Day 3... 1. I am grateful for Vannesia Morgan-Smith, Elise Smith, Ava Roe, Sheila Morrow, and Sandy Fantau. During my latest tussle with illness, they wrote to me. Not online, but the old-fashioned way, with paper and pen and stamps and everything. Their well wishes meant so much to me,especially on days when I was really down and quite closeted in my misery. Their mail became even more special, when one of my primary sources of comfort passed away in the course of my illness. One of my Aunts, Antoinetta, my Mrs. Whatsit, fought a lovely and valiant battle against cancer until she decided she was ready to join Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which. Antoinetta was the one who sent me cards and called me in the course of my first go-round with cancer back in 2008. Her timing was impeccable -- if you have to lift your head from the toilet, its nice to find a big, beautiful card filled with her prayers and jokes written in her elegant, loopy handwriting. Antoinetta couldnt send me cards this time. Vannesia, Elise, Ava, Sheila, and Sandy picked up a mantle they didnt know had been dropped. I havent written about Antoinettas passing until now because my feelings about it are still so fresh. Grief somehow weighs me down while at the same time hollowing me. Im so grateful for the years I got to spend with Antoinetta and the love, pride, encouragement and concern she lavished on me. And Im grateful for the ladies mentioned above who squeezed into the emptiness she left behind. 2. I am grateful for the Gifted Geeks of St. Louis, especially Whitney Porterfield Cameron, who remembers everything. We first met in sixth grade. We were gifted students (dont laugh!) at Kennard Elementary School in St. Louis. Whitney was tall and blond and beautiful. She had boobs and striking Brooke Shields eyebrows. Her sleepovers were legend! She was the only girl who invited me to her house that year, and her mother made the BEST french bread pizza Ive ever had. One night, we goofed around with a Ouija Board at Whitneys house, and when we asked it the name of the person I would marry, it pointed to the letters P-A-U-L. It wasnt until years later, after Id married a man named Paul, that I recalled Satans ready prediction. My friendship with Whitney gave me confidence and a social life I hadnt had before, and Im grateful for it, because without it, I might not have become friends with so many other precious gems. Like Keith Ketsenburg, My Great Love of 6th and 7th Grade. Keith was a skinny, dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty who had the habit of screwing up his lips when he wrote in class. He had a fondness for plaid shirts, a condition I could overlook because he lived in Bellefontaine Cemetery, one of my favorite places in the world. His father was its caretaker, and I spent many a day musing on what it must have been like to grow up, a live boy, in a cemetery. Keith and I never spoke in sixth grade, when we were in Mrs. Gloria Grifferos class. But there came a day, during the dreaded square dancing run in gym class, when we were paired. With his bony elbow hooked with mine, we allemagned left, promenaded home two-by-two, swung our partners -- without once making eye contact. It was one of the best days of my life! Seventh-grade changed things up in that we moved to Busch School and had a homeroom and moved to different classrooms for different subjects. Whitney and I were in different classes so we didnt see as much of each other. But I became friends with Julie Brengarde, Lisa Dwyer, and Susie Held, nee Kunderer. The four of us were inseparable, and for the first time in my life, I had a group of girls to hang out with who werent my five sisters. Another Keith, Keith Ogier, My Great Love of 8th Grade, was a mystery. He still is. He was wicked gifted in math, and he had the sort of imagination I didnt see again until I began reading The Far Side years later. To this day, Ive not seen green eyes like Keiths. They sparkled and changed colors like jewels, and when matched with his Puckish smile, you could almost see the mischief percolating behind them. He wasnt a bad kid. On the contrary, he was quite a good kid, one who managed to do strange and great things without ever getting into really serious trouble. I best remember afternoons on the phone with Keith, laughing our heads off as I read aloud from a book about teenagers and their changing bodies. I read a passage about a boy whod gotten a hairpin stuck in his urethra, and Keith and I laughed so hard, I ended up needing a blast of my asthma inhaler. Three years later, I called Keith to ask him to be my date for my junior prom. We hadnt spoken or seen each other in the intervening years, yet he said yes, without hesitation. Ill always be grateful to him for that. I am grateful for Bob Brown, another one of my 8th grade classmates. Bob was tall and athletic and had a mane of blond curls that gave him the look of a young Apollo. He was wicked good at math too, and once tried to explain an algebra problem to me. So easily, the words and logic eased from his mouth, yet I had no idea what he was talking about. The first love letter I ever wrote was to Bob during a very brief crush, and he did me the most excellent solid by never telling anyone about it. Three years after we graduated eighth grade, I saw Bob again, at the McDonalds at Christy and Kingshighway, where I applied for my first job. Bob was an assistant manager there, and I got the job because of his recommendation. My first night on grill, I passed out right after my shift when another manager was talking to me. From that moment on, another manager, a towering blond woman named Pam with the classic Oompa Loompa-orange tanning bed tan of the 1980s, despised me and thought I was incompetent. Every time Bob referred to her as Pamazon, it put my mind at ease and I could relax enough to do my job well. Im so grateful for Bob. Im grateful for Orlando Mcnary, who always made me laugh, and Ronald Palmer, My Great Love of the Second Semester of 7th Grade. Im also grateful to Danny McKinley, aka Imdanimal Atgmail. At our 8th grade dance, the last social event of our elementary school career, he gave me my first kiss. The kind where our tongues touched! Danny was moving away from St. Louis at the end of the school year, and that kiss was the most bittersweet of farewells from a boy on whom Id had an on-again, off-again crush since fifth grade. Danny was and still is a brilliant artist, but if hed chosen to make a career of giving girls their first kisses, it would have been a good move. Im grateful for Steve Brodzin, who made the crosstown bus ride so much less boring in eighth grade. Steve had the black hair and center part of Rick Springfield, which contrasted beautifully with his porcelain pale Irish complexion. Steve rarely ever spoke, at least not to me. But on the bus, he would make me laugh by making trumpet noises without moving or even parting his lips. Im grateful for Robert Holtzmann. Because of him, my tastes in music improved from The Monkees, commercial jingles, and television theme songs to Styx, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, and The Who. Hes also the reason I logged a thousand miles on my bike, riding past his house over and over, the summer of 1981. Im also grateful to Arthur Hamilton, who beat me out by one vote for president of Mr. Ramseys 8th-grade homeroom. (Arthur, I dont know who was responsible for the assassination attempt during kickball that day in May, but I promise, it wasnt me.) I am so grateful for Kim Fisher Hassos, who was my best friend in 8th grade. Kim was the mastermind behind our gangs Friday night outings to Rons Roller World, where I learned to skate backwards, and where infatuation nearly got me killed. One Friday, I wore a pufffy white shirt and white harem pants so Id really stand out during the strobe light sequence of the night. I was skating past a boy named Carl, who had terrifically bad acne but a great sense of humour. Glowing like a deep sea fashionista, I saucily raised my right hand and wiggled my fingers at Carl, who was sitting with his friends outside the rail. I promptly wiped out, hard, thoroughly, and with a gut-emptying Oof! Im sure Carl and his friends heard. Some guy with a ponytail skated over me, scooped me up by my armpits, and set me back on my skates. (That was my last trip to Rons Roller World until I was 20, when I was sure I wouldnt run into Carl again.) And finally, I am grateful for John Oliver. We met in Mrs. Virginia Grays second grade class at Wade Elementary School in 1974. My sisters and I were the only children of color in the elementary school at that time after my mother moved us from Kossuth Avenue in north St. Louis to Shenandoah Avenue in south St. Louis. I was anxious and sweaty-palmed as I went to my desk that first day, with children who were so foreign to me staring at my progress. I pulled out a yellow #2 pencil to write my name on a math sheet, and John, with his precision bowl cut and lisp, spoke to me. Youre thupposed to uth red penthilthil, not the yellow onth, he told me. He then proceeded to beat me to every response when Mrs. Gray called out the problems and expected us to reply with the correct answer. No one could add up 9+ problems faster than John, who explained, Juth take one from the other number to make the 9 a ten, and add them. I hated him. I was supposed to be the smartest kid in class, like Id been back at my old school! I was supposed to use yellow pencils! But when other kids shunned me or made fun of me or accused me of doing things I hadnt done, or called me foul names, John was the one constant. He treated me the same on my first day as he did on the last day of school. He corrrected me, he competed with me, he argued with me, he even let me kick him once, when we were playing I am blind on the schoolyard. John is the first friend I remember making. We butt heads from time to time. We even did it once here on Facebook. I dont think two people can inspire such anger in one another without also bearing great affection for each other. I am grateful for John. Only my older sisters have known me longer than he has. Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with so many Gifted Geeks: Justine Swanger Lipiarski, who kept me on my toes competing for first flute in 5th and 6th grade; Tonie Bitseff, who introduced me to granola; Robert Doyle, a born thespian; and Daniel Bundren, the summer-bronze, athletic, seventh-grade boy who actually had a little crush on me -- an older, 8th-grade woman! Theyve meant so much to me through the years, many of them have made it into my novels. Im truly grateful for these people who claimed spots on my love map so early on... 3. I am grateful to people who take the time to read my walls of words...
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:31:23 +0000
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