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!