire districts.  They must have, at some point, marked it as a total loss and let it just burn.  I think by the point we arrived, they were just trying to keep the other nearby buildings from catching fire as well. And they did a phenomenal job.  They saved the “Middle School” (the building the 7^th & 8^th graders used), the gym, the annex, the band building, and the home economics building.  The only things that burned that night were the main high school building and the annex, but that had been condemned long ago.  We stopped to talk to one of the firefighters.  I wanted to warn him that there was a chemistry lab upstairs.  He said, “Yes Mam’.  We know.  It was putting off pretty colors & sparks last night.”  Stories abounded about how firefighters and teachers alike risked their lives to save important documents, like test scores and grades in the councilor’s office, and those who tried to save trophies from the trophy cases. 

My school burned for three days straight.  It was a week before it stopped smoldering.  The steel beams inside were twisted from the heat.  I do remember hearing that part of what fueled the fire, was the very thick, probable 2” – 4” thick layer of wax, on top of the wood floors.  I know it was a while before investigators could get a good look, at what was left of our school, and decide what the cause of the fire was. 

The fire was deemed to be arson.  No one, as far as I know, has ever claimed responsibility for the fire.  No one has ever been convicted in this crime.  We were all told that a homeless person had been inside and set the fire.  Logansport had no homeless person, that I ever saw.  We were badly in need of a new school, long before the fire.  There was another rumor that the son of one of the school board members was asked to set it.  I have no idea.  The think the rumors are still wild and varied on who did it. It all kinds of depends on who you ask. 

I want to give a shout out to all the peps from Shreveport and the Ark-La-Tex, who stepped up and helped my little school out after the fire.  People came of the woodworks to help us.  People donated books by the truck load, as our beautiful little library had been part of what was destroyed.  Within a few days what had been the gym became the new library, admin offices, councilor’s office and 3 or 4 class rooms.  Four T buildings, temporary one room portable buildings to have classes in, were brought in and set up.  In less than a week were back in school.

I remember going to school, and seeing what was left of the building, still smoking and with twisted beams.  Then came the men in white suits.  My guess is they were checking for asbestos, or trying to see if what remained was toxic or not.  What was left of the school was soon surrounded by a chain link fence.  Why we tried to get on with our lives, and figure out what to do next.  I remember Mrs. Land’s room and her asking us to put our library books on the green built in book case at the front of the room.  We did. It only filled a few shelves, but that was all that survived of our library, was what we had checked out a few days before.  It was terrible to me to think of all those books gone. 

Discussions were had on whether to rebuild the old building, what to do with what remained of the old one, or whether to build a new building, and if so where.  It took a while, but finally the decision was made to build a new school.  It would take about 2 years, and would not be at the same location as the current school.  There were 4 beautiful white columns on the front of the old high school. It was decided that they would be saved, and everything else burned by the fire would be demolished.

The 4 columns and the front part of the school stood for several years, before it was deemed unsafe, as people were prone to climbing on it.  Finally it was destroyed as well.  For a year and a half we lived like that.  I remember letting out a great scream when the high school was being demolished.  We all stood around the fence and watched the bulldozers destroy what was left.  We couldn’t stop watching.

The new school was built on a sprawling property just before the Maple Springs Baptist Church, down from the Louisiana Pacific Plant, and the VFW building.  It was beautiful, but with none of the same charm as the old school had. 

The land where our old high school stood was bought by the First Baptist Church, which was next door to our old school.  Ironically their building burned down a few years ago.  They built a new million dollar church in the same spot as our old school stood.

The trees were the last witnesses to go.  On either side of the sidewalk in front of our old school were two massive old oak trees.  Turns out they had been planted to honor students who fought in WWI.  They were as much a part of the school as the columns were.  At the beginning of the new churches construction they were cut down, despite protests from those in town, including one beloved lady who had to be dragged away from there by the police.  I must say I admire her style.

I was recently through that neck of the woods for a cousin’s baby shower.  I saw the new church in all its glory and out in front had been planted two new trees.  Ironic and typical, at least in my mind anyways.

Ilsa

Friends

Logansport Rosenwald School was from Kindergarten until 6^th grade.  Then you transferred and went to the big school.  Logansport High School was from 7^th grade to 12^th.  There really was no such thing as middle school for us, but I will refer to my 7^th and 8^th grade years in that way here, for your convenience and understanding. 

When I went to 7^th grade, I had three best friends.  Sonya had been my best friend since 1^st grade, and would continue to be, until my senior year.  She treated me like dirt.  Courtney was a short, round girl who lived down the street from me.  We took her on vacation with us once, and camping at least once.  Sonya and Courtney were my BFFs for many, many years.

Mary transferred in to Logansport Rosenwald, from the Caddo Magnet program.  She was very smart and very nice.  I fear she thought we are all stupid.  She easily excelled at our school.  Mary was also African American. She and I were one of the first interracial friendships my school had seen.  We hung out together at lunch, and she spent the night at my house a few times.

Stacy, Angela Heartsfield, and Jennifer were also my very good friends.  We all hung out together and ate lunch together.  I called it “holding court.”  I felt all people there were free to speak their minds, and tell any story they wished. 

I will never forget stepping into my new lunchroom.  All the black kids were on one side, and all the white kids were on the other.  They call it self-segregation. So when Mary sat down with me on the white side, which had the only open table, we both got dirty looks.  Mary took a lot of heat for that from the black community.  They often accused her of wanting to be white.  I think that idea just befuddled her. 

Together all of us kind of formed our own click.  We were the outcasts, the weird ones, most of us terribly smart. We were our own Isle of Misfit Toys.  We, as a group, often floated between the jocks, the poor kids and some of the black group, but then again we were also a cohesive group on our own and often stayed to ourselves.  As self-centered as it may sound, I often felt they were my entourage.  I felt I was surrounded and protected by strong, intelligent, beautiful women, but none of it would last very long.

Into our group we added Alison.  She became one of my closest friends.  Her father was the pastor of Maple Springs Baptist Church.  It was right next door to Louisiana Pacific (the log plant) and the creosote plant.  Her father was one of those charismatic leaders.  I would find out later, that when he left town, he owed quite a few people money.  It was to him I posed the question of, “Who are God’s parents?”  He became violent and belligerent towards me, and told me to never ask such things again.

Alison’s church had a choir and you know me, I just love to sing.  We rehearsed again, and again.  We were preparing to do Bette Midler’s, “You are the wind beneath my wings,” about the time my dad told me, I had to quit.  I remember turning in my choir shirt, with tears in my eyes.  I was devastated.  I still don’t quite understand what happened.  My guess is this.

I had made an alter call.  I had for several years been masturbating.  Something I believed I had invented.  Remember no sex ed. here people.  I knew I was going to burn in hell for this.  I felt I could not bring up such a subject up with my parents.  I feel embarrassed and squeamish bringing up such a subject to you even now.  In a generation full of women’s liberation and equality, women’s rights and long after the sexual revolution took place.  My parents never discussed such thing with me.   I would make several altar calls, as several different places, before I would find out what I was doing was healthy, natural, and normal. 

I was also making altar calls about this time, because I had heard other people’s stories of being saved.  Some said they saw light or halos, or that God spoke to them.  None of that had happened to me when I got saved, so I thought perhaps I had done it wrong.

When I made this particular altar call, Alison and her buddies took me in the back of the church.  They told me how proud they were of me, how they had been praying for this and that now I could be saved.  I tried to explain to them that I was already saved, that I had been sprinkled in the United Methodist Church the year before.  They told me that this did not count.  The only way I could be saved was to be baptized.

I had stumbled upon a nasty Southern truth.  Most Southern Baptist churches, don’t recognized a person’s baptism, outside of their own denomination.  I have also known some church that only recognized your baptism, if you were baptized in their church.  Even, for some of these people, if it was another Southern Baptist Church, you had to do it again.

United Methodism is not like that.  You tell us you were baptized on such and such a date, and at such and such a church, we will believe you, as long as we can verify it.  No problems.  You don’t have to be resprinkled or be rebaptized.  We simply call it a profession of faith,  you are then counted as a member of the church, and given what we call a “letter.”

Dad tells me I came home that night, after my altar call, “talking all kinds of crazy shit.”  He knew that the people I was hanging out with up there, were not the people I need to be around.  So he told me I had to quit the choir.  I think I stopped being friends with Alison about that time as well.

My friendship with Alison pushed me to places that I was not comfortable going.  One of the girls in our click was named Stacy.  She is a dear and treasured friend.  Alison convinced me that Stacy needed saving.  She and I brought our bibles to school.  Not a big deal, lots of people did that.  During our 7^th grade English class, we asked to be excused, outside with Stacy.  The teacher said okay.  I believe she knew what we were going to do.  We left the room with our bibles in hand.  We took Stacy outside and proselytized to her, and told her she need to be saved.  We were so adamant, that Stacy started crying, because we had upset her so bad.  I had to stop.  I think I walked back inside. 

I have apologized to Stacy several times, over the years for this.  The fact that I attacked Stacy in this way, on school property, and was allowed to do so, by the teacher, still bothers me a lot.  Stacy should have been free to attend school without the fear of some trying to shove their religion down her throat.  Just imagine, if your kids got accosted by a bunch of Muslims, that tried to force your child in to believing in Ali, while she was at school, and the teacher knew about it.  You would probably be pissed too.  Although Stacy is a Christian, and was back then too, I wonder how many people get accosted like this every today.

Courtney and I, were also coming to the end of our friendship, about that time as well.  I had loved Courtney, as a best friend, for many years.  But she frequently insulted me, and made fun of both me, and of the things, I loved and treasured.  She also would always hold over my head, everything I ever did wrong.  I stopped speaking to her as well.  I often acted as if she was dead or she simply wasn’t there at all.  Not an easy thing to do as we both graduated in the same class together of 47.  Between the time I stopped speaking to her in middle school, and today, I think I have said less than a paragraph to her. 

Breaking up with Courtney had to be as hard on her, as it was on me.  We were continuously urged by both our parents and other friends to fix our relationship, but I refused to budge.  I can be very stubborn when I want to be.  I see Courtney’s Momma ever now and again, and ask after her.  I even ran into Courtney a few years back and spoke to her.  She looked like she wanted to run away from me.  I tried to friend her on Facebook, and make amends but she told me no.  Although I have no desire to be her friend again, as I know how she is, I do want to apologize to her, for the way I behaved towards her, and for not being there for her when her dad died.  I want her to know I wish her all the best that life has to give her. 

 

Ilsa

You can write!

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 6^th 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 6^th 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 6^th 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 5^th 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 6^th 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 20^th 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

 

Only child

Because of Mom’s surgery she has to take very powerful anti-seizure medications.  The Doctors advised her to never have another child or it would have complications because of the medicine.  So she never did.  I was raised an only child, although I no longer define myself as such, having found my half siblings.  I know what you are thinking.  That being an only child means I was raised spoiled.  No not really.  That only works if your parents have money to spoil you.  I grew up living as we say, “pretty close to the bone.”  Meaning I watched my mother cry as she tried to figure out what bills to pay that month.  She “robbed Peter, to pay Paul.”  I will give them credit, I never went hungry and I never remember a time when the water or electric got cut off, but I always worried about all of the above happening.  As the old Alabama song says, “we were so poor, but we couldn’t tell.”

There were basically three groups of people in my school.  The jocks and cheerleaders all seemed to be a bit better off then the rest and acted as such.   They tended to dress a little better and more fashionable then everybody else.   Had you taken these same kids and put them in the Caddo school system, they would have been seen as poor.  So they were just well off by our standards.  The other group was those of us who were dirt poor.  Most of this group were sexually active early on, some of their own choosing, and some not.  This group did not follow fashion and dressed in whatever was available to them. 

The third group, I am sad to say were Black.  When I went to school there was no mixing.  We were self segregated.  There were no mixed relationships.  Yes you could be a Black football player and / or track star, but you did not sit with the white football players and cheerleaders.  It’s not you were not welcome, it was just not done. 

I am not trying to sound racist here.  I am simply telling you the way in which I experienced my world growing up, call it White Guilt or whatever you want, but I do not mean to offend anyone.  Please understand this is how I was raised, and I have worked very hard to grow beyond that, as many in my generation have. 

In the town I grew up in there was the white section of town and the Black section of town, over the railroad tracks.  This area of town was known as the quarters.  White kids, especially girls, knew not to go down there.  If you did, we were told there would be trouble to follow.  You damn sure didn’t go down there by yourself.  It was my understanding you went down there for drugs, but little else.  It was considered too violent.   I was told it was a good place to get shot.  I don’t know.  I did as I was told and other then being lost down there, I have never been in that section of my hometown.  Honestly I am still a bit afraid to go.  Maybe it is time I conquered that fear and changed my opinions.

I referred to myself as a floater.  I moved between both the poor kids and the jocks.  I was known to “hold court,” as I called it, during lunch with all types of people.  I would today consider myself a nerd, even though that designation did not exist in my school.  Neither did Prep or Goth. 

You also have to consider that Logansport was a very closed minded, evangelical town.  It is still run by the church today.  You were Black or you were white.  If you were mixed, and I knew few of these people, you were considered Black.  I knew of a few white women who married or had relationships with Black men.  They went on to live in the Black community.  Often the rumors about these women were they were so fat or so ugly that no white man wanted them.  It was never seen as being a choice. I never heard of a white man with a Black woman in my community. There were no Creoles, Asians, Middle Eastern people and very few Mexicans sent their kids to school.  There were very few Latinos in Logansport at the time, and fewer of Native American blood.  Our town seemed to be about 50 / 50 Black and white. 

In Logansport you could be any religion you wanted.  You could be Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, A.M.E, C.M.E., Assembly of God, Pentecostal, hell you could even be Jehovah Witness if you wanted to.  Catholics were tolerated, but called “Mary worshipers.”  As long as you were some kind of Christian it was okay.  Oma was a Lutheran, but that was not good enough for the town’s people.  Nope she had to be of a proper faith and I think became a Baptist because of the pressure of those around her.  I mean this is the kind of town that played, “Just as I am,” until somebody got up to be saved, even if it was just to make the damn music stop. 

Everyone was Christian in my town that I knew of. Oh I knew of other cultures, that had other religions, in other lands, but that was not in the United States.  As far as I knew, everyone in America was Christian and if not should be.  My Grandpa had been an avowed atheist prior to marrying Barbara.   Mr. Gingles, my 8^th grade Earth Science teacher was an Agnostic.  I don’t consider Agnosticism to be a religion, as it does not have traditions and customs.  A belief system, or a non-belief system if you will, but not a religion per say.  Y’all please correct me if I am wrong.

I meet my first real non-Christian, when a group came to town that were walking and protesting the 500^th anniversary of Columbus coming to the Americas.  They were trying to bring environmental awareness as well as awareness of what was going on with indigenous cultures in the Americas.  Among them were two Buddhist monks, in their beautiful orange robes.  First United Methodist Church was opened to feed the group and give them a place to stay that night.  I remember sitting and talking to all of them, but the monks in particular.  I was fascinated with them.  One of them gave me 2 pieces of origami that he had made, a flower and a crane.  I still have the picture of them that I took.  I wonder where they are now?

I am also sad to say that there were no “out” gay persons in my school.  I know of at least 4 men I went to school with who later came out.  There were men who acted effeminate in school, but I never saw an open gay relationship in my school, or in my community for that matter, growing up.  If you were gay you kept it to yourself, and never went out with your partner, much less held hands and kissed in public.  Logansport was the kind of town where gays were not welcomed and most kept it quiet, or I am sorry to say moved.  Logansport was the kind of place you survived. 

Everyone dated.  Everyone dated everyone else.  Some people were just passed around.  The boys tormented me in school, they didn’t want to date me.  Other then Sean, who I’ve already talked about, Melvin and Brett, who I will talk about later, I had very few boyfriends.  The longest relationship I had in school I think was Melvin, and that was an arranged relationship and it lasted 6 weeks. 

I was sitting in one of my girlfriends bedrooms one day with the rest of my friends and I mentioned that I thought a boy was cute.  They all looked at me funny and laughed.  I didn’t get the joke. They told me they had all believed I was a lesbian.  I didn’t even know what that was.  Once they explained to me what the word meant I said, “No I like boys.  I just don’t like any of the ones here!”

I had trouble making friends.  I often felt like an outsider in my school. I was often very lonely.  I think the other kids felt that and I was called weird or crazy to my face on a daily basis.  Logansport was a very small town and everyone was intermarried.  You went to school with your 1^st, 2^nd, and sometimes up to 5^th cousins.  You were often judged by teachers and administration by who you were, and who you were related to.  Some of our teachers not only taught our younger siblings and cousins, but our parents as well.  One of our favorite games was to look in our school books for the names of people we knew.  You won if you found your parents. 

I stayed as close to my family, as I could.  When Daddy married Mom he bought her a new trailer, but it stayed next to Oma’s house. With my new dad and new house, came new family.  Everyone in my new family loved me and immediately accepted me as their own.  Well all of course Novelle.  The first time I met my new grandfather, Pappy, he pulled up the chair closest to him and told me to sit.  That became my seat, and if anyone dared sit in it I would make them move.  I felt Pappy had given me that seat and no one could take it from me.  I had been offered a place at the table and that was powerful to me. 

I became very close to my new cousin Drew who was a year older than me.  He was warm, funny, and most of all welcoming.  I will never forget the first day I met him.  I gave me this little statue of a white poodle. I still have it.  I always felt it was a welcome to the family gift.  I was even offered to be part owner in the paint horse, named Shasta, that all the cousins would ride. 

Now all of Daddy’s family was from Keatchie, they had been for more than a 100 years.  Keatchie is a little town about 15 miles north of Logansport.  All the kids from Keatchie went to Logansport School.  Keatchie quickly became my adopted home town.  You ask me today where I am from I will tell you, “I’m from Logansport, but all my people are from Keatchie.”  I remember making quite a few trips in the bed of the pickup truck from Logansport to Keatchie.  You learned real fast not to keep your mouth open ‘cause you would be catching bugs. 

We lived in Logansport and during the weekends we went to Keatchie, either on Saturday or Sunday, depending if we were going to church or not. Keatchie has three churches, a Southern Baptist, a United Methodist, and Presbyterian.  The population of the town was meant to support all three churches.  The first Sunday you were Methodist, the second Sunday you were Baptist, and the third Sunday you were Presbyterian, the fourth Sunday you were Baptist again, and if there was a fifth Sunday you were Methodist again.  When I grew up there was even still a community bible school that met prior to church.  This is what is called a rotation cycle.  It goes back to the days when you had the old circuit riding preachers, who traveled on horseback.  They would have several churches under their care and they would travel from church to church.  This is also why Louisiana has Parishes instead of counties.  A Parish was all the Catholic churches under one Father.  It was intended to be the distance he could ride on horseback in one week.  Until recently, in the vows a United Methodist Pastor took to become ordained, he or she was asked if they had a good horse.  So I grew up very connected with the old ways.

On First Sunday Novelle cooked a huge meal and the whole family would come to eat after church, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  After Mom and I washed the dishes, then we went to Drew’s to swim in his pool.  He was a little better off than me, so he had a pool, a satellite, and an Atari. I never had a video game system.  We could not afford one.  I think that is why I am still not a gamer today, it was not part of my early life, and I never could figure out all the buttons.    

I was, until I started coming down with Bronchitis, the kid who was forever outside.  I’ve told you I used to be a runner.  Mom would kick me out of the house and say, “Go Play Outside!”  and I would.  I loved to make mud pies.  I remember Mom yelling at me to come in the house to take off my church clothes, so I didn’t get them muddy.  Sometimes she got to me in time, and sometimes she didn’t.  She used to bribe me with ICEE’S to be good in church.  I remember standing under our big oak tree, and pretending to be a witch.  In my cauldron, a #10 wash tub, I would stir up rocks, chains and bottle caps, and make my little incantations and curse who ever had been mean to me that week.  Little did I know I would one day grow up to be a witch. 

Ilsa