I have no idea what made me think of this now, except maybe that my hair isn't quite the way I want it to be today and I'm still working on getting it right, but this very strange childhood experience just resurfaced.
Of course, we start with background. (I'm always tempted to start with "Sicily, 1912", but this one would have to be "School Playground, 1964", or something.) Anyway, being a baby boomer, there were always four classes of each grade in my elementary school, and this was one of eight schools in town at that time. (My school was the biggest. We had four classes of 25, but where the Hubs went, he was always in one class of 32 or 33.) So there were roughly 50 girls in my grade. Roughly 43 of them were in the Girl Scout troop. My mother was not the leader of the troop, but she was one of the six or seven mothers who volunteered and helped out and came to every meeting. In uniform. So all these mothers knew each other, and they all knew practically all the girls in our grade.
One girl in particular was somewhat annoying, but not to the point that she was generally shunned or mocked. She was taller than almost everyone else, and sturdily built. Not overweight, but just with the bulk to accompany her height. She had pale blond hair and a fairly prominent nose. For someone who was usually teetering at the brink of exclusion, she was pretty gutsy when it came to teasing other people. One day, when my mother had perpetrated yet another disaster on my hair, probably with the help of the curling iron that she heated up in the fire on the stove, this kid said to me on the playground at lunchtime, "You know, you look like George Washington." She meant the way my hair was curled over my ears. I was cut to the quick. And I said "Oh yeah? Because you really look like George Washington."
She burst into tears and ran off to tell the teacher what a terrible person I was. I was still stung by her original remark, and the other girls we were standing with all looked at me. The looks on their faces told me that I had said a terrible thing. "What?" I wanted to know. "She said it first!" I don't think I got any answers. The problem, of course, was that she really did look like George Washington.
I don't recall my teacher saying anything or punishing me, but that night, after George's mom called mine, I got in trouble. Could no one understand what had happened? She had insulted me and all I did was say the same thing right back at her! She started it! I never would have told her she looked like George Washington if she hadn't said it to me first! I probably wouldn't have talked to her at all!
My mother told me that I had to be extra nice to her, because she had hardships in her life. (Which she did, and I knew; her father had died about a year before, and her mother was ill too, not to mention the most obnoxious mother in the Scout troop, and that includes the drunk. She also had an incredibly pesty little sister who was always hanging around, and who came to our meetings and got in the way.) I suggested to my mother that her hardships had not made her more sensitive to others, and that she had hurt my feelings first. My mother indicated that I was on a somewhat higher social level than this kid, and I should make it my duty to befriend her, and be nice to her, not to mention the public apology I was to make the next day.
I was outraged. First of all, I was on no social level, and my mother damn well knew it. I had no social skills to speak of; I panicked and cried for hours if I had to call my very best friend on the phone for a missed homework assignment. I had one or two good friends. I think I dressed like everyone else, but my hair always looked like an experiment gone wrong. I probably bathed rarely. I was no prize.
I do think that I grudgingly said "Sorry" the next day, and muttered that she shouldn't have said it to me first, and she immediately became regal, willing to accept the poor offering the peasant had made to her, and making sure everyone still understood that I had cut her to the quick and was slime. Yeah, poor thing. I felt real sorry for her.
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There is no real follow-up to this story; my 100 member sixth grade class was split in half to go to two different junior high schools, and very few of us maintained connnections until we were re-united three years later in high school. I wouldn't have stayed connected to this kid under any circumstances anyway, but I was there, she was there, I saw her in the halls. We were never in any classes together. I worked on yearbook, and I know I saw her picture in some club that supported the troops in Vietnam. I'm sure I never spoke a word to her in high school, or had the occasion to.
My mother, as mothers do, maintained membership in the occasional network of mothers even after we were out of high school, so I knew that shortly after high school graduation, this girl got married, which was nice for her, and not long after that, her mother, who had been ill for so long, did die, and the George girl ended up becoming the legal guardian of her little sister, who must have been a real trip as a teenager. So she did the right thing, and made all kinds of sacrifices, probably, for a lot of years, none of which is germane to the story.
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Let me see if I can remember who the mothers in our Scout Troop were. Mrs. Martin was the leader in charge, and she was a tough cookie; she was organized like a drill sergeant and never cracked a smile. Then there was Shirl, and my best friend Jessica's mother, Mrs. Chao, and Mrs. Chao's best friend, Mrs. Roe. Those were the three moms that everyone liked best and wanted to get to work with each week. (Our patrols rotated from mom to mom each week, for obvious reasons.) Mrs. Silverman was incredibly bossy, as was her daughter Lida; she was to be avoided, if possible. Mrs. Riglian was not unpleasant, but was dull. Mrs. Holly, George's mom, was only interested in sitting in a chair and barking orders. She was not kind or in any way pleasant. Mrs. Waters always smiled, and was very nice to us, but never quite caught the instructions for what we were supposed to do, so if you were in Mrs. Waters' patrol, you never finished your project. When I commented on this to my mother years later, she said, a little sadly, "Oh. Well, she was an alcoholic. We all looked out for her." Which I guess they did.
You know, that elusive school asset "popularity" skipped over me entirely, regardless of age or grade, but you know what was really nice? Knowing that my mom was one of the "nice ones" and that the other girls all wanted to be in her patrol.
I speak of this, in part, because Mrs. Chao died last week. I have not seen Jessica in more than twenty years, and that was just a random running into each other at the mall. I loved Mrs. Chao; we all did, but since I was her kid's friend, I knew her at home baking cookies, and got invited over to see their Christmas tree every year, and stuff. She was a small, delicate woman with an incredible smile. She was smart, and was the only mother I knew who had gone to college. I read the obituaries in the local paper every week, because I knew that one day I would see Mr. or Mrs. Chao there.
There was no wake, but there will be a memorial service in a few weeks. I'm thinking of going, although I don't know if I have the guts to do it. It's walking into a room full of strangers, but strangers that I knew 40 years ago. Is her mother's memorial service the right time to spring a reunion on Jessica? More thoughts to discuss in therapy, I guess. The bottom line is that I'd like to pay my respects to Mrs. Chao, so I'm really thinking of going.
And I thought it was tough being a kid.
WATCHING L/O :: ENTRY #1880
READING: Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen
