Oh, Oh!

I think (actually I know) that in my last blog I got some dates confused. You'll have to remember that I'm getting older by the day, and with age comes lost brain cells. So I 'd better hurry and finish my life history before I lose them all. Anyway...the war did end in 1945 (you probably already knew that), but I still had one more year of elementary school and one more year before the decision was made to sell our house and move. So now I'll just fast forward a year to 1946 when I did graduate from Sherman school, when our house went up for sale, and when I did begin junior high school.

Being twelve was exciting for me. It was the beginning of a new phase of my life as a "teenager" which in my mind was a "near adult". I know you might not consider twelve a teen, much less an adult, but I did. Maybe that's because I was now permitted to wear a little lipstick thanks to my sister, Claire, who fought the battle with my dad. By the time I reached this age he had just given up. He hated any kind of makeup because in his mind only the cheap "ladies of the night" as he called them, painted their faces. That was the case in Holland when he was on his mission. Even though I'm sure it was Mom who softened him towards us girls, she honored his feelings by not wearing any makeup at all until the last year of her life.

This new phase of my life meant joing my older sisters in the Young Women's Mutual Association at church. No more Primary on week days...it was YWMIA on Tuesday nights and
being able to choose two elective classes at school. Both made me feel "older" but the latter gave me a feeling of being grown up enough to make some decisions about my education. My two electives I chose were the same for all three years...orchestra and art. Yes, our school actually had an orchestra and a band. I really enjoyed the cello by this time, enough so that my parents bought me my own cello for $50.00. You couldn't get one now for that price, but in our financial circumstances even that was a lot of money. The condition was that I practice. And I did. Most of the music we played was classical, and I learned to love it. My art class was my first introduction to the principles of color, technique and different art mediums. I loved it and continued to take classes the next two years and on into high school. The rest of our classes were the usual math, English, science, history and P.E. It's kind of funny that the teachers you remember are the ones that made you hated because they made you work the hardest and expected the most from you. One of these was our P.E. teacher. Her name was Lisle Lindsey. She was middle aged, very small (I would say under five feet), single, and dynamic. We were expected to energetically participate in all activities planned, practice good hygiene and shower after every class and she checked to make sure you did. If you were having your period you were excused from class because of the shower requirement but required to do written work which she also checked. The reason I appreciate her now was that she was always smiling and pleasant and made you feel that she really cared about you personally. I think to this day that she did. She always reminded us to stand tall, hold in that stomach, and tuck under that booty I remember her making us practice how to pull our hip and pelvic bones underneath our diaphragm which would achieve these goals. She always told us to be proud of who we were and show it by the way we carried ourselves. It was not unusual for her to walk past us and say, "Tuck it in", and we knew what that meant. She was the only P.E. teacher at the school for girls, so we had her for three years. By then we had the "tucking in" and the "standing up straight" down cold. I still think of her when I look in the mirror and see that bulging belly, and I even practice that technique she taught us to see if it still would work for me. It doesn't. I guess my body is just too far gone at 73.

Then there was Mr. Todd, my eighth grade science teacher. He was truly amazing at what he taught us and how. Oh yes, and Mrs. Rapp my math teacher, and Miss Jones, an English teacher. I remember each of them for other reasons. But that is my next blog.