Nannie’s Recipe Box
Draft 3
My grandmother died eight years ago, but her recipe collection became mine in 1991. “You can have these now, darlin’,” Nannie had said. “I won’t be needing them any more. Cooper Hall has a chef, you know.” 1991 was also the year I got married. Nannie’s years of daily cooking ending the same year mine began.
The green metal box bulges with recipes written on 3X5 inch index cards. There isn’t room for a single additional card. All of the cards are yellowed, and the best ones are also food-spattered. A few of the cards have recipes cut from the pages of Southern Living or the old “Loved and Lost” column from The News and Courier. Those do not interest me. I only study the ones written in Nannie’s perfect English teacher-turned librarian handwriting. When I hold the open box to my nose, I believe I can smell Nannie’s kitchen: flour, butter, sugar, and a little Crisco smeared on waxed paper to grease the pans.
Despite the fact that I’ve had Nannie’s recipes so long, I’ve never used a single one. I do have copies of some of my favorites in my own collection, but I don’t cook from these cards. Instead, I visit with them.
How appropriate that the first section is Biscuits&Bread. Nannie always baked her own bread, biscuits, and rolls. I don’t recall ever seeing a commercial loaf of bread and certainly not a bread machine or a tube of anything from the Doughboy in Nannie’s kitchen. I stack all the cards from this section on the kitchen counter. The first recipe is a long one, two index cards paper clipped together and titled Bread. The paperclip is just starting to rust. I read through the ingredients, the directions, and the side notes: yeast, warm milk, and unbleached flour. Here’s something I never knew: Nannie’s bread contained a cup of instant potatoes! Behind the bread recipe I find something that makes me cry a little. There are two other cards, both of which have only the first part of the very same bread recipe. The bottom of each card reads over, but the backs are empty. The handwriting on both is a very shaky version of the original. Nannie had tried twice to copy her beloved recipe.
After the bread, is Nannie’s roll recipe. Sister Schubert’s rolls from Harris Teeter’s frozen food section are what I tell my son homemade tastes like. I wonder what he would have thought about Nannie’s. They were so light and fluffy you didn’t even have to chew, like warm buttery cotton candy. This recipe calls for a stick of oleo. I remember trying to get Nannie to call it margarine. Oleo just didn’t sound like something you should eat.
Behind the roll recipe are two cards for banana bread, the top one a recipe that I have as well. Nannie’s banana bread was the first kind of bread I learned to make. The combination of no yeast, no waiting, and almost rotten bananas made it very attractive to a child. The first recipe is labeled (Mine) and is covered with brown splotches. The second recipe is labeled (Evelyn) and has only one splotch on it. Sorry Evelyn. At least you made it to the box, though. The only remaining recipe in Biscuits&Bread, written in an unknown hand, is on a very clean card with a picture of a cornucopia on it. Bran Muffins from the Kitchen of Elizabeth. Bless your heart, Elizabeth.
I smile, arrange the cards just the way they were, and put them back into the box. Thank you, Nannie. Next time, Cakes&Cookies, by far the largest section in the box.
Bread
3 yeast
1 cup warm water
1 cup instant potatoes
1 cup sugar
5 teaspoons salt
½ cup vegetable oil
3 cups warm milk (I use powdered.)
7 cups flour (plain/all purpose)
4 more cups of flour (I use unbleached.)
Dissolve yeast in warm water to which you add 2 tablespoons of sugar. Put in small bowl, for it will rise.
Mix together cup of instant potatoes, cup of sugar, 5 teaspoons of salt, and 7 cups of flour. To this add the oil and milk. Mix well. Then add the yeast and the 4 cups (or enough to make a soft dough).
Grease a large container. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. Then place in large container. Cover.
Put in oven with a pan of hot water underneath. Let rise until doubled—about 1 ½ hours.
Grease 4 loaf pans. Divide dough into 4 parts. Roll out with rolling pin. Fold over into loaves. Put loaves into pans and put in oven with hot water beneath. Let rise until doubled.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Then turn down to 325 and bake until brown—about 25 minutes altogether.
Rolls
1 yeast
¼ cup warm water Put yeast in warm water with 1 teaspoon sugar.
¼ cup sugar
1 stick oleo Mix these three and let cool.
½ cup hot water
3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
¼ cup milk
After the oleo and water has cooled, add about a cup or more of the flour. Stir well. Then add yeast, beaten egg, and milk. Then add the rest of the flour. Stir well. Put in refrigerator for several hours or overnight.
Grease pans and bake in oven (350 to 375) about 25 minutes or until brown. Makes 20-25 rolls.
Banana Bread (Mine)
3 ripe bananas 1 2/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar 1/3 cup butter
2 eggs 2/3 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice ½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
Mash bananas. Add sugar, beaten eggs, melted butter, and lemon juice. Then add flour and other dry ingredients. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Makes one loaf pan.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Relections on Memoir Writing
The last time I was this excited about reading and writing I was an undergraduate in the 80's. Being surrounded by people who love words as much as I do has been wonderfully invigorating. Of course, coming to class without shoulder pads or a hangover has been pretty nice as well!
Having Amy and Mary Alice as teachers, models, and mentors has been nothing less than a blessing. Putting my words on paper for them and my classmates has been terrifying at times, but more worthwhile than I ever could have imagined. One of the biggest lessons I have learned involves sensory detail. Before this class, my writing always sounded as though I had gone back to previously written sentences and added adjectives and adverbs. With good reason! Something else I will take with me is the understanding that I have to provide myself with time and permission to write. Often.
I thank you all.
Having Amy and Mary Alice as teachers, models, and mentors has been nothing less than a blessing. Putting my words on paper for them and my classmates has been terrifying at times, but more worthwhile than I ever could have imagined. One of the biggest lessons I have learned involves sensory detail. Before this class, my writing always sounded as though I had gone back to previously written sentences and added adjectives and adverbs. With good reason! Something else I will take with me is the understanding that I have to provide myself with time and permission to write. Often.
I thank you all.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Draft 2
Nannie’s Recipe Box
My grandmother died eight years ago, but her recipe collection became mine in 1991. “You can have these now, darlin’,” Nannie had said. “I won’t be needing them any more. Cooper Hall has a chef, you know.” 1991 was also the year I got married. Nannie’s daily cooking ending the same year my began.
The green metal box bulges with recipes written on 3X5 inch index cards. There isn’t room for a single additional card. All of the cards are yellowed, and the best ones are also food-spattered. A few of the cards have recipes cut from the pages of Southern Living or the old “Loved and Lost” column from The News and Courier. Those do not interest me. I only study the ones written in Nannie’s perfect English teacher-turned librarian handwriting. When I hold the open box to my nose, I believe I can smell Nannie’s kitchen: flour, butter, sugar, and a little Crisco smeared on waxed paper to grease the pans.
Despite the fact that I’ve had the recipes so long, I’ve never used a single one. Now, I already had some of the recipes in my own collection and still others I’ve borrowed from my mother, but I don’t cook from these recipes. Instead, I visit with them.
How appropriate that the first section is Biscuits&Bread. Nannie always baked her own bread, biscuits, and rolls. I don’t recall ever seeing a commercial loaf of bread and certainly not a bread machine or a tube of anything from the Doughboy in Nannie’s kitchen. I stack all the cards from this section on the kitchen counter. The first recipe is a long one, two index cards paper clipped together and titled Bread. The paperclip is just starting to rust. I read through the ingredients, the directions, and the side notes: yeast, warm milk, and unbleached flour. Here’s something I never knew: Nannie’s bread contained a cup of instant potatoes! Behind the bread recipe I find something that makes me cry a little. There are two other cards, both of which have only the first part of the very same bread recipe. The bottom of each card reads over, but the backs are empty. The handwriting on both is a very shaky version of the original. Nannie had tried twice to copy her beloved recipe. For me, maybe?
After the bread, is Nannie’s roll recipe. Sister Schubert’s rolls from Harris Teeter’s frozen food section are what I tell my son homemade tastes like. I wonder what he would have though about Nannie’s. They were so light and fluffy you really didn’t even have to chew, like warm buttery cotton candy. This recipe calls for a stick of oleo. I remember trying to get Nannie to call it margarine. Oleo just didn’t sound like something you should eat.
Behind the roll recipe are two cards for banana bread, the top one a recipe that I have as well. Nannie’s banana bread was the first kind of bread I learned to make. The combination of no yeast, no waiting, and almost rotten bananas made it very attractive to a child. The first recipe is labeled (Mine) and is covered with brown splotches. The second recipe is labeled (Evelyn) and has only one splotch on it. Sorry Evelyn. At least you made it to the box, though. The only remaining recipe in Biscuits&Bread ,written by an unknown hand, is on very clean card with a picture of a cornucopia on it. Bran Muffins from the Kitchen of Elizabeth. Thanks anyway, Elizabeth.
I smile, arrange the cards just the way they were, and put them back into the box. Thank you, Nannie. Next time, Cakes&Cookies, by far the largest section in the box.
Bread
3 yeast
1 cup warm water
1 cup instant potatoes
1 cup sugar
5 teaspoons salt
½ cup vegetable oil
3 cups warm milk (I use powdered.)
7 cups flour (plain/all purpose)
4 more cups of flour (I use unbleached.)
Dissolve yeast in warm water to which you add 2 tablespoons of sugar. Put in small bowl, for it will rise.
Mix together cup of instant potatoes, cup of sugar, 5 teaspoons of salt, and 7 cups of flour. To this add the oil and milk. Mix well. Then add the yeast and the 4 cups (or enough to make a soft dough).
Grease a large container. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. Then place in large container. Cover.
Put in oven with a pan of hot water underneath. Let rise until doubled—about 1 ½ hours.
Grease 4 loaf pans. Divide dough into 4 parts. Roll out with rolling pin. Fold over into loaves. Put loaves into pans and put in oven with hot water beneath. Let rise until doubled.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Then turn down to 325 and bake until brown—about 25 minutes altogether.
Rolls
1 yeast
¼ cup warm water Put yeast in warm water with 1 teaspoon sugar.
¼ cup sugar
1 stick oleo Mix these three and let cool.
½ cup hot water
3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
¼ cup milk
After the oleo and water has cooled, add about a cup or more of the flour. Stir well. Then add yeast, beaten egg, and milk. Then add the rest of the flour. Stir well. Put in refrigerator for several hours or overnight.
Grease pans and bake in oven (350 to 375) about 25 minutes or until brown. Makes 20-25 rolls.
Banana Bread (Mine)
3 ripe bananas 1 2/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar 1/3 cup butter
2 eggs 2/3 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice ½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
Mash bananas. Add sugar, beaten eggs, melted butter, and lemon juice. Then add flour and other dry ingredients. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Makes one loaf pan.
My grandmother died eight years ago, but her recipe collection became mine in 1991. “You can have these now, darlin’,” Nannie had said. “I won’t be needing them any more. Cooper Hall has a chef, you know.” 1991 was also the year I got married. Nannie’s daily cooking ending the same year my began.
The green metal box bulges with recipes written on 3X5 inch index cards. There isn’t room for a single additional card. All of the cards are yellowed, and the best ones are also food-spattered. A few of the cards have recipes cut from the pages of Southern Living or the old “Loved and Lost” column from The News and Courier. Those do not interest me. I only study the ones written in Nannie’s perfect English teacher-turned librarian handwriting. When I hold the open box to my nose, I believe I can smell Nannie’s kitchen: flour, butter, sugar, and a little Crisco smeared on waxed paper to grease the pans.
Despite the fact that I’ve had the recipes so long, I’ve never used a single one. Now, I already had some of the recipes in my own collection and still others I’ve borrowed from my mother, but I don’t cook from these recipes. Instead, I visit with them.
How appropriate that the first section is Biscuits&Bread. Nannie always baked her own bread, biscuits, and rolls. I don’t recall ever seeing a commercial loaf of bread and certainly not a bread machine or a tube of anything from the Doughboy in Nannie’s kitchen. I stack all the cards from this section on the kitchen counter. The first recipe is a long one, two index cards paper clipped together and titled Bread. The paperclip is just starting to rust. I read through the ingredients, the directions, and the side notes: yeast, warm milk, and unbleached flour. Here’s something I never knew: Nannie’s bread contained a cup of instant potatoes! Behind the bread recipe I find something that makes me cry a little. There are two other cards, both of which have only the first part of the very same bread recipe. The bottom of each card reads over, but the backs are empty. The handwriting on both is a very shaky version of the original. Nannie had tried twice to copy her beloved recipe. For me, maybe?
After the bread, is Nannie’s roll recipe. Sister Schubert’s rolls from Harris Teeter’s frozen food section are what I tell my son homemade tastes like. I wonder what he would have though about Nannie’s. They were so light and fluffy you really didn’t even have to chew, like warm buttery cotton candy. This recipe calls for a stick of oleo. I remember trying to get Nannie to call it margarine. Oleo just didn’t sound like something you should eat.
Behind the roll recipe are two cards for banana bread, the top one a recipe that I have as well. Nannie’s banana bread was the first kind of bread I learned to make. The combination of no yeast, no waiting, and almost rotten bananas made it very attractive to a child. The first recipe is labeled (Mine) and is covered with brown splotches. The second recipe is labeled (Evelyn) and has only one splotch on it. Sorry Evelyn. At least you made it to the box, though. The only remaining recipe in Biscuits&Bread ,written by an unknown hand, is on very clean card with a picture of a cornucopia on it. Bran Muffins from the Kitchen of Elizabeth. Thanks anyway, Elizabeth.
I smile, arrange the cards just the way they were, and put them back into the box. Thank you, Nannie. Next time, Cakes&Cookies, by far the largest section in the box.
Bread
3 yeast
1 cup warm water
1 cup instant potatoes
1 cup sugar
5 teaspoons salt
½ cup vegetable oil
3 cups warm milk (I use powdered.)
7 cups flour (plain/all purpose)
4 more cups of flour (I use unbleached.)
Dissolve yeast in warm water to which you add 2 tablespoons of sugar. Put in small bowl, for it will rise.
Mix together cup of instant potatoes, cup of sugar, 5 teaspoons of salt, and 7 cups of flour. To this add the oil and milk. Mix well. Then add the yeast and the 4 cups (or enough to make a soft dough).
Grease a large container. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. Then place in large container. Cover.
Put in oven with a pan of hot water underneath. Let rise until doubled—about 1 ½ hours.
Grease 4 loaf pans. Divide dough into 4 parts. Roll out with rolling pin. Fold over into loaves. Put loaves into pans and put in oven with hot water beneath. Let rise until doubled.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Then turn down to 325 and bake until brown—about 25 minutes altogether.
Rolls
1 yeast
¼ cup warm water Put yeast in warm water with 1 teaspoon sugar.
¼ cup sugar
1 stick oleo Mix these three and let cool.
½ cup hot water
3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
¼ cup milk
After the oleo and water has cooled, add about a cup or more of the flour. Stir well. Then add yeast, beaten egg, and milk. Then add the rest of the flour. Stir well. Put in refrigerator for several hours or overnight.
Grease pans and bake in oven (350 to 375) about 25 minutes or until brown. Makes 20-25 rolls.
Banana Bread (Mine)
3 ripe bananas 1 2/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar 1/3 cup butter
2 eggs 2/3 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice ½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
Mash bananas. Add sugar, beaten eggs, melted butter, and lemon juice. Then add flour and other dry ingredients. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Makes one loaf pan.
Nannie's Recipe Box Draft 1
Nannie’s Recipe Box
Draft 1
My grandmother died eight years ago, but her recipe collection became mine in 1991. “You can have these now, darlin’,” Nannie had said. “I won’t be needing them any more. Cooper Hall has a chef, you know.”
The green metal box bulges with recipes written on 3X5 inch index cards. There isn’t room for a single additional card. All of the cards are yellowed, and the best ones are also food-spattered. A few of the cards have recipes cut from the pages of Southern Living or the old “Loved and Lost” column from The News and Courier. Those do not interest me. I only study the ones written in Nannie’s perfect English teacher-turned librarian handwriting. When I hold the open box to my nose, I believe I can smell Nannie’s kitchen: flour, butter, sugar, and a little Crisco smeared on waxed paper to grease the pans.
Despite the fact that I’ve had the recipes so long, I’ve never used a single one. Now, I already had some of the recipes in my own collection and still others I’ve borrowed from my mother, but I don’t cook from these recipes. Instead, I visit with them.
How appropriate that the first section is Biscuits&Bread. Nannie always baked her own bread, biscuits, and rolls. I don’t recall ever seeing a commercial loaf of bread and certainly not a bread machine or a tube of anything from the Doughboy in Nannie’s kitchen. I put all the cards from this section on the counter. The first recipe is a long one, two index cards paper clipped together and titled Bread. I read through the ingredients, the directions, and the side notes: yeast, warm milk, and unbleached flour. Here’s something I never knew: Nannie’s bread contained a cup of instant potatoes! Behind the bread recipe I find something that makes me cry a little. There are two other cards, both of which have only the first part of the very same bread recipe. The bottom of each card reads over, but the backs are empty. The handwriting on both is a very shaky version of the original. Nannie had tried twice to copy her beloved recipe. For me, maybe?
After the bread, is Nannie’s roll recipe. Sister Schubert’s rolls from Harris Teeter’s frozen food section are what I tell my son homemade tastes like. I wonder what he would have though about Nannie’s. They were so light and fluffy you really didn’t even have to chew, like a warm buttery cotton candy. This recipe calls for a stick of oleo. I remember trying to get Nannie to call it margarine. Oleo just didn’t sound like something you should eat.
Behind the roll recipe are two cards for banana bread, a recipe that I have as well. Nannie’s banana bread was the first kind of bread I learned to make. The combination of no yeast, no waiting, and almost rotten bananas made it very attractive to a child. The first recipe is labeled (Mine) and is covered with brown splotches. The second recipe is labeled (Evelyn) and has only one splotch on it. Sorry Evelyn. At least you made it to the box, though. The only remaining recipe in Biscuits&Bread is on very clean card with a picture of a cornucopia on it. Bran Muffins from the Kitchen of Elizabeth. Thanks anyway, Elizabeth.
Satisfied. I smile, arrange the cards the way they were, and put them back into the box. Thank you, Nannie. Next time, Cookies and Cakes, by far the largest section in the box.
Bread
3 yeast
1 cup warm water
1 cup instant potatoes
1 cup sugar
5 teaspoons salt
½ cup vegetable oil
3 cups warm milk (I use powdered.)
7 cups flour (plain/all purpose)
4 more cups of flour (I use unbleached.)
Dissolve yeast in warm water to which you add 2 tablespoons of sugar. Put in small bowl, for it will rise.
Mix together cup of instant potatoes, cup of sugar, 5 teaspoons of salt, and 7 cups of flour. To this add the oil and milk. Mix well. Then add the yeast and the 4 cups (or enough to make a soft dough).
Grease a large container. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. Then place in large container. Cover.
Put in oven with a pan of hot water underneath. Let rise until doubled—about 1 ½ hours.
Grease 4 loaf pans. Divide dough into 4 parts. Roll out with rolling pin. Fold over into loaves. Put loaves into pans and put in oven with hot water beneath. Let rise until doubled.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Then turn down to 325 and bake until brown—about 25 minutes altogether.
Rolls
1 yeast
¼ cup warm water Put yeast in warm water with 1 teaspoon sugar.
¼ cup sugar
1 stick oleo Mix these three and let cool.
½ cup hot water
3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
¼ cup milk
After the oleo and water has cooled, add about a cup or more of the flour. Stir well. Then add yeast, beaten egg, and milk. Then add the rest of the flour. Stir well. Put in refrigerator for several hours or overnight.
Grease pans and bake in oven (350 to 375) about 25 minutes or until brown. Makes 20-25 rolls.
Banana Bread (Mine)
3 ripe bananas 1 2/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar 1/3 cup butter
2 eggs 2/3 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice ½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
Mash bananas. Add sugar, beaten eggs, melted butter, and lemon juice. Then add flour and other dry ingredients. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Makes one loaf pan
Draft 1
My grandmother died eight years ago, but her recipe collection became mine in 1991. “You can have these now, darlin’,” Nannie had said. “I won’t be needing them any more. Cooper Hall has a chef, you know.”
The green metal box bulges with recipes written on 3X5 inch index cards. There isn’t room for a single additional card. All of the cards are yellowed, and the best ones are also food-spattered. A few of the cards have recipes cut from the pages of Southern Living or the old “Loved and Lost” column from The News and Courier. Those do not interest me. I only study the ones written in Nannie’s perfect English teacher-turned librarian handwriting. When I hold the open box to my nose, I believe I can smell Nannie’s kitchen: flour, butter, sugar, and a little Crisco smeared on waxed paper to grease the pans.
Despite the fact that I’ve had the recipes so long, I’ve never used a single one. Now, I already had some of the recipes in my own collection and still others I’ve borrowed from my mother, but I don’t cook from these recipes. Instead, I visit with them.
How appropriate that the first section is Biscuits&Bread. Nannie always baked her own bread, biscuits, and rolls. I don’t recall ever seeing a commercial loaf of bread and certainly not a bread machine or a tube of anything from the Doughboy in Nannie’s kitchen. I put all the cards from this section on the counter. The first recipe is a long one, two index cards paper clipped together and titled Bread. I read through the ingredients, the directions, and the side notes: yeast, warm milk, and unbleached flour. Here’s something I never knew: Nannie’s bread contained a cup of instant potatoes! Behind the bread recipe I find something that makes me cry a little. There are two other cards, both of which have only the first part of the very same bread recipe. The bottom of each card reads over, but the backs are empty. The handwriting on both is a very shaky version of the original. Nannie had tried twice to copy her beloved recipe. For me, maybe?
After the bread, is Nannie’s roll recipe. Sister Schubert’s rolls from Harris Teeter’s frozen food section are what I tell my son homemade tastes like. I wonder what he would have though about Nannie’s. They were so light and fluffy you really didn’t even have to chew, like a warm buttery cotton candy. This recipe calls for a stick of oleo. I remember trying to get Nannie to call it margarine. Oleo just didn’t sound like something you should eat.
Behind the roll recipe are two cards for banana bread, a recipe that I have as well. Nannie’s banana bread was the first kind of bread I learned to make. The combination of no yeast, no waiting, and almost rotten bananas made it very attractive to a child. The first recipe is labeled (Mine) and is covered with brown splotches. The second recipe is labeled (Evelyn) and has only one splotch on it. Sorry Evelyn. At least you made it to the box, though. The only remaining recipe in Biscuits&Bread is on very clean card with a picture of a cornucopia on it. Bran Muffins from the Kitchen of Elizabeth. Thanks anyway, Elizabeth.
Satisfied. I smile, arrange the cards the way they were, and put them back into the box. Thank you, Nannie. Next time, Cookies and Cakes, by far the largest section in the box.
Bread
3 yeast
1 cup warm water
1 cup instant potatoes
1 cup sugar
5 teaspoons salt
½ cup vegetable oil
3 cups warm milk (I use powdered.)
7 cups flour (plain/all purpose)
4 more cups of flour (I use unbleached.)
Dissolve yeast in warm water to which you add 2 tablespoons of sugar. Put in small bowl, for it will rise.
Mix together cup of instant potatoes, cup of sugar, 5 teaspoons of salt, and 7 cups of flour. To this add the oil and milk. Mix well. Then add the yeast and the 4 cups (or enough to make a soft dough).
Grease a large container. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. Then place in large container. Cover.
Put in oven with a pan of hot water underneath. Let rise until doubled—about 1 ½ hours.
Grease 4 loaf pans. Divide dough into 4 parts. Roll out with rolling pin. Fold over into loaves. Put loaves into pans and put in oven with hot water beneath. Let rise until doubled.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Then turn down to 325 and bake until brown—about 25 minutes altogether.
Rolls
1 yeast
¼ cup warm water Put yeast in warm water with 1 teaspoon sugar.
¼ cup sugar
1 stick oleo Mix these three and let cool.
½ cup hot water
3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
¼ cup milk
After the oleo and water has cooled, add about a cup or more of the flour. Stir well. Then add yeast, beaten egg, and milk. Then add the rest of the flour. Stir well. Put in refrigerator for several hours or overnight.
Grease pans and bake in oven (350 to 375) about 25 minutes or until brown. Makes 20-25 rolls.
Banana Bread (Mine)
3 ripe bananas 1 2/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar 1/3 cup butter
2 eggs 2/3 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice ½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
Mash bananas. Add sugar, beaten eggs, melted butter, and lemon juice. Then add flour and other dry ingredients. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Makes one loaf pan
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Final Draft
“Where are you from?” It was such an innocent, normal question, but a question I dreaded nevertheless. I really wasn’t a liar and I didn’t like to lie. “Sumter,” I answered. My new fourth grade classmate smiled, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been there. You can sit by me at lunch today.” Technically, I hadn’t lied. I was born in Sumter. I lived there until Daddy took Mamma and me home from the hospital. After that, I lived in Lamar and I certainly couldn't tell anyone that.
Lamar, a tiny town in Darlington County, South Carolina, surrounded by cotton and tobacco fields, had been the greatest place on earth. One of my earliest memories is of being in church. I was standing on the pew in between my parents, holding the Methodist hymnal I wasn’t old enough yet to read. Instead, I was loudly singing Jesus Loves Me as everyone else sang the assigned hymn. I liked going to church, but then again I liked just about everything about Lamar.
One of my favorite places to be was school. Red-bricked Lamar Elementary for grades 1-6 was connected to a matching Lamar High School by a cement breezeway. I had been walking those gray-green halls for as long as I could remember. See, Mamma was the kindergarten teacher, so I went to kindergarten when I was three, four, and five. Daddy was the high school principal, so after school I could walk over and see him. His sturdy rectangle of a desk was where, to my later dismay, I carefully printed, “Form, Julie” on twenty-eight of thirty cartooned Valentines. On the way to the office, I would stop by the library and say hey to my grandmother, the school librarian. The smell of library paste, the hum of a fan, and the crackle of a plastic dust jacket meant Nannie as well as books to me.
What I didn't realize at the time, however, was that my school was all white. Every single child as well as every single adult was white. The only black person I knew was Brenda Mae, the black lady who helped Mamma take care of the house and me. I knew nothing about her life outside of our house.
My grandfather, Daddy Dalt, was the district superintendent. His office was close by, and sometimes Nannie would take me over there. She would ask his secretary Miss Flowers if he were busy. “Mr. Bennington always has time for you two,” she would say. Daddy Dalt usually was busy and often looked tired and worried, but I understood. He had an important job. The stage next to Daddy Dalt’s office was where my dance recitals were every spring. The year my class wore red tutus I had to run to the bathroom in Daddy Dalt’s office to be sick right before it was my turn to dance. Only a little bit of the throw-up got stuck in the red tulle, but nobody noticed.
The summer after I finished kindergarten for the third time, Mamma had a baby. Because Billy had to sleep a lot, I had to be quiet inside. I didn’t mind because I usually played in the back yard any way. The yard was where I tested my first pair of PF Flyers and played with our cat Bubbie until all the Dimetapp in the world couldn’t stop the sneezing and the hives. The swing set was where I was going to teach Billy how to pump his feet and swing to the treetops. Best of all, our yard backed up to Donna-and-Kathy’s yard. Donna-and-Kathy were blond haired, blue-eyed sisters just a year apart who were my very best friends. One of our favorite activities was playing house in my playhouse. I loved that playhouse! When I was very little, Daddy had built me a wooden sandbox, but once I got bigger he converted it into a snug little white and green structure with two windows, a door, and an actual front porch. We would play house on the inside and put on our own dance recitals on the porch. I couldn’t believe it was mine!
When I finally made it to first grade, I was thrilled. Soft, round Miss Olson, always smelling faintly of vanilla, taught me to read actual books. “Real” school turned out to be everything I’d hoped. I was a little concerned about second grade, though. There were two sections of each grade, and one of the second grade teachers was mean. Often during quiet time in our room we could hear Miss Neil yelling, berating her students for some infraction of the rules or for less than acceptable academic progress. The big kids said she spanked her students, and I was sure that was true. When her class was allowed to come out for recess, you could see the fear in their eyes. I tried to ask Daddy about her one time, but he told me all of the Lamar teachers were good teachers. I wanted to believe him. School ended and I tried not to worry about second grade.
About midway through the summer, my parents told me they had some news for me. They had big pretend smiles on their faces. I was afraid they were going to tell me that I had to be in Miss Neil’s class. Okay, I thought, I can handle it. I will make sure I behave and do all my work. As my mother began talking, though, I almost wished that being sentenced to Miss Neil had been her news. Instead Mamma was saying something else. We were moving. Away from Lamar. Away from my school. Away from Donna-and-Kathy. Some other family would be living in our house. I didn’t even know anybody who had ever moved!
“No!” I said.
“Yes,” Mamma said. “Your daddy has a wonderful new job. He will be the Dean of Students at a technical school in Charleston. We are going to live in a very nice town called Summerville.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”
“We will even take the playhouse,” Daddy said.“I don’t even like the playhouse,” I said
in my meanest voice, meaner even than Miss Neil’s voice.
The next day I woke up hugging my Chatty Cathy doll, happy for a brief moment. Then the feeling of dread washed back over me. We were moving. Soon. I thought and thought. I had a plan. I would remind Mamma and Daddy about Nannie and Daddy Dalt. We couldn’t leave them! They would miss us too much. Nannie hadn’t finished telling me the Peter Rabbit stories, and she had promised to make me a ballerina birthday cake. Unbelievably, my parents told me my grandparents were moving away too. Daddy Dalt was going to be a superintendent somewhere called Mount Pleasant. Instead of living five minutes from us, they would be living forty-five minutes away. I cried again.
How had all of these things happened without my knowing? My parents and grandparents had been having a lot of hushed conversations recently. I just thought they were being quiet because of Billy. Now I knew they were keeping secrets from me. I had heard strange words like “consolidated schools,” “integration,” “private schools,” and “desegregation.”
I was very confused. And sad.
It was time to go. I walked through every room of our now empty house, my footsteps echoing for the first time ever. “I’ll be back,” I whispered to each room.
We moved into our new house, only it wasn’t really new. Some other family had lived there. Just like some other family was now in our real house. My playhouse was in the backyard, but Donna-and-Kathy weren’t.
I started second grade at Summerville Elementary, and Mamma taught first grade down the hall from my class. The teacher, who smelled like coffee and wasn’t at all soft and round, was okay. She didn’t yell or spank anyone. Things were different for Billy, too. He had a new babysitter named Barbara. Only she wasn’t new either. She was old. He probably didn’t like her. He just couldn’t say so.
Every once in a while I would ask if we could go visit Lamar. Mamma and Daddy always said maybe. I knew what that meant. I just didn’t know why. One day after I’d asked again why we had to move, my mother had a different answer. She said we left Lamar because a lot of people were angry. She said the government said the boys and girls from the black school in Lamar could go to school with the white students. I paused. There was another school in Lamar? Mamma said it was old, and the desks and books were falling apart. She said some students didn’t even have books. I couldn’t imagine not having books! Well, what was the problem? My school—my old school—had lots of room and lots of books. Mamma said some of the white people didn’t want the black boys and girls to come and might cause trouble. Mamma must be mixed up. Everybody--with one notable exception-- in Lamar was nice. What a dumb reason to move away.
Second grade ended. I played with blond haired, green –eyed Paula, whose backyard touched ours. We didn’t play with her sister, though. Janet wore makeup and had a boyfriend and told Paula and me not to touch her stuff. Ever.
When third grade came around, I had to admit I was starting to like Summerville. My new teacher was the best. We had a new girl in our class named Sarah. When her mother asked our teacher to choose a friend for Sarah, Miss Borden chose me! Sarah wasn’t very happy at first, but I told her Summerville was a nice place. I didn’t understand much of the football talk, but all of the green and gold was pretty.
One day after school Mamma asked me if I still missed Lamar. I thought about it. Yes, I decided, but not as much. “I still don’t understand why we had to leave,” I added, as I always did. Mamma sighed and told me to sit down at the kitchen table. She handed me the front page of the newspaper. I looked down at the March 4, 1970, edition of The State. Above the fold was a large picture of a handcuffed man being taken away by two uniformed men. His head was down and he looked angry. Behind them were some school buses. My heart stopped. I recognized the Vitalis swept hair and the sloping shoulders. The man was Donna-and-Kathy’s daddy. “Read,” said Mamma. The day before 150 white parents had attacked three buses of black children. They used chains, bricks, ax handles, and baseball bats. They turned over two of the buses. In Lamar. At my school. Mamma held me as I cried.
Lamar, a tiny town in Darlington County, South Carolina, surrounded by cotton and tobacco fields, had been the greatest place on earth. One of my earliest memories is of being in church. I was standing on the pew in between my parents, holding the Methodist hymnal I wasn’t old enough yet to read. Instead, I was loudly singing Jesus Loves Me as everyone else sang the assigned hymn. I liked going to church, but then again I liked just about everything about Lamar.
One of my favorite places to be was school. Red-bricked Lamar Elementary for grades 1-6 was connected to a matching Lamar High School by a cement breezeway. I had been walking those gray-green halls for as long as I could remember. See, Mamma was the kindergarten teacher, so I went to kindergarten when I was three, four, and five. Daddy was the high school principal, so after school I could walk over and see him. His sturdy rectangle of a desk was where, to my later dismay, I carefully printed, “Form, Julie” on twenty-eight of thirty cartooned Valentines. On the way to the office, I would stop by the library and say hey to my grandmother, the school librarian. The smell of library paste, the hum of a fan, and the crackle of a plastic dust jacket meant Nannie as well as books to me.
What I didn't realize at the time, however, was that my school was all white. Every single child as well as every single adult was white. The only black person I knew was Brenda Mae, the black lady who helped Mamma take care of the house and me. I knew nothing about her life outside of our house.
My grandfather, Daddy Dalt, was the district superintendent. His office was close by, and sometimes Nannie would take me over there. She would ask his secretary Miss Flowers if he were busy. “Mr. Bennington always has time for you two,” she would say. Daddy Dalt usually was busy and often looked tired and worried, but I understood. He had an important job. The stage next to Daddy Dalt’s office was where my dance recitals were every spring. The year my class wore red tutus I had to run to the bathroom in Daddy Dalt’s office to be sick right before it was my turn to dance. Only a little bit of the throw-up got stuck in the red tulle, but nobody noticed.
The summer after I finished kindergarten for the third time, Mamma had a baby. Because Billy had to sleep a lot, I had to be quiet inside. I didn’t mind because I usually played in the back yard any way. The yard was where I tested my first pair of PF Flyers and played with our cat Bubbie until all the Dimetapp in the world couldn’t stop the sneezing and the hives. The swing set was where I was going to teach Billy how to pump his feet and swing to the treetops. Best of all, our yard backed up to Donna-and-Kathy’s yard. Donna-and-Kathy were blond haired, blue-eyed sisters just a year apart who were my very best friends. One of our favorite activities was playing house in my playhouse. I loved that playhouse! When I was very little, Daddy had built me a wooden sandbox, but once I got bigger he converted it into a snug little white and green structure with two windows, a door, and an actual front porch. We would play house on the inside and put on our own dance recitals on the porch. I couldn’t believe it was mine!
When I finally made it to first grade, I was thrilled. Soft, round Miss Olson, always smelling faintly of vanilla, taught me to read actual books. “Real” school turned out to be everything I’d hoped. I was a little concerned about second grade, though. There were two sections of each grade, and one of the second grade teachers was mean. Often during quiet time in our room we could hear Miss Neil yelling, berating her students for some infraction of the rules or for less than acceptable academic progress. The big kids said she spanked her students, and I was sure that was true. When her class was allowed to come out for recess, you could see the fear in their eyes. I tried to ask Daddy about her one time, but he told me all of the Lamar teachers were good teachers. I wanted to believe him. School ended and I tried not to worry about second grade.
About midway through the summer, my parents told me they had some news for me. They had big pretend smiles on their faces. I was afraid they were going to tell me that I had to be in Miss Neil’s class. Okay, I thought, I can handle it. I will make sure I behave and do all my work. As my mother began talking, though, I almost wished that being sentenced to Miss Neil had been her news. Instead Mamma was saying something else. We were moving. Away from Lamar. Away from my school. Away from Donna-and-Kathy. Some other family would be living in our house. I didn’t even know anybody who had ever moved!
“No!” I said.
“Yes,” Mamma said. “Your daddy has a wonderful new job. He will be the Dean of Students at a technical school in Charleston. We are going to live in a very nice town called Summerville.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”
“We will even take the playhouse,” Daddy said.“I don’t even like the playhouse,” I said
in my meanest voice, meaner even than Miss Neil’s voice.
The next day I woke up hugging my Chatty Cathy doll, happy for a brief moment. Then the feeling of dread washed back over me. We were moving. Soon. I thought and thought. I had a plan. I would remind Mamma and Daddy about Nannie and Daddy Dalt. We couldn’t leave them! They would miss us too much. Nannie hadn’t finished telling me the Peter Rabbit stories, and she had promised to make me a ballerina birthday cake. Unbelievably, my parents told me my grandparents were moving away too. Daddy Dalt was going to be a superintendent somewhere called Mount Pleasant. Instead of living five minutes from us, they would be living forty-five minutes away. I cried again.
How had all of these things happened without my knowing? My parents and grandparents had been having a lot of hushed conversations recently. I just thought they were being quiet because of Billy. Now I knew they were keeping secrets from me. I had heard strange words like “consolidated schools,” “integration,” “private schools,” and “desegregation.”
I was very confused. And sad.
It was time to go. I walked through every room of our now empty house, my footsteps echoing for the first time ever. “I’ll be back,” I whispered to each room.
We moved into our new house, only it wasn’t really new. Some other family had lived there. Just like some other family was now in our real house. My playhouse was in the backyard, but Donna-and-Kathy weren’t.
I started second grade at Summerville Elementary, and Mamma taught first grade down the hall from my class. The teacher, who smelled like coffee and wasn’t at all soft and round, was okay. She didn’t yell or spank anyone. Things were different for Billy, too. He had a new babysitter named Barbara. Only she wasn’t new either. She was old. He probably didn’t like her. He just couldn’t say so.
Every once in a while I would ask if we could go visit Lamar. Mamma and Daddy always said maybe. I knew what that meant. I just didn’t know why. One day after I’d asked again why we had to move, my mother had a different answer. She said we left Lamar because a lot of people were angry. She said the government said the boys and girls from the black school in Lamar could go to school with the white students. I paused. There was another school in Lamar? Mamma said it was old, and the desks and books were falling apart. She said some students didn’t even have books. I couldn’t imagine not having books! Well, what was the problem? My school—my old school—had lots of room and lots of books. Mamma said some of the white people didn’t want the black boys and girls to come and might cause trouble. Mamma must be mixed up. Everybody--with one notable exception-- in Lamar was nice. What a dumb reason to move away.
Second grade ended. I played with blond haired, green –eyed Paula, whose backyard touched ours. We didn’t play with her sister, though. Janet wore makeup and had a boyfriend and told Paula and me not to touch her stuff. Ever.
When third grade came around, I had to admit I was starting to like Summerville. My new teacher was the best. We had a new girl in our class named Sarah. When her mother asked our teacher to choose a friend for Sarah, Miss Borden chose me! Sarah wasn’t very happy at first, but I told her Summerville was a nice place. I didn’t understand much of the football talk, but all of the green and gold was pretty.
One day after school Mamma asked me if I still missed Lamar. I thought about it. Yes, I decided, but not as much. “I still don’t understand why we had to leave,” I added, as I always did. Mamma sighed and told me to sit down at the kitchen table. She handed me the front page of the newspaper. I looked down at the March 4, 1970, edition of The State. Above the fold was a large picture of a handcuffed man being taken away by two uniformed men. His head was down and he looked angry. Behind them were some school buses. My heart stopped. I recognized the Vitalis swept hair and the sloping shoulders. The man was Donna-and-Kathy’s daddy. “Read,” said Mamma. The day before 150 white parents had attacked three buses of black children. They used chains, bricks, ax handles, and baseball bats. They turned over two of the buses. In Lamar. At my school. Mamma held me as I cried.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Final (?) Draft
Where Are You From?
“Where are you from?” It was such an innocent, normal question, but a question I dreaded nevertheless. I really wasn’t a liar and I didn’t like to lie. “Sumter,” I answered. My new fourth grade classmate smiled, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been there. You can sit by me at lunch today.” Technically, I hadn’t lied. I was born in Sumter. I lived there until Daddy took Mamma and me home from the hospital. After that, I lived in Lamar and I certainly couldn't tell anyone that.
Lamar, a tiny town in Darlington County, South Carolina, surrounded by cotton and tobacco fields, had been the greatest place on earth. One of my earliest memories is of being in church. I was standing on the pew in between my parents, holding the Methodist hymnal I wasn’t old enough yet to read. Instead, I was loudly singing Jesus Loves Me as everyone else sang the assigned hymn. I liked going to church, but then again I liked just about everything about Lamar.
One of my favorite places to be was school. Red-bricked Lamar Elementary for grades 1-6 was connected to a matching Lamar High School by a cement breezeway. I had been walking those gray-green halls for as long as I could remember. See, Mamma was the kindergarten teacher, so I went to kindergarten when I was three, four, and five. Daddy was the high school principal, so after school I could walk over and see him. His sturdy rectangle of a desk was where, to my later dismay, I carefully printed, “Form, Julie” on twenty-eight of thirty cartooned Valentines. On the way to the office, I would stop by the library and say hey to my grandmother, the school librarian. The smell of library paste, the hum of a fan, and the crackle of a plastic dust jacket meant Nannie as well as books to me.
What I didn't realize at the time, however, was that my school was all whitel. Every single child as well as every single adult was white. The only black person I knoew was Brenda Mae, the black lady who took care of Billy during school and helped Mamma. I knew nothing about her life outside of our house.
My grandfather, Daddy Dalt, was the district superintendent. His office was close by, and sometimes Nannie would take me over there. She would ask his secretary Miss Flowers if he were busy. “Mr. Bennington always has time for you two,” she would say. Daddy Dalt usually was busy and often looked tired and worried, but I understood. He had an important job. The stage next to Daddy Dalt’s office was where my dance recitals were every spring. The year my class wore red tutus I had to run to the bathroom in Daddy Dalt’s office to be sick right before it was my turn to dance. Only a little bit of the throw-up got stuck in the red tulle, but nobody noticed.
The summer after I finished kindergarten for the third time, Mamma had a baby. Because Billy had to sleep a lot, I had to be quiet inside. I didn’t mind because I usually played in the back yard any way. The yard was where I tested my first pair of PF Flyers and played with our cat Bubbie until all the Dimetapp in the world couldn’t stop the sneezing and the hives. The swing set was where I was going to teach Billy how to pump his feet and swing to the treetops. Best of all, our yard backed up to Donna-and-Kathy’s yard. Donna-and-Kathy were blond haired, blue-eyed sisters just a year apart who were my very best friends. One of our favorite activities was playing house in my playhouse. I loved that playhouse! When I was very little, Daddy had built me a wooden sandbox, but once I got bigger he converted it into a snug little white and green structure with two windows, a door, and an actual front porch. We would play house on the inside and put on our own dance recitals on the porch. I couldn’t believe it was mine!
When I finally made it to first grade, I was thrilled. Soft, round Miss Olson, always smelling faintly of vanilla, taught me to read actual books. “Real” school turned out to be everything I’d hoped. I was a little concerned about second grade, though. There were two sections of each grade, and one of the second grade teachers was mean. Often during quiet time in our room we could hear Miss Neil yelling, berating her students for some infraction of the rules or for less than acceptable academic progress. The big kids said she spanked her students, and I was sure that was true. When her class was allowed to come out for recess, you could see the fear in their eyes. I tried to ask Daddy about her one time, but he told me all of the Lamar teachers were good teachers. I wanted to believe him. School ended and I tried not to worry about second grade.
About midway through the summer, my parents told me they had some news for me. They had big pretend smiles on their faces. I was afraid they were going to tell me that I had to be in Miss Neil’s class. Okay, I thought, I can handle it. I will make sure I behave and do all my work. As my mother began talking, though, I almost wished that being sentenced to Miss Neil had been her news. Instead Mamma was saying something else. We were moving. Away from Lamar. Away from my school. Away from Donna-and-Kathy. Some other family would be living in our house. I didn’t even know anybody who had ever moved!
“No!” I said.
“Yes,” Mamma said. “Your daddy has a wonderful new job. He will be the Dean of Students at a technical school in Charleston. We are going to live in a very nice town called Summerville.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”
“We will even take the playhouse,” Daddy said.
“I don’t even like the playhouse,” I said in my meanest voice, meaner even than Miss Neil’s voice.
The next day I woke up hugging my Chatty Cathy doll, happy for a brief moment. Then the feeling of dread washed back over me. We were moving. Soon. I thought and thought. I had a plan. I would remind Mamma and Daddy about Nannie and Daddy Dalt. We couldn’t leave them! They would miss us too much. Nannie hadn’t finished telling me the Peter Rabbit stories, and she had promised to make me a ballerina birthday cake. Unbelievably, my parents told me my grandparents were moving away too. Daddy Dalt was going to be a superintendent somewhere called Mount Pleasant. Instead of living five minutes from us, they would be living forty-five minutes away. I cried again.
How had all of these things happened without my knowing? My parents and grandparents had been having a lot of hushed conversations recently. I just thought they were being quiet because of Billy. Now I knew they were keeping secrets from me. I had heard strange words like “consolidated schools,” “integration,” “private schools,” and “desegregation.”
I was very confused. And sad.
It was time to go. I walked through every room of our now empty house, my footsteps echoing for the first time ever. “I’ll be back,” I whispered to each room.
We moved into our new house, only it wasn’t really new. Some other family had lived there. Just like some other family was now in our real house. My playhouse was in the backyard, but Donna-and-Kathy weren’t.
I started second grade at Summerville Elementary, and Mamma taught first grade down the hall from my class. The teacher, who smelled like coffee and wasn’t at all soft and round, was okay. She didn’t yell or spank anyone. Things were different for Billy, too. He had a new babysitter named Barbara. Only she wasn’t new either. She was old. He probably didn’t like her. He just couldn’t say so.
Every once in a while I would ask if we could go visit Lamar. Mamma and Daddy always said maybe. I knew what that meant. I just didn’t know why. One day after I’d asked again why we had to move, my mother had a different answer. She said we left Lamar because a lot of people were angry. She said the government said the boys and girls from the black school in Lamar could go to school with the white students. I paused. There was another school in Lamar? Mamma said it was old, and the desks and books were falling apart. She said some students didn’t even have books. I couldn’t imagine not having books! Well, what was the problem? My school—my old school—had lots of room and lots of books. Mamma said some of the white people didn’t want the black boys and girls to come and might cause trouble. Mamma must be mixed up. Everybody--with one notable exception-- in Lamar was nice. What a dumb reason to move away.
Second grade ended. I played with blond haired, green –eyed Paula, whose backyard touched ours. We didn’t play with her sister, though. Janet wore makeup and had a boyfriend and told Paula and me not to touch her stuff. Ever.
When third grade came around, I had to admit I was starting to like Summerville. My new teacher was the best. We had a new girl in our class named Sarah. When her mother asked our teacher to choose a friend for Sarah, Miss Borden chose me! Sarah wasn’t very happy at first, but I told her Summerville was a nice place. I didn’t understand much of the football talk, but all of the green and gold was pretty.
One day after school Mamma asked me if I still missed Lamar. I thought about it. Yes, I decided, but not as much. “I still don’t understand why we had to leave,” I added, as I always did. Mamma sighed and told me to sit down at the kitchen table. She handed me the front page of the newspaper. I looked down at the March 4, 1970, edition of The State. Above the fold was a large picture of a handcuffed man being taken away by two uniformed men. His head was down and he looked angry. Behind them were some school buses. My heart stopped. I recognized the Vitalis swept hair and the sloping shoulders. The man was Donna-and-Kathy’s daddy. “Read,” said Mamma. The day before 150 white parents had attacked three buses of black children. They used chains, bricks, ax handles, and baseball bats. They turned over two of the buses. In Lamar. At my school. Mamma held me as I cried.
“Where are you from?” It was such an innocent, normal question, but a question I dreaded nevertheless. I really wasn’t a liar and I didn’t like to lie. “Sumter,” I answered. My new fourth grade classmate smiled, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been there. You can sit by me at lunch today.” Technically, I hadn’t lied. I was born in Sumter. I lived there until Daddy took Mamma and me home from the hospital. After that, I lived in Lamar and I certainly couldn't tell anyone that.
Lamar, a tiny town in Darlington County, South Carolina, surrounded by cotton and tobacco fields, had been the greatest place on earth. One of my earliest memories is of being in church. I was standing on the pew in between my parents, holding the Methodist hymnal I wasn’t old enough yet to read. Instead, I was loudly singing Jesus Loves Me as everyone else sang the assigned hymn. I liked going to church, but then again I liked just about everything about Lamar.
One of my favorite places to be was school. Red-bricked Lamar Elementary for grades 1-6 was connected to a matching Lamar High School by a cement breezeway. I had been walking those gray-green halls for as long as I could remember. See, Mamma was the kindergarten teacher, so I went to kindergarten when I was three, four, and five. Daddy was the high school principal, so after school I could walk over and see him. His sturdy rectangle of a desk was where, to my later dismay, I carefully printed, “Form, Julie” on twenty-eight of thirty cartooned Valentines. On the way to the office, I would stop by the library and say hey to my grandmother, the school librarian. The smell of library paste, the hum of a fan, and the crackle of a plastic dust jacket meant Nannie as well as books to me.
What I didn't realize at the time, however, was that my school was all whitel. Every single child as well as every single adult was white. The only black person I knoew was Brenda Mae, the black lady who took care of Billy during school and helped Mamma. I knew nothing about her life outside of our house.
My grandfather, Daddy Dalt, was the district superintendent. His office was close by, and sometimes Nannie would take me over there. She would ask his secretary Miss Flowers if he were busy. “Mr. Bennington always has time for you two,” she would say. Daddy Dalt usually was busy and often looked tired and worried, but I understood. He had an important job. The stage next to Daddy Dalt’s office was where my dance recitals were every spring. The year my class wore red tutus I had to run to the bathroom in Daddy Dalt’s office to be sick right before it was my turn to dance. Only a little bit of the throw-up got stuck in the red tulle, but nobody noticed.
The summer after I finished kindergarten for the third time, Mamma had a baby. Because Billy had to sleep a lot, I had to be quiet inside. I didn’t mind because I usually played in the back yard any way. The yard was where I tested my first pair of PF Flyers and played with our cat Bubbie until all the Dimetapp in the world couldn’t stop the sneezing and the hives. The swing set was where I was going to teach Billy how to pump his feet and swing to the treetops. Best of all, our yard backed up to Donna-and-Kathy’s yard. Donna-and-Kathy were blond haired, blue-eyed sisters just a year apart who were my very best friends. One of our favorite activities was playing house in my playhouse. I loved that playhouse! When I was very little, Daddy had built me a wooden sandbox, but once I got bigger he converted it into a snug little white and green structure with two windows, a door, and an actual front porch. We would play house on the inside and put on our own dance recitals on the porch. I couldn’t believe it was mine!
When I finally made it to first grade, I was thrilled. Soft, round Miss Olson, always smelling faintly of vanilla, taught me to read actual books. “Real” school turned out to be everything I’d hoped. I was a little concerned about second grade, though. There were two sections of each grade, and one of the second grade teachers was mean. Often during quiet time in our room we could hear Miss Neil yelling, berating her students for some infraction of the rules or for less than acceptable academic progress. The big kids said she spanked her students, and I was sure that was true. When her class was allowed to come out for recess, you could see the fear in their eyes. I tried to ask Daddy about her one time, but he told me all of the Lamar teachers were good teachers. I wanted to believe him. School ended and I tried not to worry about second grade.
About midway through the summer, my parents told me they had some news for me. They had big pretend smiles on their faces. I was afraid they were going to tell me that I had to be in Miss Neil’s class. Okay, I thought, I can handle it. I will make sure I behave and do all my work. As my mother began talking, though, I almost wished that being sentenced to Miss Neil had been her news. Instead Mamma was saying something else. We were moving. Away from Lamar. Away from my school. Away from Donna-and-Kathy. Some other family would be living in our house. I didn’t even know anybody who had ever moved!
“No!” I said.
“Yes,” Mamma said. “Your daddy has a wonderful new job. He will be the Dean of Students at a technical school in Charleston. We are going to live in a very nice town called Summerville.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”
“We will even take the playhouse,” Daddy said.
“I don’t even like the playhouse,” I said in my meanest voice, meaner even than Miss Neil’s voice.
The next day I woke up hugging my Chatty Cathy doll, happy for a brief moment. Then the feeling of dread washed back over me. We were moving. Soon. I thought and thought. I had a plan. I would remind Mamma and Daddy about Nannie and Daddy Dalt. We couldn’t leave them! They would miss us too much. Nannie hadn’t finished telling me the Peter Rabbit stories, and she had promised to make me a ballerina birthday cake. Unbelievably, my parents told me my grandparents were moving away too. Daddy Dalt was going to be a superintendent somewhere called Mount Pleasant. Instead of living five minutes from us, they would be living forty-five minutes away. I cried again.
How had all of these things happened without my knowing? My parents and grandparents had been having a lot of hushed conversations recently. I just thought they were being quiet because of Billy. Now I knew they were keeping secrets from me. I had heard strange words like “consolidated schools,” “integration,” “private schools,” and “desegregation.”
I was very confused. And sad.
It was time to go. I walked through every room of our now empty house, my footsteps echoing for the first time ever. “I’ll be back,” I whispered to each room.
We moved into our new house, only it wasn’t really new. Some other family had lived there. Just like some other family was now in our real house. My playhouse was in the backyard, but Donna-and-Kathy weren’t.
I started second grade at Summerville Elementary, and Mamma taught first grade down the hall from my class. The teacher, who smelled like coffee and wasn’t at all soft and round, was okay. She didn’t yell or spank anyone. Things were different for Billy, too. He had a new babysitter named Barbara. Only she wasn’t new either. She was old. He probably didn’t like her. He just couldn’t say so.
Every once in a while I would ask if we could go visit Lamar. Mamma and Daddy always said maybe. I knew what that meant. I just didn’t know why. One day after I’d asked again why we had to move, my mother had a different answer. She said we left Lamar because a lot of people were angry. She said the government said the boys and girls from the black school in Lamar could go to school with the white students. I paused. There was another school in Lamar? Mamma said it was old, and the desks and books were falling apart. She said some students didn’t even have books. I couldn’t imagine not having books! Well, what was the problem? My school—my old school—had lots of room and lots of books. Mamma said some of the white people didn’t want the black boys and girls to come and might cause trouble. Mamma must be mixed up. Everybody--with one notable exception-- in Lamar was nice. What a dumb reason to move away.
Second grade ended. I played with blond haired, green –eyed Paula, whose backyard touched ours. We didn’t play with her sister, though. Janet wore makeup and had a boyfriend and told Paula and me not to touch her stuff. Ever.
When third grade came around, I had to admit I was starting to like Summerville. My new teacher was the best. We had a new girl in our class named Sarah. When her mother asked our teacher to choose a friend for Sarah, Miss Borden chose me! Sarah wasn’t very happy at first, but I told her Summerville was a nice place. I didn’t understand much of the football talk, but all of the green and gold was pretty.
One day after school Mamma asked me if I still missed Lamar. I thought about it. Yes, I decided, but not as much. “I still don’t understand why we had to leave,” I added, as I always did. Mamma sighed and told me to sit down at the kitchen table. She handed me the front page of the newspaper. I looked down at the March 4, 1970, edition of The State. Above the fold was a large picture of a handcuffed man being taken away by two uniformed men. His head was down and he looked angry. Behind them were some school buses. My heart stopped. I recognized the Vitalis swept hair and the sloping shoulders. The man was Donna-and-Kathy’s daddy. “Read,” said Mamma. The day before 150 white parents had attacked three buses of black children. They used chains, bricks, ax handles, and baseball bats. They turned over two of the buses. In Lamar. At my school. Mamma held me as I cried.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
book review
Review
Stephen King’s A Memoir of the Craft is part autobiography, part writer’s handbook, and total enjoyment. With his easy to read style, King gives us readers a glimpse into his often-painful childhood without an ounce of self-pity or even a veiled plea for sympathy. King’s fans will be fascinated by his behind-the-scenes look at the planning, writing, and publication of some of his most famous works. The chapter on the two high school classmates who unknowingly inspired Carrie, for example, will move even the most jaded reader. The section on King’s near fatal accident and lengthy recovery reminds us of how close we came to losing him in 1999. Although filled with laugh out loud anecdotes and self-deprecating humor, A Memoir of the Craft lovingly reveres the two most important women in King’s life, his mother Nellie and his wife Tabitha. He thanks his late mother for encouraging his earliest attempts at story telling and never doubting his talent. He credits his dear Tabby for his physical and mental health as well as his continued success. The most amazing part of the book, however, is King’s generous advice to all would-be and actually-are writers. Throughout the book, he reminds us that writers must read, as well as write, every day. He gleefully dismisses conventional wisdom such as “write what you know” as well as the perceived need for plot outlines. Entertaining us all the while, King walks us through description, dialogue, and character development, showing rather than telling, how it is all done. Even the sacred cows of literature, symbolism and theme, seem clear and approachable after King’s explanations, illustrations, and examples. Never shy with praise and criticism for other writers, King concludes his book with a list of 100 of his favorite books. It’s not Oprah’s book club, he warns, but it just might help.
Stephen King’s A Memoir of the Craft is part autobiography, part writer’s handbook, and total enjoyment. With his easy to read style, King gives us readers a glimpse into his often-painful childhood without an ounce of self-pity or even a veiled plea for sympathy. King’s fans will be fascinated by his behind-the-scenes look at the planning, writing, and publication of some of his most famous works. The chapter on the two high school classmates who unknowingly inspired Carrie, for example, will move even the most jaded reader. The section on King’s near fatal accident and lengthy recovery reminds us of how close we came to losing him in 1999. Although filled with laugh out loud anecdotes and self-deprecating humor, A Memoir of the Craft lovingly reveres the two most important women in King’s life, his mother Nellie and his wife Tabitha. He thanks his late mother for encouraging his earliest attempts at story telling and never doubting his talent. He credits his dear Tabby for his physical and mental health as well as his continued success. The most amazing part of the book, however, is King’s generous advice to all would-be and actually-are writers. Throughout the book, he reminds us that writers must read, as well as write, every day. He gleefully dismisses conventional wisdom such as “write what you know” as well as the perceived need for plot outlines. Entertaining us all the while, King walks us through description, dialogue, and character development, showing rather than telling, how it is all done. Even the sacred cows of literature, symbolism and theme, seem clear and approachable after King’s explanations, illustrations, and examples. Never shy with praise and criticism for other writers, King concludes his book with a list of 100 of his favorite books. It’s not Oprah’s book club, he warns, but it just might help.
Draft 2
Where Are You From?
Drafts 2 and 3
Julie
“Where are you from?” It was such an innocent, normal question, but a question I dreaded nevertheless. I really wasn’t a liar and I didn’t like to lie. “Sumter,” I answered. My new fourth grade classmate smiled, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been there. You can sit by me at lunch today.” Technically, I hadn’t lied. I was born in Sumter. I lived there until Daddy took Mamma and me home from the hospital. After that, I lived in Lamar.
Lamar, a tiny town in Darlington County, South Carolina, surrounded by cotton and tobacco fields, had been the greatest place on earth. One of my earliest memories is of being in church. I was standing on the pew in between my parents, holding the Methodist hymnal I wasn’t old enough yet to read. Instead, I was loudly singing Jesus Loves Me as everyone else sang the assigned hymn. I liked going to church, but then again I liked just about everything about Lamar.
One of favorite places to be was school. Red-bricked Lamar Elementary for grades 1-6 was connected to a matching Lamar High School by a cement breezeway. I had been walking those gray-green halls for as long as I could remember. See, Mamma was the kindergarten teacher, so I went to kindergarten when I was three, four, and five. Daddy was the high school principal, so after school I could walk over and see him. His sturdy rectangle of a desk was where, to my later dismay, I carefully printed, “Form, Julie” on twenty-eight of thirty cartooned Valentines. On the way to the office, I would stop by the library and say hey to my grandmother, the school librarian. The smell of library paste, the hum of a fan, and the crackle of a plastic dust jacket meant Nannie as well as books to me.
My grandfather, Daddy Dalt, was the district superintendent. His office was close by, and sometimes Nannie would take me over there. She would ask his secretary Miss Flowers if he were busy. “Mr. Bennington always has time for you two,” she would say. Daddy Dalt usually was busy and often looked tired and worried, but I understood. He had an important job. The stage next to Daddy Dalt’s office was where my dance recitals were every spring. The year my class wore red tutus I had to run to the bathroom in Daddy Dalt’s office to be sick right before it was my turn to dance. Only a little bit of throw-up got stuck in the red tulle, but nobody noticed.
The summer after I finished kindergarten for the third time, Mamma had a baby. Because Billy had to sleep a lot, I had to be quiet inside. I didn’t mind because I usually played in the back yard any way. The yard was where I tested my first pair of PF Flyers and played with our cat Bubbie until all the Dimetapp in the world couldn’t stop the sneezing and the hives. The swingset was where I was going to teach Billy how to pump his feet and swing to the tree tops. Our yard backed up to Donna-and-Kathy’s yard. Donna-and-Kathy were blond haired, blue-eyed sisters just a year apart who were my very best friends. One of our favorite activities was playing in my playhouse. I loved that playhouse! When I was very little, Daddy had built me a wooden sandbox, but once I got bigger he converted it into a snug little white and green structure with two windows, a door, and an actual front porch. We would play house on the inside and put on our own dance recitals on the porch. I couldn’t believe it was mine!
When I finally made it to first grade, I was thrilled. Soft, round Miss Olson, always smelling faintly of vanilla, taught me to read actual books. “Real”school turned out to be everything I’d hoped. I was a little concerned about second grade, though. There were two sections of each grade, and one of the second grade teachers was mean. Often during quiet time in our room we could hear Miss Neil yelling, berating her students for some infraction of the rules or for less than acceptable academic progress. The big kids said she spanked her students, and I was sure that was true. When her class was allowed to come out for recess, you could see fear in their eyes. I tried to ask Daddy about her one time, but he told me all of the Lamar teachers were good teachers. I wanted to believe him. School ended and I tried not to worry about second grade.
About midway through the summer, my parents told me they had some news for me. They had big pretend smiles on their faces. I was afraid they were going to tell me that I had to be in Miss Neil’s class. Okay, I thought, I can handle it. I will make sure I behave and do all my work. As my mother began talking, though, I almost wished that being sentenced to Miss Neil had been her news. Instead Mamma was saying something else. We were moving. Away from Lamar. Away from my school. Away from Donna-and-Kathy. Some other family would be living in our house. I didn’t even know anybody who had ever moved!
“No!” I said.
“Yes,” Mamma said. “Your daddy has a wonderful new job. He will be the Dean of Students at a technical school in Charleston. We are going to live in a very nice town called Summerville.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”
“We will even take the playhouse,” Daddy said.
“I don’t even like the playhouse,” I said in my meanest voice, meaner even than Miss Neil’s voice.
The next day I woke up hugging my Chatty Cathy doll, happy for a brief moment. Then the feeling of dread washed back over me. We were moving. Soon. I thought and thought. I had a plan. I would remind Mamma and Daddy about Nannie and Daddy Dalt. We couldn’t leave them! They would miss us too much. Nannie hadn’t finished telling me the Peter Rabbit stories, and she had promised to make me a ballerina birthday cake. Unbelievably, my parents told me my grandparents were moving away too. Daddy Dalt was going to be a superintendent somewhere called Mount Pleasant. Instead of living five minutes from us, they would be living forty-five minutes away. I cried again.
How had all of these things happened without my knowing? My parents and grandparents had been having a lot of hushed conversations recently. I just thought they were being quiet because of Billy. Now I knew they were keeping secrets from me. I had heard strange words like “consolidated schools,” “integration,” “private schools,” and “desegregation.”
I was very confused. And sad.
It was time to go. I walked through every room of our now empty house, my footsteps echoing for the first time ever. “I’ll be back,” I whispered to each room.
We moved into our new house, only it wasn’t really new. Some other family had lived there. Just like some other family was now in our real house. My playhouse was in the backyard, but Donna-and-Kathy weren’t.
I started second grade at Summerville Elementary, and Mamma taught first grade down the hall from my class. The teacher, who smelled like coffee and wasn’t at all soft and round, was okay. She didn’t yell or spank anyone. Things were different for Billy, too. He had a new babysitter named Barbara. Only she wasn’t new either. She was old. He probably didn’t like her. He just couldn’t say so.
Every once in a while I would ask if we could go visit Lamar. Mamma and Daddy always said maybe. I knew what that meant. I just didn’t know why. One day after I’d asked again why we had to move, my mother had a different answer. She said we left Lamar because a lot of people were angry. She said the government said the boys and girls from the black school in Lamar could go to school with the white students. I paused. There was another school in Lamar? Mamma said it was old, and the desks and books were falling apart. She said some students didn’t even have books. I couldn’t imagine not having books! Well, what was the problem? My school—my old school—had lots of room and lots of books. Mamma said some of the white people didn’t want the black boys and girls to come and might cause trouble. Mamma must be mixed up. Everybody--with one notable exception-- in Lamar was nice. What a dumb reason to move away.
Second grade ended. I played with blond-haired, green –eyed Paula, whose backyard touched ours. We didn’t play with her sister, though. Janet wore makeup and had a boyfriend and told Paula and me not to touch her stuff. Ever.
When third grade came around, I had to admit I was starting to like Summerville. My new teacher was the best. We had a new girl in our class named Sarah. When her mother asked our teacher to choose a friend for Sarah, Miss Borden chose me! Sarah wasn’t very happy at first, but I told her Summerville was a nice place. I didn’t understand all the football talk, but all of the green and gold was pretty.
One day after school Mamma asked me if I still missed Lamar. I thought about it. Yes, I decided, but not as much. “I still don’t understand why we had to leave,” I added, as I always did. Mamma sighed and told me to sit down at the kitchen table. She handed me the front page of the newspaper. I looked down at the March 4, 1970, edition of The State. Above the fold was a large picture of a handcuffed man being taken away by two uniformed men. His head was down and he looked angry. Behind them were some school buses. My heart stopped. I recognized the Vitalis swept hair and the sloping shoulders. The man was Donna-and-Kathy’s daddy. “Read,” said Mamma. The day before 150 white parents had attacked three buses of black children. They used chains, bricks, ax handles, and baseball bats. They turned over two of the buses. In Lamar. At my school. Mamma held me as I cried.
Drafts 2 and 3
Julie
“Where are you from?” It was such an innocent, normal question, but a question I dreaded nevertheless. I really wasn’t a liar and I didn’t like to lie. “Sumter,” I answered. My new fourth grade classmate smiled, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been there. You can sit by me at lunch today.” Technically, I hadn’t lied. I was born in Sumter. I lived there until Daddy took Mamma and me home from the hospital. After that, I lived in Lamar.
Lamar, a tiny town in Darlington County, South Carolina, surrounded by cotton and tobacco fields, had been the greatest place on earth. One of my earliest memories is of being in church. I was standing on the pew in between my parents, holding the Methodist hymnal I wasn’t old enough yet to read. Instead, I was loudly singing Jesus Loves Me as everyone else sang the assigned hymn. I liked going to church, but then again I liked just about everything about Lamar.
One of favorite places to be was school. Red-bricked Lamar Elementary for grades 1-6 was connected to a matching Lamar High School by a cement breezeway. I had been walking those gray-green halls for as long as I could remember. See, Mamma was the kindergarten teacher, so I went to kindergarten when I was three, four, and five. Daddy was the high school principal, so after school I could walk over and see him. His sturdy rectangle of a desk was where, to my later dismay, I carefully printed, “Form, Julie” on twenty-eight of thirty cartooned Valentines. On the way to the office, I would stop by the library and say hey to my grandmother, the school librarian. The smell of library paste, the hum of a fan, and the crackle of a plastic dust jacket meant Nannie as well as books to me.
My grandfather, Daddy Dalt, was the district superintendent. His office was close by, and sometimes Nannie would take me over there. She would ask his secretary Miss Flowers if he were busy. “Mr. Bennington always has time for you two,” she would say. Daddy Dalt usually was busy and often looked tired and worried, but I understood. He had an important job. The stage next to Daddy Dalt’s office was where my dance recitals were every spring. The year my class wore red tutus I had to run to the bathroom in Daddy Dalt’s office to be sick right before it was my turn to dance. Only a little bit of throw-up got stuck in the red tulle, but nobody noticed.
The summer after I finished kindergarten for the third time, Mamma had a baby. Because Billy had to sleep a lot, I had to be quiet inside. I didn’t mind because I usually played in the back yard any way. The yard was where I tested my first pair of PF Flyers and played with our cat Bubbie until all the Dimetapp in the world couldn’t stop the sneezing and the hives. The swingset was where I was going to teach Billy how to pump his feet and swing to the tree tops. Our yard backed up to Donna-and-Kathy’s yard. Donna-and-Kathy were blond haired, blue-eyed sisters just a year apart who were my very best friends. One of our favorite activities was playing in my playhouse. I loved that playhouse! When I was very little, Daddy had built me a wooden sandbox, but once I got bigger he converted it into a snug little white and green structure with two windows, a door, and an actual front porch. We would play house on the inside and put on our own dance recitals on the porch. I couldn’t believe it was mine!
When I finally made it to first grade, I was thrilled. Soft, round Miss Olson, always smelling faintly of vanilla, taught me to read actual books. “Real”school turned out to be everything I’d hoped. I was a little concerned about second grade, though. There were two sections of each grade, and one of the second grade teachers was mean. Often during quiet time in our room we could hear Miss Neil yelling, berating her students for some infraction of the rules or for less than acceptable academic progress. The big kids said she spanked her students, and I was sure that was true. When her class was allowed to come out for recess, you could see fear in their eyes. I tried to ask Daddy about her one time, but he told me all of the Lamar teachers were good teachers. I wanted to believe him. School ended and I tried not to worry about second grade.
About midway through the summer, my parents told me they had some news for me. They had big pretend smiles on their faces. I was afraid they were going to tell me that I had to be in Miss Neil’s class. Okay, I thought, I can handle it. I will make sure I behave and do all my work. As my mother began talking, though, I almost wished that being sentenced to Miss Neil had been her news. Instead Mamma was saying something else. We were moving. Away from Lamar. Away from my school. Away from Donna-and-Kathy. Some other family would be living in our house. I didn’t even know anybody who had ever moved!
“No!” I said.
“Yes,” Mamma said. “Your daddy has a wonderful new job. He will be the Dean of Students at a technical school in Charleston. We are going to live in a very nice town called Summerville.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”
“We will even take the playhouse,” Daddy said.
“I don’t even like the playhouse,” I said in my meanest voice, meaner even than Miss Neil’s voice.
The next day I woke up hugging my Chatty Cathy doll, happy for a brief moment. Then the feeling of dread washed back over me. We were moving. Soon. I thought and thought. I had a plan. I would remind Mamma and Daddy about Nannie and Daddy Dalt. We couldn’t leave them! They would miss us too much. Nannie hadn’t finished telling me the Peter Rabbit stories, and she had promised to make me a ballerina birthday cake. Unbelievably, my parents told me my grandparents were moving away too. Daddy Dalt was going to be a superintendent somewhere called Mount Pleasant. Instead of living five minutes from us, they would be living forty-five minutes away. I cried again.
How had all of these things happened without my knowing? My parents and grandparents had been having a lot of hushed conversations recently. I just thought they were being quiet because of Billy. Now I knew they were keeping secrets from me. I had heard strange words like “consolidated schools,” “integration,” “private schools,” and “desegregation.”
I was very confused. And sad.
It was time to go. I walked through every room of our now empty house, my footsteps echoing for the first time ever. “I’ll be back,” I whispered to each room.
We moved into our new house, only it wasn’t really new. Some other family had lived there. Just like some other family was now in our real house. My playhouse was in the backyard, but Donna-and-Kathy weren’t.
I started second grade at Summerville Elementary, and Mamma taught first grade down the hall from my class. The teacher, who smelled like coffee and wasn’t at all soft and round, was okay. She didn’t yell or spank anyone. Things were different for Billy, too. He had a new babysitter named Barbara. Only she wasn’t new either. She was old. He probably didn’t like her. He just couldn’t say so.
Every once in a while I would ask if we could go visit Lamar. Mamma and Daddy always said maybe. I knew what that meant. I just didn’t know why. One day after I’d asked again why we had to move, my mother had a different answer. She said we left Lamar because a lot of people were angry. She said the government said the boys and girls from the black school in Lamar could go to school with the white students. I paused. There was another school in Lamar? Mamma said it was old, and the desks and books were falling apart. She said some students didn’t even have books. I couldn’t imagine not having books! Well, what was the problem? My school—my old school—had lots of room and lots of books. Mamma said some of the white people didn’t want the black boys and girls to come and might cause trouble. Mamma must be mixed up. Everybody--with one notable exception-- in Lamar was nice. What a dumb reason to move away.
Second grade ended. I played with blond-haired, green –eyed Paula, whose backyard touched ours. We didn’t play with her sister, though. Janet wore makeup and had a boyfriend and told Paula and me not to touch her stuff. Ever.
When third grade came around, I had to admit I was starting to like Summerville. My new teacher was the best. We had a new girl in our class named Sarah. When her mother asked our teacher to choose a friend for Sarah, Miss Borden chose me! Sarah wasn’t very happy at first, but I told her Summerville was a nice place. I didn’t understand all the football talk, but all of the green and gold was pretty.
One day after school Mamma asked me if I still missed Lamar. I thought about it. Yes, I decided, but not as much. “I still don’t understand why we had to leave,” I added, as I always did. Mamma sighed and told me to sit down at the kitchen table. She handed me the front page of the newspaper. I looked down at the March 4, 1970, edition of The State. Above the fold was a large picture of a handcuffed man being taken away by two uniformed men. His head was down and he looked angry. Behind them were some school buses. My heart stopped. I recognized the Vitalis swept hair and the sloping shoulders. The man was Donna-and-Kathy’s daddy. “Read,” said Mamma. The day before 150 white parents had attacked three buses of black children. They used chains, bricks, ax handles, and baseball bats. They turned over two of the buses. In Lamar. At my school. Mamma held me as I cried.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Where are You From? Draft 1
Where are You From?
Draft 1
“Where are you from?” It was such an innocent, normal question, but a question I dreaded nevertheless. I really wasn’t a liar and I didn’t like to lie. “Sumter,” I answered. My new fourth grade classmate smiled, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been there. You can sit by me at lunch today.” Technically, I hadn’t lied. I was born in Sumter. I lived there until Daddy took Mamma and me home from the hospital. After that, I lived in Lamar.
Lamar, a tiny little town in Darlington County, South Carolina, had been the greatest place on earth. One of my earliest memories is of being in church. I was standing on the pew in between my parents, holding the Methodist hymnal I wasn’t old enough yet to read. Instead, I was loudly singing Jesus Loves Me. I liked going to church, but then again I liked just about everything about Lamar.
My favorite place to be was school. Lamar Elementary for grades 1-6 was connected to Lamar High School by a breezeway. I had been walking those halls for as long as I could remember. See, Mamma was the kindergarten teacher, so I went to kindergarten when I was three, four, and five. I bet I did pretty well on my first grade readiness test! Daddy was the high school principal, so after school I could walk over and see him. On the way, I would stop by the library and say hey to my grandmother. Nannie was the school librarian. My grandfather, Daddy Dalt, was the district superintendent. His office was close by, and sometimes Nannie would take me over there. She would ask his secretary Miss Flowers if he were busy. “Mr. Bennington always has time for you two,” she would say. Daddy Dalt usually was busy and often looked tired and worried, but I understood. He had an important job.
The summer after I finished kindergarten for the third time, Mamma had a baby. Because Billy had to sleep a lot, I had to be quiet inside. I didn’t mind because I usually played in the back yard any way. Our yard backed up to Donna-and-Kathy’s yard. Donna-and-Kathy were blond haired, blue-eyed sisters just a year apart who were my very best friends. One of our favorite activities was playing house in my playhouse. I loved that playhouse! When I was very little, Daddy had built me a sandbox, but once I got bigger he converted it into a playhouse with windows, a door, and an actual front porch. It was my own piece of paradise.
When I finally made it to first grade, I was thrilled. Miss Olson was the sweetest teacher ever and taught me to read real books. School was definitely my second home. I was a little concerned about second grade, though. There were two sections of each grade, and one of the second grade teachers was mean. Sometimes during quiet time in our room we could hear Miss Neil yelling. The big kids said she spanked her students, and I was sure that was true. I tried to ask Daddy about her one time, but he told me all of the Lamar teachers were good teachers. I wanted to believe him. School ended and I tried not to worry about second grade.
About midway through the summer, my parents told me they had some news for me. They had big pretend smiles on their faces. I was afraid they were going to tell me that I had to be in Miss Neil’s class. Okay, I thought, I can handle it. I will make sure I behave and do all my work. As my mother began talking, though, I began to wish that being sentenced to Miss Neil had been her news. Instead Mamma was saying something else. We were moving. Away from Lamar. Away from my school. Away from Donna-and-Kathy. Some other family would be living in our house. I didn’t even know anybody who had ever moved!
“No!” I said.
“Yes,” Mamma said. “Your daddy has a wonderful new job. He will be the Dean of Students at a technical school in Charleston. We are going to live in a very nice town called Summerville.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”
“We will even take the playhouse,” Daddy said.
“I don’t even like the playhouse,” I said in my meanest voice, meaner even than Miss Neil’s voice.
The next day I woke up, happy for a brief moment. Then the feeling of dread washed over me. We were moving. Soon. I thought and thought. I had a plan. I would remind Mamma and Daddy about Nannie and Daddy Dalt. We couldn’t leave them! They would miss us too much. Nannie hadn’t finished telling me the Peter Rabbit stories, and she had promised to make me a ballerina birthday cake. Unbelievably, my parents told me my grandparents were moving away too. Daddy Dalt was going to be a superintendent somewhere called Mount Pleasant. Instead of living five minutes from us, they would be living forty-five minutes away. I cried again.
How had all of these things happened without my knowing? My parents and grandparents had been having a lot of quiet conversations recently. I just thought they were being quiet because of Billy. Now I knew they were keeping secrets from me. I had heard strange words like “consolidated schools,” “integration,” “private schools,” and “desegregation.”
I was very confused. And sad.
It was time to go. I walked through every room of our now empty house to say good-bye. “I’ll be back,” I whispered to each room.
We moved into our new house, only it wasn’t really new. Some other family had lived there. Just like some other family was now in our real house. My playhouse was in the backyard, but Donna-and-Kathy weren’t
I started second grade at Summerville Elementary, and Mamma taught first grade down the hall from my class. My teacher was okay. She didn’t yell or spank anyone. Billy had a new babysitter named Barbara. Only she wasn’t new either. She was old. He probably didn’t like her. He just couldn’t say so.
Every once in a while I would ask if we could go visit Lamar. Mamma and Daddy always said maybe. I knew what that meant. I just didn’t know why. One day after I’d asked again why we had to move, my mother had a different answer. She said we left Lamar because a lot of people were angry. She said the government said the boys and girls from the black school in Lamar could go to school with the white students. I paused. There was another school in Lamar? Mamma said it was old, and the desks and books were falling apart. She said some students didn’t even have books. I couldn’t imagine not having books! Well, what was the problem? My school—my old school—had lots of room and lots of books. Mamma said some of the white people didn’t want the black boys and girls to come and might cause trouble. Mamma must be mixed up. Everybody in Lamar was nice, well almost everybody was nice. What a dumb reason to move away.
Second grade ended. I played with Paula, whose backyard touched ours. We didn’t play with her sister, though. Janet wore makeup and had a boyfriend and told Paula and me not to touch her stuff. Ever.
When third grade came around, I had to admit I was starting to like Summerville. My new teacher was the best. We had a new girl in our class named Sarah. When her mother asked our teacher to choose a friend for Sarah, Miss Borden chose me! Sarah wasn’t very happy at first, but I told her Summerville was a nice place. I didn’t understand all the football talk, but all of the green and gold was pretty.
One day after school Mamma asked me if I still missed Lamar. I thought about it. Yes, I decided, but not as much. “I still don’t understand why we had to leave,” I added, as I always did.
Mamma sighed and told me to sit down at the kitchen table. She handed me the front page of the newspaper. I looked. The (Columbia) State. March 4, 1970. Above the fold was a large picture of a handcuffed man being taken away by two uniformed men. He head was down and he looked mean. Behind them were some school buses. My heart stopped. The man was Donna-and-Kathy’s daddy. “Read,” said Mamma. The day before 150 white parents had attacked three buses of black children. They used chains, bricks, ax handles, and baseball bats. They turned over two of the buses. In Lamar. At my school. Mamma held me as I cried.
I was very confused. And sad.
Years later I discovered that my father and grandfather were forced out of town for refusing to support the white terrorist organization. Maybe they should have stayed and fought, but they were protecting me. From my Lamar.
Draft 1
“Where are you from?” It was such an innocent, normal question, but a question I dreaded nevertheless. I really wasn’t a liar and I didn’t like to lie. “Sumter,” I answered. My new fourth grade classmate smiled, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been there. You can sit by me at lunch today.” Technically, I hadn’t lied. I was born in Sumter. I lived there until Daddy took Mamma and me home from the hospital. After that, I lived in Lamar.
Lamar, a tiny little town in Darlington County, South Carolina, had been the greatest place on earth. One of my earliest memories is of being in church. I was standing on the pew in between my parents, holding the Methodist hymnal I wasn’t old enough yet to read. Instead, I was loudly singing Jesus Loves Me. I liked going to church, but then again I liked just about everything about Lamar.
My favorite place to be was school. Lamar Elementary for grades 1-6 was connected to Lamar High School by a breezeway. I had been walking those halls for as long as I could remember. See, Mamma was the kindergarten teacher, so I went to kindergarten when I was three, four, and five. I bet I did pretty well on my first grade readiness test! Daddy was the high school principal, so after school I could walk over and see him. On the way, I would stop by the library and say hey to my grandmother. Nannie was the school librarian. My grandfather, Daddy Dalt, was the district superintendent. His office was close by, and sometimes Nannie would take me over there. She would ask his secretary Miss Flowers if he were busy. “Mr. Bennington always has time for you two,” she would say. Daddy Dalt usually was busy and often looked tired and worried, but I understood. He had an important job.
The summer after I finished kindergarten for the third time, Mamma had a baby. Because Billy had to sleep a lot, I had to be quiet inside. I didn’t mind because I usually played in the back yard any way. Our yard backed up to Donna-and-Kathy’s yard. Donna-and-Kathy were blond haired, blue-eyed sisters just a year apart who were my very best friends. One of our favorite activities was playing house in my playhouse. I loved that playhouse! When I was very little, Daddy had built me a sandbox, but once I got bigger he converted it into a playhouse with windows, a door, and an actual front porch. It was my own piece of paradise.
When I finally made it to first grade, I was thrilled. Miss Olson was the sweetest teacher ever and taught me to read real books. School was definitely my second home. I was a little concerned about second grade, though. There were two sections of each grade, and one of the second grade teachers was mean. Sometimes during quiet time in our room we could hear Miss Neil yelling. The big kids said she spanked her students, and I was sure that was true. I tried to ask Daddy about her one time, but he told me all of the Lamar teachers were good teachers. I wanted to believe him. School ended and I tried not to worry about second grade.
About midway through the summer, my parents told me they had some news for me. They had big pretend smiles on their faces. I was afraid they were going to tell me that I had to be in Miss Neil’s class. Okay, I thought, I can handle it. I will make sure I behave and do all my work. As my mother began talking, though, I began to wish that being sentenced to Miss Neil had been her news. Instead Mamma was saying something else. We were moving. Away from Lamar. Away from my school. Away from Donna-and-Kathy. Some other family would be living in our house. I didn’t even know anybody who had ever moved!
“No!” I said.
“Yes,” Mamma said. “Your daddy has a wonderful new job. He will be the Dean of Students at a technical school in Charleston. We are going to live in a very nice town called Summerville.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”
“We will even take the playhouse,” Daddy said.
“I don’t even like the playhouse,” I said in my meanest voice, meaner even than Miss Neil’s voice.
The next day I woke up, happy for a brief moment. Then the feeling of dread washed over me. We were moving. Soon. I thought and thought. I had a plan. I would remind Mamma and Daddy about Nannie and Daddy Dalt. We couldn’t leave them! They would miss us too much. Nannie hadn’t finished telling me the Peter Rabbit stories, and she had promised to make me a ballerina birthday cake. Unbelievably, my parents told me my grandparents were moving away too. Daddy Dalt was going to be a superintendent somewhere called Mount Pleasant. Instead of living five minutes from us, they would be living forty-five minutes away. I cried again.
How had all of these things happened without my knowing? My parents and grandparents had been having a lot of quiet conversations recently. I just thought they were being quiet because of Billy. Now I knew they were keeping secrets from me. I had heard strange words like “consolidated schools,” “integration,” “private schools,” and “desegregation.”
I was very confused. And sad.
It was time to go. I walked through every room of our now empty house to say good-bye. “I’ll be back,” I whispered to each room.
We moved into our new house, only it wasn’t really new. Some other family had lived there. Just like some other family was now in our real house. My playhouse was in the backyard, but Donna-and-Kathy weren’t
I started second grade at Summerville Elementary, and Mamma taught first grade down the hall from my class. My teacher was okay. She didn’t yell or spank anyone. Billy had a new babysitter named Barbara. Only she wasn’t new either. She was old. He probably didn’t like her. He just couldn’t say so.
Every once in a while I would ask if we could go visit Lamar. Mamma and Daddy always said maybe. I knew what that meant. I just didn’t know why. One day after I’d asked again why we had to move, my mother had a different answer. She said we left Lamar because a lot of people were angry. She said the government said the boys and girls from the black school in Lamar could go to school with the white students. I paused. There was another school in Lamar? Mamma said it was old, and the desks and books were falling apart. She said some students didn’t even have books. I couldn’t imagine not having books! Well, what was the problem? My school—my old school—had lots of room and lots of books. Mamma said some of the white people didn’t want the black boys and girls to come and might cause trouble. Mamma must be mixed up. Everybody in Lamar was nice, well almost everybody was nice. What a dumb reason to move away.
Second grade ended. I played with Paula, whose backyard touched ours. We didn’t play with her sister, though. Janet wore makeup and had a boyfriend and told Paula and me not to touch her stuff. Ever.
When third grade came around, I had to admit I was starting to like Summerville. My new teacher was the best. We had a new girl in our class named Sarah. When her mother asked our teacher to choose a friend for Sarah, Miss Borden chose me! Sarah wasn’t very happy at first, but I told her Summerville was a nice place. I didn’t understand all the football talk, but all of the green and gold was pretty.
One day after school Mamma asked me if I still missed Lamar. I thought about it. Yes, I decided, but not as much. “I still don’t understand why we had to leave,” I added, as I always did.
Mamma sighed and told me to sit down at the kitchen table. She handed me the front page of the newspaper. I looked. The (Columbia) State. March 4, 1970. Above the fold was a large picture of a handcuffed man being taken away by two uniformed men. He head was down and he looked mean. Behind them were some school buses. My heart stopped. The man was Donna-and-Kathy’s daddy. “Read,” said Mamma. The day before 150 white parents had attacked three buses of black children. They used chains, bricks, ax handles, and baseball bats. They turned over two of the buses. In Lamar. At my school. Mamma held me as I cried.
I was very confused. And sad.
Years later I discovered that my father and grandfather were forced out of town for refusing to support the white terrorist organization. Maybe they should have stayed and fought, but they were protecting me. From my Lamar.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Draft 4
The Day I Stopped Hating Mrs. Bernice J. Cooper
I sat sideways in my desk, clutching my well- worn copy of The Water is Wide. As always, the aroma of old books combined with the pungency of purple mimeographed handouts permeated the room. Any second now Mrs. Bernice J. Cooper was going to walk through the door of her classroom with our guest speaker, Pat Conroy. My fellow students chatted quietly, some moving their desks slightly to the left or right to have an unobstructed view of the now empty podium. For once I was pleased with my front and center desk. I watched as Cindy Locklair expertly applied more Bonne Bell lip gloss to her already shiny lips. Strawberries-n-Cream, no doubt.
For about the one-hundredth time I glanced at my outfit. Brown pants and a matching beige and brown top. Yes, at age seventeen I was wearing a polyester pantsuit borrowed from my mother’s closet for the occasion. Well, it was 1978. The day before Mrs. Foster had emphasized the importance of our dress for today’s event. “You will be meeting an important author. It would behoove you to dress like ladies and gentlemen. Leave your dungarees at home.” Yes, she really said dungarees, and, yes, it was the 70’s, not the 50’s. Classic Mrs. Cooper. She also used the word behoove quite frequently, as in “It would behoove you to carry a dictionary and a thesaurus with you at all times.” “It would behoove you to commit Warriner’s comma rules to memory.” “It would behoove you to work on your penmanship.” The woman drove me nuts!
I had always loved my English classes in the past, and my previous teacher Mrs. Drison had been so much fun! We sat in groups, we discussed books, and we played and analyzed current music as poetry. Once she even told us about sneaking alcohol into her dorm at Winthrop by putting it in shampoo bottles. I stifled a giggle as I imagined telling Mrs. Cooper than my favorite poets were The Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. This year we sat in very straight rows, and we read books such as Great Expectations--the unabridged version, thank you very much.
Each and every full week of school we wrote a five-paragraph essay in longhand, double-spaced, following Lucille Vaughan Payne’s model in The Lively Art of Writing. Each and every full week of school Mrs. Cooper would return the essays with a content grade over a mechanics grade. We could use no contractions, no first person, no second person, and no passive voice. A fragment, a run-on, or the much-dreaded comma splice resulted in an automatic F for the mechanics grade. Each paragraph that contained any errors had to be rewritten in the lines we had skipped. My essay grades ranged from B to the occasional A-, never higher. More often than not somewhere on my paper I would find two straight lines and the word parrellism. Because I avoided talking to Mrs. Foster as much as possible, I didn’t find out until a college grammar class what that actually meant. After I somewhat dutifully corrected my essays, I put them in her file cabinet, third drawer from the top, and waited for the new topic.
I couldn’t wait to be rid of Mrs. Cooper. I was going to major in journalism in college, write about current events, and break every one of Lucille Vaughan Payne’s and Bernice J. Cooper’s rules on a regular basis. But right then I couldn’t wait for that door to open! I had read The Water is Wide three times and absolutely loved it. Pat Conroy had made me laugh out loud and cry real tears all three times. Now I may have shed a few tears over A Tale of Two Cities, but those were a very different kind of tears.
Finally, the door opened. A rather cute smiling young man with messy wiry hair and ripped dungarees (You heard me.) followed Mrs. Cooper in the room. The next forty-five minutes were magical, the author’s melodious Southern accent keeping us all completely enthralled. Pat Conroy told story and after story about his life, his friends, and his teaching experience on Daufuskie Island. He patiently signed books (“For Julie. Here’s to the good life at Summerville High,” mine read.) and posed for pictures. After dropping a few tantalizing hints about his upcoming book, he left us. It was over all too quickly, but it was truly wonderful.
Eventually, I realized that my opinion of Mrs. Bernice J. Cooper began to change that day. Although it was fun to hate her, I had turned her into a caricature of herself. By bringing in a current and somewhat controversial author who wrote on the very delicate issue of racial injustice in the South Carolina public school system—her school system--Mrs. Cooper silently told me that she didn’t view us as simple children after all. Instead, she viewed us as intelligent students capable of doing things the right way. The very fact that Mrs. Cooper had read The Water is Wide was mind boggling enough. But the fact that she no only approved of it but also went to the trouble of arranging an author visit forced me to see her as a person maybe not so different from myself.
My newly found admiration for my teacher was apparent several weeks later when Mrs. Cooper taught us how to write the proper thank you note. After purchasing the appropriate stationary, we wrote thank you notes for five of our graduation presents and turned them in for inspection. Mrs. Cooper corrected any and all errors with her red pen and the marked notes had to be rewritten. I didn’t even mind redoing a couple of mine. I wanted them to be perfect!
As it turned out, I majored in English instead of journalism, decided that Miss Havisham is one of the most interesting characters in all of literature, and refused to split an infinitive no matter what. Best of all, I have been sharing a little bit of Mrs. Bernice J. Cooper and Lucille Vaughan Payne with my own students for twenty-three years.
I sat sideways in my desk, clutching my well- worn copy of The Water is Wide. As always, the aroma of old books combined with the pungency of purple mimeographed handouts permeated the room. Any second now Mrs. Bernice J. Cooper was going to walk through the door of her classroom with our guest speaker, Pat Conroy. My fellow students chatted quietly, some moving their desks slightly to the left or right to have an unobstructed view of the now empty podium. For once I was pleased with my front and center desk. I watched as Cindy Locklair expertly applied more Bonne Bell lip gloss to her already shiny lips. Strawberries-n-Cream, no doubt.
For about the one-hundredth time I glanced at my outfit. Brown pants and a matching beige and brown top. Yes, at age seventeen I was wearing a polyester pantsuit borrowed from my mother’s closet for the occasion. Well, it was 1978. The day before Mrs. Foster had emphasized the importance of our dress for today’s event. “You will be meeting an important author. It would behoove you to dress like ladies and gentlemen. Leave your dungarees at home.” Yes, she really said dungarees, and, yes, it was the 70’s, not the 50’s. Classic Mrs. Cooper. She also used the word behoove quite frequently, as in “It would behoove you to carry a dictionary and a thesaurus with you at all times.” “It would behoove you to commit Warriner’s comma rules to memory.” “It would behoove you to work on your penmanship.” The woman drove me nuts!
I had always loved my English classes in the past, and my previous teacher Mrs. Drison had been so much fun! We sat in groups, we discussed books, and we played and analyzed current music as poetry. Once she even told us about sneaking alcohol into her dorm at Winthrop by putting it in shampoo bottles. I stifled a giggle as I imagined telling Mrs. Cooper than my favorite poets were The Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. This year we sat in very straight rows, and we read books such as Great Expectations--the unabridged version, thank you very much.
Each and every full week of school we wrote a five-paragraph essay in longhand, double-spaced, following Lucille Vaughan Payne’s model in The Lively Art of Writing. Each and every full week of school Mrs. Cooper would return the essays with a content grade over a mechanics grade. We could use no contractions, no first person, no second person, and no passive voice. A fragment, a run-on, or the much-dreaded comma splice resulted in an automatic F for the mechanics grade. Each paragraph that contained any errors had to be rewritten in the lines we had skipped. My essay grades ranged from B to the occasional A-, never higher. More often than not somewhere on my paper I would find two straight lines and the word parrellism. Because I avoided talking to Mrs. Foster as much as possible, I didn’t find out until a college grammar class what that actually meant. After I somewhat dutifully corrected my essays, I put them in her file cabinet, third drawer from the top, and waited for the new topic.
I couldn’t wait to be rid of Mrs. Cooper. I was going to major in journalism in college, write about current events, and break every one of Lucille Vaughan Payne’s and Bernice J. Cooper’s rules on a regular basis. But right then I couldn’t wait for that door to open! I had read The Water is Wide three times and absolutely loved it. Pat Conroy had made me laugh out loud and cry real tears all three times. Now I may have shed a few tears over A Tale of Two Cities, but those were a very different kind of tears.
Finally, the door opened. A rather cute smiling young man with messy wiry hair and ripped dungarees (You heard me.) followed Mrs. Cooper in the room. The next forty-five minutes were magical, the author’s melodious Southern accent keeping us all completely enthralled. Pat Conroy told story and after story about his life, his friends, and his teaching experience on Daufuskie Island. He patiently signed books (“For Julie. Here’s to the good life at Summerville High,” mine read.) and posed for pictures. After dropping a few tantalizing hints about his upcoming book, he left us. It was over all too quickly, but it was truly wonderful.
Eventually, I realized that my opinion of Mrs. Bernice J. Cooper began to change that day. Although it was fun to hate her, I had turned her into a caricature of herself. By bringing in a current and somewhat controversial author who wrote on the very delicate issue of racial injustice in the South Carolina public school system—her school system--Mrs. Cooper silently told me that she didn’t view us as simple children after all. Instead, she viewed us as intelligent students capable of doing things the right way. The very fact that Mrs. Cooper had read The Water is Wide was mind boggling enough. But the fact that she no only approved of it but also went to the trouble of arranging an author visit forced me to see her as a person maybe not so different from myself.
My newly found admiration for my teacher was apparent several weeks later when Mrs. Cooper taught us how to write the proper thank you note. After purchasing the appropriate stationary, we wrote thank you notes for five of our graduation presents and turned them in for inspection. Mrs. Cooper corrected any and all errors with her red pen and the marked notes had to be rewritten. I didn’t even mind redoing a couple of mine. I wanted them to be perfect!
As it turned out, I majored in English instead of journalism, decided that Miss Havisham is one of the most interesting characters in all of literature, and refused to split an infinitive no matter what. Best of all, I have been sharing a little bit of Mrs. Bernice J. Cooper and Lucille Vaughan Payne with my own students for twenty-three years.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Draft 3
The Day I Stopped Hating Mrs. Clarice J. Foster
Draft 3
I sat sideways in my desk, clutching my well- worn copy of The Water is Wide. As always, the aroma of old books combined with the pungency of purple mimeographed handouts permeated the room. Any second now Mrs. Clarice J. Foster was going to walk through the door of her classroom with our guest speaker, Pat Conroy. My fellow students chatted quietly, some moving their desks slightly to the left or right to have an unobstructed view of the now empty podium. For once I was pleased with my front and center desk. I watched as Cindy Locklair expertly applied more Bonne Bell lip gloss to her already shiny lips. Strawberries-n-Cream, no doubt.
For about the one-hundredth time, I glanced down at my outfit. Brown pants and a matching beige and brown top. Yes, at age seventeen I was wearing a polyester pantsuit borrowed from my mother’s closet for the occasion. Thankfully, though, since, it was 1978, I wasn’t the only polyester princess in the room. The day before Mrs. Foster had emphasized the importance of our dress for today’s event. “You will be meeting an important author. It would behoove you to dress like ladies and gentlemen. Leave your dungarees at home.” Yes, she really said dungarees, and, yes, it was the ‘70’s, not the ‘50’s. Classic Mrs. Foster. She also used the word behoove quite frequently, as in “It would behoove you to carry a dictionary and a thesaurus with you at all times.” “It would behoove you to commit Warriner’s comma rules to memory.” “It would behoove you to work on your penmanship.” The woman drove me nuts!
I had always loved my English classes in the past, and my previous teacher Mrs. Rison had been so much fun! We sat in groups, we discussed books, and we played and analyzed current music as poetry. Once she even told us about sneaking alcohol into her dorm at Winthrop by putting it into shampoo bottles. I stifled a giggle as I imagined myself telling Mrs. Foster than my favorite poets were The Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. This year we sat in very straight rows, and we read books such as Great Expectations--the unabridged version, thank you very much.
Each and every full week of school we wrote a five-paragraph essay in longhand, double-spaced, following Lucille Vaughan Payne’s model in The Lively Art of Writing. Each and every full week of school Mrs. Foster would return the essays with a content grade over a mechanics grade. We could use no contractions, no first person, no second person, and no passive voice. A fragment, a run-on, or the much-dreaded comma splice resulted in an automatic F for the mechanics grade. Each paragraph that contained any errors had to be rewritten in the lines we had skipped. My essay grades ranged from B to the occasional A-, never higher. More often than not, somewhere on my paper I would find two straight lines and the word parrellism. Because I avoided talking to Mrs. Foster as much as possible, I didn’t find out until a college grammar class what that meant. After I somewhat dutifully corrected my essays, I put them in her file cabinet, third drawer from the top, and resigned myself to being disappointed by the next topic.
I couldn’t wait to be rid of Mrs. Foster. I was going to major in journalism in college, write about current events, and break every one of Lucille Vaughan Payne’s and Clarice J. Foster’s rules on a regular basis. But right then I couldn’t wait for that door to open! I had read The Water is Wide three times and absolutely loved it. Pat Conroy had made me laugh out loud and cry real tears all three times. Now I may have shed a few tears over A Tale of Two Cities, but those were a very different kind of tears.
Finally, the door opened. A rather cute smiling young man with messy wiry hair and ripped dungarees (You heard me.) followed Mrs. Foster into the room. The next forty-five minutes were magical. Pat Conroy told story and after story about his life, his friends, and his teaching experiences on Daufuskie Island. He patiently signed books (“For Julie. Here’s to the good life at Summerville High,” mine read.) and posed for pictures. It was over all too quickly, but it was truly wonderful.
Eventually, I realized that my opinion of Mrs. Clarice J. Foster began to change that day. Although it was fun to hate her, I had turned her into a caricature of herself. By bringing in a current and somewhat controversial author who wrote on the very delicate issue of racial injustice in the South Carolina public school system--her school system--Mrs. Foster silently told me that she didn’t view us as simple children after all. Instead, she viewed us as intelligent students capable of doing things the right way. The very idea that Mrs. Foster had read The Water is Wide was mind boggling enough. But the fact that she not only approved of it but also went to the trouble of arranging an author visit forced me to see her as a person maybe not so different from myself.
As it turned out, I majored in English instead of journalism, decided that Miss Havisham was one of the most interesting characters in all of literature, and refused to split an infinitive no matter what. Best of all, I have been sharing a little bit of Mrs. Clarice J. Foster and Lucille Vaughan Payne with my own students for twenty-three years.
Draft 3
I sat sideways in my desk, clutching my well- worn copy of The Water is Wide. As always, the aroma of old books combined with the pungency of purple mimeographed handouts permeated the room. Any second now Mrs. Clarice J. Foster was going to walk through the door of her classroom with our guest speaker, Pat Conroy. My fellow students chatted quietly, some moving their desks slightly to the left or right to have an unobstructed view of the now empty podium. For once I was pleased with my front and center desk. I watched as Cindy Locklair expertly applied more Bonne Bell lip gloss to her already shiny lips. Strawberries-n-Cream, no doubt.
For about the one-hundredth time, I glanced down at my outfit. Brown pants and a matching beige and brown top. Yes, at age seventeen I was wearing a polyester pantsuit borrowed from my mother’s closet for the occasion. Thankfully, though, since, it was 1978, I wasn’t the only polyester princess in the room. The day before Mrs. Foster had emphasized the importance of our dress for today’s event. “You will be meeting an important author. It would behoove you to dress like ladies and gentlemen. Leave your dungarees at home.” Yes, she really said dungarees, and, yes, it was the ‘70’s, not the ‘50’s. Classic Mrs. Foster. She also used the word behoove quite frequently, as in “It would behoove you to carry a dictionary and a thesaurus with you at all times.” “It would behoove you to commit Warriner’s comma rules to memory.” “It would behoove you to work on your penmanship.” The woman drove me nuts!
I had always loved my English classes in the past, and my previous teacher Mrs. Rison had been so much fun! We sat in groups, we discussed books, and we played and analyzed current music as poetry. Once she even told us about sneaking alcohol into her dorm at Winthrop by putting it into shampoo bottles. I stifled a giggle as I imagined myself telling Mrs. Foster than my favorite poets were The Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. This year we sat in very straight rows, and we read books such as Great Expectations--the unabridged version, thank you very much.
Each and every full week of school we wrote a five-paragraph essay in longhand, double-spaced, following Lucille Vaughan Payne’s model in The Lively Art of Writing. Each and every full week of school Mrs. Foster would return the essays with a content grade over a mechanics grade. We could use no contractions, no first person, no second person, and no passive voice. A fragment, a run-on, or the much-dreaded comma splice resulted in an automatic F for the mechanics grade. Each paragraph that contained any errors had to be rewritten in the lines we had skipped. My essay grades ranged from B to the occasional A-, never higher. More often than not, somewhere on my paper I would find two straight lines and the word parrellism. Because I avoided talking to Mrs. Foster as much as possible, I didn’t find out until a college grammar class what that meant. After I somewhat dutifully corrected my essays, I put them in her file cabinet, third drawer from the top, and resigned myself to being disappointed by the next topic.
I couldn’t wait to be rid of Mrs. Foster. I was going to major in journalism in college, write about current events, and break every one of Lucille Vaughan Payne’s and Clarice J. Foster’s rules on a regular basis. But right then I couldn’t wait for that door to open! I had read The Water is Wide three times and absolutely loved it. Pat Conroy had made me laugh out loud and cry real tears all three times. Now I may have shed a few tears over A Tale of Two Cities, but those were a very different kind of tears.
Finally, the door opened. A rather cute smiling young man with messy wiry hair and ripped dungarees (You heard me.) followed Mrs. Foster into the room. The next forty-five minutes were magical. Pat Conroy told story and after story about his life, his friends, and his teaching experiences on Daufuskie Island. He patiently signed books (“For Julie. Here’s to the good life at Summerville High,” mine read.) and posed for pictures. It was over all too quickly, but it was truly wonderful.
Eventually, I realized that my opinion of Mrs. Clarice J. Foster began to change that day. Although it was fun to hate her, I had turned her into a caricature of herself. By bringing in a current and somewhat controversial author who wrote on the very delicate issue of racial injustice in the South Carolina public school system--her school system--Mrs. Foster silently told me that she didn’t view us as simple children after all. Instead, she viewed us as intelligent students capable of doing things the right way. The very idea that Mrs. Foster had read The Water is Wide was mind boggling enough. But the fact that she not only approved of it but also went to the trouble of arranging an author visit forced me to see her as a person maybe not so different from myself.
As it turned out, I majored in English instead of journalism, decided that Miss Havisham was one of the most interesting characters in all of literature, and refused to split an infinitive no matter what. Best of all, I have been sharing a little bit of Mrs. Clarice J. Foster and Lucille Vaughan Payne with my own students for twenty-three years.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
The Day I...Draft 2
The Day I Stopped Hating Mrs. Clarice J. Foster
I sat sideways in my desk, clutching my well- worn copy of The Water is Wide. As always, the aroma of old books combined with the pungency of purple mimeographed handouts permeated the room. Any second now Mrs. Clarice J. Foster was going to walk through the door of her classroom with our guest speaker, Pat Conroy. My fellow students chatted quietly, some moving their desks slightly to the left or right to have an unobstructed view of the now empty podium. For once I was pleased with my front and center desk. I watched as Cindy Locklair expertly applied more Bonne Bell lip gloss to her already shiny lips. Strawberries-n-Cream, no doubt.
For about the one-hundredth time I glanced down at my outfit. Brown pants and a matching beige and brown top. Yes, at age seventeen I was wearing a polyester pantsuit borrowed from my mother’s closet for the occasion. Thankfully, though, since, it was 1978, I wasn’t the only polyester princess in the room. The day before Mrs. Foster had emphasized the importance of our dress for today’s event. “You will be meeting an important author. It would behoove you to dress like ladies and gentlemen. Leave your dungarees at home.” Yes, she really said dungarees, and, yes, it was the ‘70’s, not the ‘50’s. Classic Mrs. Foster. She also used the word behoove quite frequently, as in “It would behoove you to carry a dictionary and a thesaurus with you at all times.” “It would behoove you to commit Warriner’s comma rules to memory.” “It would behoove you to work on your penmanship.” The woman drove me nuts!
I had always loved my English classes in the past, and my previous teacher Mrs. Rison had been so much fun! We sat in groups, we discussed books, and we played and analyzed current music as poetry. Once she even told us about sneaking alcohol into her dorm at Winthrop by putting it into shampoo bottles. I stifled a giggle as I imagined myself telling Mrs. Foster than my favorite poets were The Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. This year we sat in very straight rows, and we read books such as Great Expectations--the unabridged version, thank you very much.
Each and every full week of school we wrote a five-paragraph essay in longhand, double-spaced, following Lucille Vaughn Payne’s model in The Lively Art of Writing. Each and every full week of school Mrs. Foster would return the essays with a content grade over a mechanics grade. We could use no contractions, no first person, no second person, and no passive voice. A fragment, a run-on, or the much-dreaded comma splice resulted in an automatic F for the mechanics grade. Each paragraph that contained any errors had to be rewritten in the lines we had skipped. My essay grades ranged from B to the occasional A-, never higher. More often than not, somewhere on my paper I would find two straight lines and the word parrellism. Because I avoided talking to Mrs. Foster as much as possible, I didn’t find out until a college grammar class what that meant. After I somewhat dutifully corrected my essays, I put them in her file cabinet, third drawer from the top, and resigned myself to be disappointed in the next topic.
I couldn’t wait to be rid of Mrs. Foster. I was going to major in journalism in college, write about current events, and break every one of Lucille Vaughn Payne’s and Clarice J. Foster’s rules on a regular basis. But right then I couldn’t wait for that door to open! I had read The Water is Wide three times and absolutely loved it. Pat Conroy had made me laugh out loud and cry real tears all three times. Now I may have shed a few tears over A Tale of Two Cities, but those were a very different kind of tears.
Finally, the door opened. A rather cute smiling young man with messy wiry hair and ripped dungarees (You heard me.) followed Mrs. Foster into the room. The next forty-five minutes were magical. Pat Conroy told story and after story about his life, his friends, and his teaching experiences on Daufuskie Island. He patiently signed books (“For Julie. Here’s to the good life at Summerville High,” mine read.) and posed for pictures. It was over all too quickly, but it was truly wonderful.
Eventually, I realized that my opinion of Mrs. Clarice J. Foster began to change that day. Although it was fun to hate her, I had turned her into a caricature of herself. By bringing in a current and somewhat controversial author who wrote on the very delicate issue of racial injustice in the South Carolina public school system—her school system--Mrs. Foster silently told me that she didn’t view us as simple children after all. Instead, she viewed us as intelligent students capable of doing things the right way. The very idea that Mrs. Foster had read The Water is Wide was mind boggling enough. But the fact that she not only approved of it but also went to the trouble of arranging an author visit forced me to see her as a person maybe not so different from myself.
As it turned out, I majored in English instead of journalism, decided that Miss Havisham was one of the most interesting characters in all of literature, and refused to split an infinitive no matter what. Best of all, I have been sharing a little bit of Mrs. Clarice J. Foster and Lucille Vaughn Payne with my own students for twenty-three years.
I sat sideways in my desk, clutching my well- worn copy of The Water is Wide. As always, the aroma of old books combined with the pungency of purple mimeographed handouts permeated the room. Any second now Mrs. Clarice J. Foster was going to walk through the door of her classroom with our guest speaker, Pat Conroy. My fellow students chatted quietly, some moving their desks slightly to the left or right to have an unobstructed view of the now empty podium. For once I was pleased with my front and center desk. I watched as Cindy Locklair expertly applied more Bonne Bell lip gloss to her already shiny lips. Strawberries-n-Cream, no doubt.
For about the one-hundredth time I glanced down at my outfit. Brown pants and a matching beige and brown top. Yes, at age seventeen I was wearing a polyester pantsuit borrowed from my mother’s closet for the occasion. Thankfully, though, since, it was 1978, I wasn’t the only polyester princess in the room. The day before Mrs. Foster had emphasized the importance of our dress for today’s event. “You will be meeting an important author. It would behoove you to dress like ladies and gentlemen. Leave your dungarees at home.” Yes, she really said dungarees, and, yes, it was the ‘70’s, not the ‘50’s. Classic Mrs. Foster. She also used the word behoove quite frequently, as in “It would behoove you to carry a dictionary and a thesaurus with you at all times.” “It would behoove you to commit Warriner’s comma rules to memory.” “It would behoove you to work on your penmanship.” The woman drove me nuts!
I had always loved my English classes in the past, and my previous teacher Mrs. Rison had been so much fun! We sat in groups, we discussed books, and we played and analyzed current music as poetry. Once she even told us about sneaking alcohol into her dorm at Winthrop by putting it into shampoo bottles. I stifled a giggle as I imagined myself telling Mrs. Foster than my favorite poets were The Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. This year we sat in very straight rows, and we read books such as Great Expectations--the unabridged version, thank you very much.
Each and every full week of school we wrote a five-paragraph essay in longhand, double-spaced, following Lucille Vaughn Payne’s model in The Lively Art of Writing. Each and every full week of school Mrs. Foster would return the essays with a content grade over a mechanics grade. We could use no contractions, no first person, no second person, and no passive voice. A fragment, a run-on, or the much-dreaded comma splice resulted in an automatic F for the mechanics grade. Each paragraph that contained any errors had to be rewritten in the lines we had skipped. My essay grades ranged from B to the occasional A-, never higher. More often than not, somewhere on my paper I would find two straight lines and the word parrellism. Because I avoided talking to Mrs. Foster as much as possible, I didn’t find out until a college grammar class what that meant. After I somewhat dutifully corrected my essays, I put them in her file cabinet, third drawer from the top, and resigned myself to be disappointed in the next topic.
I couldn’t wait to be rid of Mrs. Foster. I was going to major in journalism in college, write about current events, and break every one of Lucille Vaughn Payne’s and Clarice J. Foster’s rules on a regular basis. But right then I couldn’t wait for that door to open! I had read The Water is Wide three times and absolutely loved it. Pat Conroy had made me laugh out loud and cry real tears all three times. Now I may have shed a few tears over A Tale of Two Cities, but those were a very different kind of tears.
Finally, the door opened. A rather cute smiling young man with messy wiry hair and ripped dungarees (You heard me.) followed Mrs. Foster into the room. The next forty-five minutes were magical. Pat Conroy told story and after story about his life, his friends, and his teaching experiences on Daufuskie Island. He patiently signed books (“For Julie. Here’s to the good life at Summerville High,” mine read.) and posed for pictures. It was over all too quickly, but it was truly wonderful.
Eventually, I realized that my opinion of Mrs. Clarice J. Foster began to change that day. Although it was fun to hate her, I had turned her into a caricature of herself. By bringing in a current and somewhat controversial author who wrote on the very delicate issue of racial injustice in the South Carolina public school system—her school system--Mrs. Foster silently told me that she didn’t view us as simple children after all. Instead, she viewed us as intelligent students capable of doing things the right way. The very idea that Mrs. Foster had read The Water is Wide was mind boggling enough. But the fact that she not only approved of it but also went to the trouble of arranging an author visit forced me to see her as a person maybe not so different from myself.
As it turned out, I majored in English instead of journalism, decided that Miss Havisham was one of the most interesting characters in all of literature, and refused to split an infinitive no matter what. Best of all, I have been sharing a little bit of Mrs. Clarice J. Foster and Lucille Vaughn Payne with my own students for twenty-three years.
The Day I Stopped Hating Mrs. Clarice J. Foster
I sat sideways in my desk, clutching my well- worn copy of The Water is Wide. As always, the aroma of old books combined with the pungency of purple mimeographed handouts permeated the room. Any second now Mrs. Clarice J. Foster was going to walk through the door of her classroom with our guest speaker, Pat Conroy. My fellow students chatted quietly, some moving their desks slightly to the left or right to have an unobstructed view of the now empty podium. For once I was pleased with my front and center desk. I watched as Cindy Locklair expertly applied more Bonne Bell lip gloss to her already shiny lips. Strawberries-n-Cream, no doubt.
For about the one-hundredth time I glanced at my outfit. Brown pants and a matching beige and brown top. Yes, at age seventeen I was wearing a polyester pantsuit. Well, it was 1978. The day before Mrs. Foster had emphasized the importance of our dress for today’s event. “You will be meeting an important author. It would behoove you dress like ladies and gentlemen. Leave your dungarees at home.” Yes, she really said dungarees, and, yes, it was the 1970’s, not the 1950’s. Classic Mrs. Foster. She also used the word behoove quite frequently, as in “It would behoove you to carry a dictionary and a thesaurus with you at all times.” “It would behoove you to commit Warriner’s comma rules to memory.” “It would behoove you to work on your penmanship.” The woman drove me nuts!
I had always loved my English classes in the past, and my previous teacher Mrs. Rison had been so much fun! We sat in groups, we discussed books, and we played and analyzed current music as poetry. Once she even told us about sneaking alcohol into her dorm at Winthrop by putting it in shampoo bottles. I stifled a giggle as I imagined telling Mrs. Foster than my favorite poets were The Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. This year we sat in very straight rows, and we read books such as Great Expectations--the unabridged version, thank you very much.
Each and every full week of school we wrote a five-paragraph essay in longhand, double-spaced, following Lucille Vaughn Payne’s model in The Lively Art of Writing. Each and every full week of school Mrs. Foster would return the essays with a content grade over a mechanics grade. We could use no contractions, no first person, no second person, and no passive voice. A fragment, a run-on, or the much-dreaded comma splice resulted in an automatic F for the mechanics grade. Each paragraph that contained any errors had to be rewritten in the lines we had skipped. My essay grades ranged from B to the occasional A-, never higher. More often than not somewhere on my paper I would find two parallel lines and the word parrellism. Because I avoided talking to Mrs. Foster as much as possible, I didn’t find out until a college grammar class what that meant. After I somewhat dutifully corrected my essays, I put them in her file cabinet, third drawer from the top, and waited for the new topic.
I couldn’t wait to be rid of Mrs. Foster. I was going to major in journalism in college, write about current events, and break every one of Lucille Vaughn Payne’s and Clarice J. Foster’s rules on a regular basis. But right then I couldn’t wait for that door to open! I had read The Water is Wide three times and absolutely loved it. Pat Conroy had made me laugh out loud and cry real tears all three times. Now I may have shed a few tears over A Tale of Two Cities, but those were a very different kind of tears.
Finally, the door opened. A rather cute smiling young man with messy wiry hair and ripped dungarees followed Mrs. Foster in the room. The next forty-five minutes were magical. Pat Conroy told story and after story about his life, his friends, and his teaching experience on Daufuskie Island. He patiently signed books (For Julie. Here’s to the good life at Summerville High.) and posed for pictures. It was over all too quickly, but it was truly wonderful.
Eventually, I realized that my opinion of Mrs. Clarice J. Foster began to change that day. Although it was fun to hate her, I had turned her into a caricature of herself. By bringing in a current and somewhat controversial author, Mrs. Foster silently told me that she didn’t view us as simple children after all. Instead, she viewed us as intelligent students capable of doing things the right way.
As it turned out, I majored in English instead of journalism, decided that Miss Havisham is one of the most interesting characters in all of literature, and refused to split an infinitive no matter what.
I sat sideways in my desk, clutching my well- worn copy of The Water is Wide. As always, the aroma of old books combined with the pungency of purple mimeographed handouts permeated the room. Any second now Mrs. Clarice J. Foster was going to walk through the door of her classroom with our guest speaker, Pat Conroy. My fellow students chatted quietly, some moving their desks slightly to the left or right to have an unobstructed view of the now empty podium. For once I was pleased with my front and center desk. I watched as Cindy Locklair expertly applied more Bonne Bell lip gloss to her already shiny lips. Strawberries-n-Cream, no doubt.
For about the one-hundredth time I glanced at my outfit. Brown pants and a matching beige and brown top. Yes, at age seventeen I was wearing a polyester pantsuit. Well, it was 1978. The day before Mrs. Foster had emphasized the importance of our dress for today’s event. “You will be meeting an important author. It would behoove you dress like ladies and gentlemen. Leave your dungarees at home.” Yes, she really said dungarees, and, yes, it was the 1970’s, not the 1950’s. Classic Mrs. Foster. She also used the word behoove quite frequently, as in “It would behoove you to carry a dictionary and a thesaurus with you at all times.” “It would behoove you to commit Warriner’s comma rules to memory.” “It would behoove you to work on your penmanship.” The woman drove me nuts!
I had always loved my English classes in the past, and my previous teacher Mrs. Rison had been so much fun! We sat in groups, we discussed books, and we played and analyzed current music as poetry. Once she even told us about sneaking alcohol into her dorm at Winthrop by putting it in shampoo bottles. I stifled a giggle as I imagined telling Mrs. Foster than my favorite poets were The Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. This year we sat in very straight rows, and we read books such as Great Expectations--the unabridged version, thank you very much.
Each and every full week of school we wrote a five-paragraph essay in longhand, double-spaced, following Lucille Vaughn Payne’s model in The Lively Art of Writing. Each and every full week of school Mrs. Foster would return the essays with a content grade over a mechanics grade. We could use no contractions, no first person, no second person, and no passive voice. A fragment, a run-on, or the much-dreaded comma splice resulted in an automatic F for the mechanics grade. Each paragraph that contained any errors had to be rewritten in the lines we had skipped. My essay grades ranged from B to the occasional A-, never higher. More often than not somewhere on my paper I would find two parallel lines and the word parrellism. Because I avoided talking to Mrs. Foster as much as possible, I didn’t find out until a college grammar class what that meant. After I somewhat dutifully corrected my essays, I put them in her file cabinet, third drawer from the top, and waited for the new topic.
I couldn’t wait to be rid of Mrs. Foster. I was going to major in journalism in college, write about current events, and break every one of Lucille Vaughn Payne’s and Clarice J. Foster’s rules on a regular basis. But right then I couldn’t wait for that door to open! I had read The Water is Wide three times and absolutely loved it. Pat Conroy had made me laugh out loud and cry real tears all three times. Now I may have shed a few tears over A Tale of Two Cities, but those were a very different kind of tears.
Finally, the door opened. A rather cute smiling young man with messy wiry hair and ripped dungarees followed Mrs. Foster in the room. The next forty-five minutes were magical. Pat Conroy told story and after story about his life, his friends, and his teaching experience on Daufuskie Island. He patiently signed books (For Julie. Here’s to the good life at Summerville High.) and posed for pictures. It was over all too quickly, but it was truly wonderful.
Eventually, I realized that my opinion of Mrs. Clarice J. Foster began to change that day. Although it was fun to hate her, I had turned her into a caricature of herself. By bringing in a current and somewhat controversial author, Mrs. Foster silently told me that she didn’t view us as simple children after all. Instead, she viewed us as intelligent students capable of doing things the right way.
As it turned out, I majored in English instead of journalism, decided that Miss Havisham is one of the most interesting characters in all of literature, and refused to split an infinitive no matter what.
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