School in California

 Perhaps Mother knew or suspected that in California, the schools would teach us about menstruation and our bodies. So she wanted to get in her story about it first. Hence my vague memory, improved by my brother's recollection, of a Quonset Hut where we lived in California until our civilian housing purchase could be completed. Mother taking me into the bathroom, when no one else was around, and telling me about blood and fear and my body in a way that made no sense and sounded terrible. I don't know why it feels like I was nine, because I must have been ten or eleven. 

I remember touring the new house we were going to buy on East Lomita. I remember seeing the way it looked with the sellers' furniture and thinking, it will be much worse with our stuff in it. It was.  And I probably said something like this out loud to our parents. Not well received. I remember the lawn and the edging of gray ice plants which gradually disappeared with each viewing. Until when we moved in, no ice plants around the lawn. And, yes, our stuff was still our grubby stuff filling up the new house and making it old and ugly. At least they left the bougainvillea against the garage. But if they did, why do I also remember pyracanth, the orange bittersweet berries in that same place? 

Fifth grade my teacher is a red-head named Mrs. Bois. She has long shiny fingernails that match her lips! She likes me, apparently. I adore her. Before every test, she conducts a "review" in which he rehearses every question and every answer. I take careful notes during these reviews, and ace every test. It makes me proud. One assignment that gave me trouble was the "country" report. I chose Russia, our big, bad enemy. I skimmed our encyclopedia. We had a full set of the Americana Encyclopedia, and the parents sprung for the bookcase to hold it and the annual updates, too. Sadly for me, I did not read far enough into the Russia article to find the October Revolution, until the night before it was due! ack! and a parent, probably Daddy, sat up all night typing my hastily scribbled revisions. whew! There was some remark about parents "helping" with schoolwork afterwards, but I got an A. I wanted to give Mrs. Bois a gift (Christmas? end of school?) and Mother coached me to ask her what color of nail polish and lipstick she was wearing. I felt proud giving her something she would like and use. She later had some trouble with the administration and was demoted to teaching much younger kids. I remember doing a "state" report, as well. This involved writing off to the Chamber of Commerce or some such, for pictures, written material, and other trifles to augment my research in the encyclopedia. I chose Georgia, the Peach State. 

Fifth grade was the year I got glasses! Finally some relief from being unable to see the board. I was astounded the first time I rode in the car after getting my new lenses. I could read the street signs! I was still no good at sports. I remember being smacked in the face by one of the big red rubber balls on the playground. I remember lobbing a softball into the air which hit Mrs. Bois on the head, right after she had specifically said not to do that! I remember choosing up sides for kickball and not being wanted. I remember playing four-square and tetherball, and not being good at it. Oh those sunny hours of recess on the partially paved playground. There was softball, too, but I avoided that if I could. There were three huge pepper trees at the entrance to the school. They were magnificent. Outside the fence, on another side, was a row of Eucalyptus providing a windbreak for a fragrant orange orchard. We could walk to school at Cambridge Elementary, where I was in fifth and then sixth grades. Later I would walk to school at Yorba Junior High for seventh and eighth. 

Johnny was just a year behind me when I was in fifth grade. But I don't remember him attending Yorba during my two years there. I remember in California, Johnny had a Fourth Grade teacher, Mrs. Kjerr (?), about whose care of his delicate sensibilities much was said. Mother seemed to think Mrs. Kjerr was helping him, and she was grateful. Johnny did seem troubled, especially after the incident in the boys' room in Quantico. He was standoffish, and didn't want to play with us. He was supremely unhappy all the time as I recall. At Quarters 811 Quantico, he had one friend, gosh what was his name? who came from a disadvantaged household, just the mother at home, as I recall. And then Johnny got stuck in the mudflats up at SeCon. 

In Sixth grade things got complicated. There was the Kotex education, where girls were divided from the boys, and girls watched a film strip about how their bodies worked. Ovaries and uterus and fallopian tubes. Tissue buildup, egg passing through, and tissue sloughing off and gently, quietly with no fuss, exiting the mysterious body. "Say goodbye to revealing lines!" said the (male!) announcer, showing a glamourous girl in a slinky gown. "Say goodbye!" I thought, outraged. I haven't even said "hello" to revealing lines. Mother's ideas about dressing my developing body were strict and controlling in the extreme. Yet she thought to take me, from time to time, to a salon to have my hair cut. But the operator offended her by referring to my "thin spot." I remember being teased about my jiggly behind by some female classmates. I remember eating lunch on the grass, and taking any food anyone wanted to give me. I remember Patti? whose big sister did haircuts. I had started school with a long ponytail and bangs. Patti's sister cut my hair and teased it into a beehive. This was enchanting. I remember being attracted to a large, dark boy in my class, but this went nowhere.

Mrs. Ujifusa was a good teacher, I think. One of the things she taught was art. I turned out not to be very good at it. But a classmate, Marc Andresen, was excellent. He cut a stencil of the Three Kings and used it to paint cards in gold. He painted a lighthouse brightly striped in red and white. I was fascinated. But my watercolor was scrubbed and wretched. 

This was the year of the piano lessons. I was in choir at church as well. Also there was a summer session involving deportment, how to sit and walk, and ballroom dancing at some point, maybe middle school. I remember being tall and having a huge beehive hairdo, making partnering difficult. I remember a graduation ceremony for the deportment thing, with a poor girl whose exaggerated walk across the stage was painful to watch.

Let me tell you about the Halloween costumes. Mother decided we would all be totem poles, constructed from cardboard moving boxes and painted. I had a fearsome tall one with a grim face. Rick's was a thunderbird with wings! Mother refused to help me paint mine because she had to see to the smaller sibs. These costumes made it all but impossible to carry a treat bag, ring a doorbell or even walk, but they sure looked impressive.

I remember trying to make friends with girls my age, and I remember failure. There was the little dark-haired girl who lied all the time. There was the across-the-street family with a big older sister, then Becky who was my age, and at least two younger brothers. One made fun of my knees. One, Patrick, the baby, had something wrong with this guts, Mother said his mother had to massage his rectum to teach him to poop. This avoided surgery, a good thing. I remember going into their house and seeing all the dishes piled up in the kitchen, not just a full sink, but all the countertops and table, everything piled with greasy, food-clogged pans, pots, plates, etc. And it was the big girls' job to wash them. I was appalled. I remember wandering through their house, or being led into the master bedroom, and seeing their mother emerging naked from the bathroom. How awful! Mother said the father, a Commander in the Navy, was not home much. Did they move away? 

I was invited to a sleepover by one of the girls in my class who didn't really like me. Mother pressured her mother, I guess. It was briefly fun, and someone started to rat my hair, little suspecting that my hair was going to fail no matter what you did to it. I remember giggling and fun, but then her mother saying, no more shrieking or I'll turn off the lights! and guess who immediately shrieked. I remember that girl yelling something mean at me when I rode my bike past the school in my pedal pushers. I got another bike in California. It was a brand new, red, Schwinn, boy's bike with the bar at the top supporting the seat, gears and narrow racing tires. It was a boy's bike, because I was going to pass it along to my brothers. I also remember a used purple girl's bike later with balloon tires, and three gears. 

And I gave a party, too. Mother, really, decided when, where, who would be invited, what games to play. The garage. I was given a choice about the menu and chose my favorite cream cheese with black olives open faced on those funny round Roman Meal loaves. Not well received. Don't remember the party being much fun, but it happened. Girls my age were there. We played a game called Murder.

I remember trying to hang out with other girls. It seemed to always end in trouble and isolation. Middle school was two years of trying to fit in! There was the black, hooded sweater I had to have. Everyone had them! There were the shiny red flat shoes everyone was wearing. There were shiny, white, sling-back shoes where the elastic would break and I would (so painfully!) repair it with a safety pin that dug into my heel. There were the "gym clothes" we had to wear, and a girl asking "are those your thighs?" There is a picture of me in the brown corduroy coat with huge buttons everyone had to have! standing beside the gingerbread house I created, an enormous thing, with gobs of expensive cookies and candy all glued onto a cardboard frame. 

I remember eating in the cafeteria in middle school, and how they called the cups of strawberry sundaes "used Kotex." I remember the awful day when my period started in seventh grade right in the middle of class. Those belts and pads, and the horrible cramps. And nothing to be done about any of it. Messy, ugly, painful and unavoidable; that was being a girl. I remember having crushes on male teachers all through seventh and eighth grades. Some of those guys were gay, I think. The history teachers, Mr. Berg and Mr. (?) I'll remember him, were especially appealing. Mr. Berg limped. He was a Marine who had survived the Bataan Death March. Mr. (?) had a withered arm, dark hair and a huge big grin. He liked to talk about taking trips back east to view the Colonial settlements. He talked about being shut into a pillory. The science teacher, a small, dark, intense man. He once wrote to me in Georgia, asking about a visit. I may have consulted my parents. I wrote him a long, detailed set of directions to my house, but I never heard from him again. What became of Kim? Who was the blonde girl who giggled with me about our American History teacher Mr. ? what was his name? it will come to me, I'm sure. I can see him just as plain as plain, his great smile. Fraser?

And the chorus teacher! A sleek, tall, blond fellow, who had a following of talented singers. I remember getting included in a group that rehearsed after school, at night, in a church. Daddy would have to come get me. I would want to linger and gossip, but Daddy wanted to just get home! The inconvenience put an end to that.

And that was the year of Brigadoon. I was in chorus, and wanted to be in the musical. I had to have a dress made, and Mother made it. It was dark green. There were performances, or at least one. I was in the chorus, no leading part, and liked to sit with the piano player and turn his pages during rehearsal. Rodell Minx was a high school student, and he had a big, pale girlfriend who did not like me sitting on the bench with him. But Rodell was nice to me. 

After we moved back to Georgia, Rodell and I corresponded a couple of times. Then his parents wrote to me, begging me to tell them if I knew where he might be. Today, I suspect he was gay, and coming out, had to get away from home. But at the time, I was clueless. I was sorry to have lost my friend, but I was certainly not going to help his parents find him! I informed them that if I ever ran across him, I would convey their wishes to him, but I would not violate his confidence. Of course, I never had the chance. I wonder if Rodell survived AIDS? So many died. 

In middle school, I excelled in math, of all things. I could see the board! I attended a "pre-algebra" class in summer school at the high school, and in 8th grade they wanted to put me in the advanced math class. Much juggling of schedules had to be done, and I lost chorus as an elective, I think. The math class was hard and confusing at first, but I enjoyed the challenge. And the teacher was a strange tall man with a pale crew cut who drove a Nash Metropolitan. I think of him as angry.

During one of the episodes where my behavior of crushing on a teacher was disruptive, I was kind of adopted by the Assistant Principal, Mr. Beyer, and given a book on the Civil War to read. It was a humorous book. All I remember is the joke about all the Confederate Generals named Johnson.

I was a member of the National Junior Honor Society, and a Secretary of some academic school group. I presided at an evening assembly where I got to read out the names of award recipients. I was coached on reading out my own name, how to gracefully do that, but I ignored the advice and was awkward. Nonetheless, I got a trophy for "Best Eighth Grade Girl, 8th place." I beat out my rival Joan Prosch by several places!

Lady and the Tramp

 One thing I feel in remembering all this is how separated I feel from my younger siblings. We are a big family. We eat dinner together every night. We eat breakfast together every morning. We all go to school, and presumably ride the bus together. We go to church every (friggin!) Sunday together in our good clothes and shoes, all clean from our weekly baths. Mother is home all the time, except when she is volunteering--but that is much later. Yet, I find my memories to be of a lone girl who occasionally brushes up against other members of the family with drastic and unfortunate results. 

Lady and the Tramp

I was so desperate to learn to read! and so desperate to turn six years old, so I would, immediately, fully, know how to read! When I was five, anticipating this remarkable transformation, I had a vision of myself at six. I walked down the sidewalk in front of Grandma's house, the sweet gum on the street, the monkey grass covering the lawn. I was a huge segmented creature, like a giant, upright caterpillar, with six (count them! 6!!) segments indicating my six years and new life as a reader.

Before I could be allowed to read, I picked one Golden Book, and demanded that any handy adult read it to me, over and over. I memorized Lady and the Tramp, so I could open the book and "read" the first few sentences. The Darlings! what a great name for the family. I don't know how or why I chose this book, but looking back, it seems to make a kind of sense. There were no end of babies being born into my otherwise idyllic existence, to disrupt our routines and impinge on my freedom and pleasure. There was no "aunt" needed to move in, of course, because Mother certainly changed into a screaming harridan with every new addition. Muzzled. Yes, I'm sure I did feel muzzled. Certainly by the time baby Cayce was born, my questions and curiosity were unwelcome, ridiculed and shut down as abruptly as possible. And Tramp, how much of my life, starting with Daddy's return from Korea, has been spent searching for the kindly young fellow to release my muzzle? Little did I suspect, they all have their own muzzles, even if I get out of my first one. 

I remember childhood2

I remember spending birthdays and holidays enthroned on the couch in the tv room, Mother ministering to me.  I remember hitting Cayce on the head, and when she cried and cried i was instantly remorseful, but my remorse didn't stop her tears. And I was terrified of getting in trouble.

I remember an episode, three of us are in the big boys' room. Rick is jumping on his bed and pulling down his pajama pants most daringly. John and I (unclothed? Partially clothed?) Are under the sheets of his bed. Daddy storms into the room shouting and yanking me out of the bed. I am banished to my room. "Don't you know this is wrong?!!" And my defiant and truthful answer: NO!

I remember seeing Daddy naked one time. Someone left the connecting door to their suite open, and he was walking into their bathroom. He cursed and shut the door. 

Am I remembering correctly that the parents had big parties on weekends with the bartender from the Officers' Club? Mother would make her anchovy appetizers and in the morning there would be lots of glasses lying around and full ashtrays. I think we or I tasted the leftover drinks. or else we just mixed them together. While our parents slept in and tried to nurse their hangovers.

Was there music at those parties? probably. Dancing? I doubt it. The couch was green and the carpet was green. I think the drapes were covered with big white yellow and gray flower pattern. You can see where those wrought iron chairs and coffee table would come in handy with a bunch of drunk Marines and their wives jostling about. Is this the time the chair jumped at Cayce? or was it later in California? Seems like Virginia.

I remember dancing to music on the hi-fi in that living room. Symphony Fantastique, The Firebird, or one of the musicals like Camelot or Kiss Me Kate. Scheherazade and Sinbad, Rimsky Korsakov. Or the Borodin, "On the Steppes of Central Asia." (still a favorite)

I had ballet lessons. My teacher's name is back there in memory somewhere. She was a petite brunette with a decidedly European air. So many of us little girls in our black leotards and pink tights and special pink ballet shoes. Class after class, with a live pianist, and work at the barre. I was supposed to come home and practice. First position, second position, third position, fourth and fifth positions. Plie. The recital where I was dressed as a poodle with the other little beginner girls. And I remember how I could not stand quietly in the line, but had to peer at my fellow dancers, messing up the performance. At the second year's recital, Mother fell out with the teacher over the lobster costumes. And there was a struggle over whether I would be allowed to go en pointe. Today I can see that not only was I not practicing, not doing that well in flats, but my feet were (as the teacher said) too big! I got toe shoes, but my career as a ballerina ended soon after. I don't remember having a pink leotard or a tutu, alas.

Daddy has a secretary! Annette is just as sweet as she can be for me. I remember going to see the movie Cinderella with her. She came and babysat for all of us once. Maybe more? She had one bedtime story for the boys. She had a different one for me. I wanted the one she told the boys. I felt she was disappointed. 

This belongs in California 1401 East Lomita, Orange. I remember getting my first Barbie Doll My only Barbie doll. Black hair, sloe eyes, and a striped bathing suit. But there was another doll, with jointed arms and legs, supposed to be a dancer. 

I remember one summer Mother had decided on improving us. Johnny and I were forced to participate in French lessons from a record. M. Lenoir, la chatte. Sur la table. Ou est this and ou sont that. Mother, too, was going to learn Russian from records. Not sure how long it lasted. It was rather desole.

This house has a Family/Dining room where the TV is set up. Mother's family heirloom giant round dining table is in this room. My piano. Was there a fireplace as well? Sliding glass doors open onto a concrete patio. Perhaps the living room also has sliding doors that open onto this patio. The yards in front and back are a strange ground cover called dichondra. It has to be watered with the automatic sprinklers daily. There are plantings around the edges. Poinsettias are among the exotic flowers Mother grows. Growing plants becomes something she is interested in. 

There are lots of snails in the yard. I make a science project of the snails. If starving will they become cannibals? No. They will die. I will then prepare them for cooking so as to have some result of this massive failure. There is a particular pesticide for snails and slugs, it is some kind of red pellets. I am not grossed out by slimy snails. I also learn nothing about science from them. 

I was a subscriber to Mad Magazine! and there was a record with one issue with a song: "Nose Job." I can still sing it. And the Tom Lehrer record I loved to listen to and memorize. I can sing some of those, as well. And other parodies of songs that appeared in Mad. I would march around our California subdivision singing those songs at the top of my voice! 

The house on Lomita Street has three bedrooms and two baths. The boys were supposed to bunk together in the small bedroom, the one with windows onto the front porch. The girls were supposed to share the big bedroom with the built-in desk. However, I received some kind of junior makeup kit for Christmas, and my baby brother and sister made free with its contents. My indignant shrieking led to rearrangement. The boys got the big room. I got the smaller room, and Cayce got nothing. I think she slept in the living room? Or was there a cot set up in another room? I'm still feeling awful about that. Not my decision, but still.

Mother swears a lot in California. She finds new fresh foods like mushrooms and avocados and goes all weird about Rodale and religion, too. Cayce has a pet rat. We also have cats. We sit on the linoleum in the family room to watch Leonard Bernstein's Concerts for Children. And to watch Uncle Luther's cartoon show. Uncle Luther blows a kiss and we screech and dodge it!

I am in the choir. We wear green satin robes and funny hats with white cottas. I find kneeling and singing all during communion to be too hard and often have to sit back or even leave. We sang at a funeral, the song We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder. I am confirmed in California at Holy Trinity church. I remember my first communion, and how I felt Mother dampened the happiness. 

There was also a pageant at Christmas. Mother was of course involved in some directorial role, but the priest's son, poor little whats-his-name, was chosen (as they always are) to play a pivotal role. He had to make a speech about "the hated Herod." But he could not remember to say it. "The hated Horrid" became a byword at our house. I don't remember what my role was, if any, but I remember the rehearsals. Probably I was a silent angel. 

She then decided that Johnny would be instructed by someone better at a different church, and drove him to Anaheim for instruction weekly. I don't remember attending his confirmation service. But I do remember meeting the cutest monk at that distant church! He wore white robes and was just adorable, dark hair and eyes. He knew how I was affected. We were leaving, and going back to Decatur, Georgia, and he told me I could research convents there. He also mentioned something about asking them what nuns wore under their habits.

After years of pleading, I am given a piano and lessons. I have to practice in the family room. I hate it, every mistake so public. No one is mean to me (except me!), but practicing is agony. The lessons last for a year or two? but after one recital where I cannot seem to hit a single correct note, they end. During my piano phase, Mother tries one summer to get me to play with the band during summer school. I only last a day or two. 

A nun came to speak at church, Dr. Gladys Falshaw (or was this in Decatur? yes, perhaps it was). Mother learned about FGM, female genital mutilation, and shared her knowledge with me. I remember the shards of coke bottle. I had no idea why she would tell me this. I forgot as much as I could.

I remember childhood

 Before Cayce

Now where does this go? I remember the man babysitter. Mother has gone off to be with other mothers. Alcohol may have been involved. And she left us in our home with this young man. I am small, so my two brothers are even smaller. This is before there was Cayce. This man babysitter had dark hair. He insisted I take a bath, even though it was not "bath night." He also had me draw pictures of a naked child. Or did he draw them? Because I was not good at drawing. The child had no hands. He said they were behind her back. Later there was fussing. Someone (not Mother) asked me questions about him.

Living at 362
After that we moved to Decatur, next door to Grandma! without Daddy. Mother was expecting Cayce. She would march up and down the hall in a big green and white polka-dot housecoat saying angry curse words. It was good to hide from her then. She let us roller-skate inside, in the hall, on the wood floors. It had something to do with being mad with Grandma.
There was one bedroom for all 3 of us kids. I had my beautiful blue double bed, and I don't remember my brothers' beds, but we were all in one room. Mother would come and read to us all at bedtime.
One time I had to get up and use the bathroom. When I came back in the room, Mother asked rather pointedly, did you remember to wipe? Of course I said yes; however, I sat in a chair and left a stain on it. She was mad at me. Again.
Was it during this time that I had mumps? They told me I had mumps and Grandma sat with me and nursed me. But Grandma had never had mumps, and she caught them from me and nearly died. That's what they said.
I remember, too, that I learned to sew. First it was sewing buttons onto the nice smelling little brown paper cups Grandma had saved up. She had so many buttons! Grandma gave me a crewel project. A linen map of the United States with the state flower of each state drawn on it. There were lots of colored threads. I was supposed to embroider the little flowers. Mother and Grandma wanted me to sew on it, but it was very hard, and I didn't do much of it. Too discouraging. I kept it, and sometime later I remember getting it out again, but still not feeling up to the task. I wonder what happened to it?
I remember running away from home, going next door to Grandma's. Grandma gave me some food to eat in the dining room, but I had to eat by myself. I remember the taste of the dry baby meat and the divided bowl. She and Granddaddy sat in the living room with the TV. She said I had to go home. I did not want to. When I got back, Mother had put my brothers in my bed! "I thought you had gone away," she said. I was so sad. I didn't know what to do.
Granny came to visit and Mother decided to have a birthday party in the front yard on the brick walk. There was a cake. And she set up a grill. It was rainy or drizzling. Nothing seemed to go right. Ricky was "sent into the house" for some reason. Then shortly I was also sent inside. I found Ricky slamming the glass door between the front room and the hallway. Open, slam! Open, slam! I was not putting up with that. Slamming the glass door was wrong. I told him to stop! Maybe more than once. Then I took action. "Oh no you don't!" I shouted and held out my hand to stop the door. The door did not stop. The glass broke, my arm went right through it, and my armpit was cut pretty badly.
I don't remember much after that, except there was a white room and a nice man who was going to get the glass out and sew me up. But after we got back home, there was more bleeding and riding back to the hospital with a towel under my arm.
Then Cayce came! A baby! a little red baby with black hair and something wrong with her belly button. Mother got mad when I asked about it. She would get mad if I tried to touch the baby. She fed the baby at her breast. But she was mad if I saw. And she had a little scar just under her own belly button. She was mad if I asked about that. She seemed to get mad about all the questions I asked, even if they weren't about her or the baby. Mad mad mad.
I remember when Daddy finally came home. I remember his "Major Hat." He had a new hat because he was promoted. I was so glad to see him. I thought it would all be better. But it wasn't.

Permanent Wave
I remember Mother making a big fuss about my hair. I remember "Lilt" permanent wave. There is much messing about and much waiting, but then! I have curly hair! Lots of curls all over my head. How glorious. But no, Mother starts to brush and brush to make a "page boy" bob. I do not like it. After she finishes one side, she stops. I ran to show Daddy my beautiful curls. I do not get the reception I had hoped for. There are no more permanent waves.

First School
The Rothery School is my first (or second?) school. My daddy takes me there. One day I started scratching his face. He tells me to stop, but I don't. When I see him that night, his face is all red, and I am ashamed. The Rothery School has teachers and nap time. I have slippers that are shaped like fire trucks. They are red. We have to lie down and be quiet at nap time. That is not always easy for me. Also there is drawing. I try to draw my family but all I can draw is circles with legs and the arms come out of the stick legs. It feels wrong.

There is another school, a kindergarten? I was not there long. I remember the glee I felt when I could hold a doll someone else wanted, and taunt him with it. He cried. There was trouble about that.

Grandma's House
Two summers I get to spend at my Grandma's house in Decatur. I remember rain while the sun is shining. She has a big garden full of pretty flowers. There is a tool shed where I am not allowed to go. There is a glass house full of plants where I am not allowed to go. There are cherry tomatoes that I love to eat right off the bush. There is a  little stream running through the garden and little bridges over it. My Granddaddy calls me a "scalawag." I am sure it is not good. He does not seem to approve of me. But my Grandma loves me. She lets me listen to the radio late at night. She lets me sleep in and miss church on Sundays. She has hundreds of tiny salt shakers and other small objects that I can play with. She offers to teach me how to plant and grow flowers but I refuse. I tell her "I wasn't born to work." Sometimes when she tells me something, I answer "Oh." She asks, "What do you mean by 'Oh'?" and I say "Just oh." It becomes something fun we say to each other.
Grandma has a big house, but she rents out parts of it to other people, so there are doors I am not allowed to open. Also the basement is dark, cool and dangerous. Grandma does laundry in the basement with a wringer machine and two huge tubs. She is worried I will get caught in the wringer. Just outside the basement door is a stone threshold. Twice I stub my toe on that stone and it bleeds. I remember marching up and down the hallway and the first part of the stairs trying to sing "Onward Christian Soldiers," but I cannot remember all the words and I get angry. She suggests I hum the tune, but I reject that. I want to be mad at myself. In that hallway is the phone with a small chair and table. The phone number starts "Drake 8." There is also a big bookshelf, but it is covered by a curtain, and I am not supposed to mess with it.
Grandma's kitchen has a big broom closet that smells dark and musty. She leaves the butter out on the counter, and I like to swipe a taste with my finger. That is not allowed, and she hides the butter. There is a big picture in the kitchen with a girl with red pigtails. It is an advertisement and the girl is my cousin Jessie. Between the kitchen and the dining room is a small nook with a table and two benches. That is where the Black people who work for Grandma eat lunch. The pantry is there as well. Grandma makes watermelon pickles. They are sweet and spicy. Granddaddy grows tomatoes and okra. He is very proud of his tomatoes. He likes to eat a spoonful of horseradish every day. Grandma makes biscuits too. They are so good with butter.
I remember the day an old Black man came to the back porch and knocked. I went to see and he said words, but I could not understand him. He had hardly any teeth. I kept saying "What?" and he kept repeating himself. Finally Grandma came, and she understood him. He wanted to clean the gutters. But she already had someone to do that.
I get to watch television at Grandma's house! My Little Margie and I Married Joan. There is a show with Suzy Parker and Cagey Calhoun. The Ted Mack Amateur Hour is very good. He has a barefoot dancer and someone who juggles plates. They advertise Geritol. Amos and Andy is funny. I remember The Kingfisher, he always has schemes, but he is terrified of his wife Sapphire. He usually tricks that very slow man called "Lightnin."
One time Grandma and I took the streetcar into town. I don't remember where we went or why. I remember coming back home. As the streetcar approached Grandma's house, I began to recognize the street, but Grandma was asleep. We went right past her house. She shortly woke up and was upset we had missed our stop. I don't remember how we got home. I felt guilty for not waking her.

Summer Activities

In the summer, when there is no school, my mother insists that I am signed up for activities. I must have overheard that I was too little for them. One was horseback riding. I was terrified of the huge horses. A big brown horse bit me. The gentlest one, they said. No more horses.
There is tennis. The racket belongs to my daddy. It is very heavy. I cannot do any of the simple tennis ball tricks of bouncing the ball with the racket on the ground or into the air. I try and try. I ride around on the shoulders of the teacher instead. That is fun.

California Dreaming
The house in California is painted in pastel colors, one for the downstairs, and one for the upstairs. There are several such buildings, and each one contains more than one apartment. We have neighbors. There is a parking lot, and in the middle there are trees growing. They are lime or lemon trees. We are not allowed to pick the green fruit. But we do. We get in trouble. When Daddy gets home, we all get a spanking. I forgive him, but my brothers do not. I cry and cry. He is sad as well. That is the only spanking I remember.
There is a swimming pool, and I am supposed to learn to swim and dive. There is a life-saving course. I think I passed.
One day across the path, there is a snake! It has a diamond pattern. I tell a grownup, possibly Mother, and there is much adult excitement, but no one else ever sees the snake, and I feel that no one believes me.
There is a girl, I think her name is "Love." She and I like to play together. I have a doll, it is Chinese or Japanese, with seven masks. I like to take it to her house and play with it. I also lick the doll's face off. This girl and I are intensely connected. Then I am forbidden to see her or go to her house. Ever. I try one time to disobey, but ... I don't know. I will never see her again.
Mother decides that the paint I have licked off the doll is poison and the doll is taken away. I will never see it again.
We have neighbors called "The Donnells." They have five kids, we have four. They are not our religion; I think they are Catholic. I play with daughters near my age. One game I really enjoy involves punishing the dolls. I remember such an intense feeling of joy and power! The Donnell girls do not like that game as much as I do. They stop coming over to play.
Hot dogs. I remember really enjoying hotdogs cooked on a grill! I eat a lot. In the night, without waking, I throw up all over my bed. Then I get cold and dream about a weiner dog biting me. Then I wake up. There is much todo about the mess.

Memories of school
There is a beautiful lady! We are in California. A beautiful lady with long white curly hair is teaching. She has colored chalks! Red, blue, yellow. She is showing us letters. There is A and then there is B. The B is Blue. B is for my name, Brent. But I am not allowed to stay; I have to leave the lovely lady and her colored chalks and learning to read.

Mayvelle Manor
The next school is in Virginia. It is always cold, gray and damp there. The little kids like me go to school in a little building back behind the real school, for grades one and two. The kids are dumb and mean and they don't like me. Neither does the teacher. One boy attacks me, and I get in trouble. But somehow, in spite of pain and trouble, I learn to read. This school is where I first see the Fairy Books. They come in colors and there is somewhere I can sit and read them. There is never enough time to read them all. They are wonderful.
In this place, we live on a small muddy road, near the end of the cul-de-sac. The road circles, and in the middle there is a machine or building. Maybe it is a well pump? something to do with water. Mother is unhappy. The house is small, and the tiny settlement is surrounded by woods. In the woods, a big kid, Frank, has built a treehouse. Frank's Fort. He has comic books and other treasures in it. It is his second building. There is also Frank's Old Fort. One day my brother John and I go looking for it. We get lost. We wander in the woods for a long time. I am afraid. He is whining. There is a road. There is a cliff with a view. Finally we wander back home. whew. I don't get in trouble.
In this place I have a dream. There is a giant doodle bug inside the house. It can barely fit through the doors, but it is coming after me.

More Virginia?
We are living in a Quonset hut on "the base." It is round. Mother decides now is the time to tell me about menstruation. That is not how I remember it, but piecing it together, I think the quiet private talk in the bathroom about blood and fear and my body...that is what it must have been. It makes no sense and I forget it as soon as possible.

The school on the base is better, it is brick and big. All the kids go in the same building. I go to second grade here. I start in the middle of the year. They put me in Ms. Morrison's room, and she seems nice...until. The first time I turn in a paper it is wrong. I have not put my name on it! I have curled the tails of the "g's." She holds it up for the whole class and loudly wants to know whose it is. I finally admit it is mine. Still some of the time she is nice, and school can be fun. I excel.
The school is named "John H. Russell," and I learn the song! It is sung like the Marine Corps Hymn. "From the halls of John H. Ruh-uhssell to the shores of Potomac Bay. We will fight our classroom baa-aatles with spitballs and dry clay! We will fight for right and freedom! And to keep our desks a mess! We are proud to claim the ti-itl of the teacher's little pests!" I sing it a lot. I like this song. There was a verse about rotten tangerines, too, I think.
There is a jungle gym like a ladder set horizontally on posts. I am all alone in this part of the playground. I can grab the rungs and move from one end to the other. It feels good. I do this all during recess. At the end the teacher sees my hands have big blisters. There is fussing, and I cannot use that equipment again.

But for third grade, another school. This one is small and white and seems somehow temporary. I do not know where to go. I cry. They line me up with the boys because my name is Brent. That makes me very sad and scared.
There is a Black kid in my class. For the first and only time until midway through high school. His name is Kenny. He seems nice, but I do not play with him.
In third grade we have a French teacher! We are all given "French" names. She decides my name is "Beatrice." Mother does not think Beatrice is a good substitute for Brent. She says Brent is French.  At some point, my name was changed to "Sue." That is my mother's name. If you could hear my father call her "Sue" you would know why that is awful.

Finally Quarters 811
We live up on a hill in a square, two-story white house with almost enough bedrooms. We have neighbors like ourselves, military with lots of kids. My parents have a bedroom and their own bathroom downstairs. There is a big bedroom for the boys. There is a tiny bedroom for me all by myself. My sister is given a place to sleep in a biggish room in the middle, where everybody walks. The bathroom is between the boys' room and Cayce's middle room.
Mother gives me a necklace with a pendant that is gold and pearl. I wear it constantly because it is pretty. The pearl comes out. Mother gets another one. It comes out. Mother gets a "real" pearl put in the necklace. It comes out and is lost. No more necklace.
I am given a little china cup and saucer with pretty flowers and leaves painted on it. Somehow it is broken. Daddy fixes it. It is broken again. It is taken away. Sixty years later, I find it in my parents' house. Glued together. I take it home. I'm not sure I want it, but it is mine.
I am given seeds for zinnias. I want to plant them. Mother thinks it is too soon, too cold, but I want to. So the seeds are planted, but the next morning there is frost on the ground. They never sprout.
I remember how the road goes up and up the hill. There is a kind of event space at the top. Someone says it is "SECON" for "Secretary's Conference." There was a big grownup party up there. There was a roast pig. Now we go up there sometimes to play. Until Johnny got stuck in the mud up to his armpits. Then we are not allowed.
I learn to ride a two-wheeler. I have my own bike. I it is blue. I love riding it. One day coming down a hill too fast, I cannot stop and hit a parked car very hard. I am okay, just a little hurt on my seater. I don't remember riding the bike after that.
There are woods and trails. Someone hung a rope swing on a big tree and it swung out far over a dip, so the swing is miles high! I fall out once and the breath is knocked out of me. I don't remember swinging again.
There are big boys who seem to like to roundup little kids to go with them on adventures. It feels dangerous! One time in the woods, under a big tree root, there is a copperhead. They mess with it with sticks. It starts to chase us! we run screaming in fear. It is fun. Never again.
People are always moving. We have a next door neighbor with a girl my age named Cheryl Card. She is very lovely and sophisticated. One time she started to get breasts! She showed me after I pestered her. Then she moved away.
One house was standing empty after the family moved away. Some of us found magazines left in the house. There were pictures of naked ladies in the magazines, so naughty. I remember the naked lady with the furry santa hat and mittens sitting on a cake of ice. ooo. Some grownup found out, tho, and the magazines went away.
I remember my brothers and I making up a potion we called "Scott Scarer" to drive away a little kid named Scott.
I remember painting a picture of Santa Claus that Mother put up in the back room where we have the TV. I remember how all the lawns in the neighborhood were really just one lawn. They would send men on huge mowers up and they would drive across everyone's yard. We were supposed to stay inside. We were also supposed to stay inside when they sprayed DDT for the mosquitoes. But we didn't. We would run outside in the vapors. They smelled funny, not as nice as the smell of gasoline, but not bad.

In Fourth grade, still in the little white building, our teacher is an Army WAC named Mrs. Baumgartner. She has a big bosom. When we pledge allegiance she has to place her hand below her big bosom. No one likes Mrs. Baumgartner. She is mean. We are learning long division. I cannot understand it, and I don't know why. I get in trouble a lot. Sometimes I am kept inside at recess for punishment with the other two bad kids, both boys. There is Charlie Rogers. He is fat, blond and nice. He brings Mad Magazine to school! it is wonderful! I want it. I want to read more of it. And there is a small, tough boy with a nickname. I wish I could remember. Possibly Scout, but maybe Rookie. Something short and tough like he is. I feel akin to these two outcasts.