Class

I always left early for school.  I loved school.  I loved 4th grade and I love my teacher, Mr. Taylor.  I prepared to leave home, swaddled in my mother's harsh criticisms because I had been stupid...again.  I had forgotten my mittens at school the afternoon before, so my hands were going to be cold this morning.  It wasn't the first time I had forgotten my mittens, so I guess my mother was right; I was stupid after all.  Girls weren't allowed to wear pants to school, even on the coldest day---now that's what I call stupid.  I put pants on underneath my skirt.  I had to take them off as soon as I got to school, but I didn't care.  I didn't care when the other children made fun of me, either.  Wendy Miller came to school in bright red lipstick and the other children loved her.  I thought bright red lipstick was stupid on a little girl.  I asked her why she wore bright red lipstick and she said her mother put it on her every morning to keep her lips from chapping.  Her mother was so careful to put lipstick on Wendy Miller's lips, but Wendy always wore a skirt to school.  Not me, I may be stupid, but my legs are warm.  I do have chapped lips, though.

Today is a really cold morning.  My legs will be warm, but stupid me will have really cold hands.  I don't really care how cold it is outside, for it is far colder in my house.  I put my boots on my feet.  They are purple, my favorite color.  My coat is fuzzy, soft and warm...and purple.  My mother hates purple.  I wonder if that's why I like it so much.

I open the door to a burst of really cold air.  It is still dark outside and no one else is around.  The icicles are hanging off the eaves of the roofs, sparkling their greeting before the next burst of January air knocks them down.  Even then, they tinkled a gay melody as the pieces hit the ice below.  I loved the reflections of the light off of the ice.  It was like a mirror in which a stupid, ugly girl looked in, but a sparkling star came shining out.  I walked down Wunderlich Street in Barberton, Ohio.  That's where I lived, 314 Wunderlich Street.  I thought that was a funny name for a street.  I wondered about things myself.  I had to carry my Scoobie Doo lunchbox and my school shoes so my hands got cold fast.  I decided not to think about that.  I enjoyed the silence of the morning.  No one yelled at me in the silence.  My fingertips started stinging.  I walked past the warm houses with the kitchen lights on and the mothers cooking breakfasts for happy children.  I watched as I passed by the yellow windows and I felt lonely.  I wanted a home like the ones I imagined in the yellow windows.  It was okay I didn't have one, though, because I had school.  And I loved school.  And I loved Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Taylor was different.  He listened to me, even when I said stupid things.  And he never, ever yelled at me.  I didn't quite fit in anywhere in this world, but I fit in with Mr. Taylor.  The other kids didn't like him much, but that was okay.  They didn't like me much, either.  Boy, my hands really stung now.  I quickened my pace.  I was supposed to be in the third grade, but somebody told my mom I was too smart to be in the third grade so they put me in the fourth grade.  The children in the fourth grade called me bad names.  The children in the fourth grade called Mr. Taylor bad names too, but not to his face.  I guess mom forgot to tell somebody I was stupid or I would be back with my friends in the third grade.

My hands didn't hurt anymore.  I could see my school, Decker Elementary .  It was mostly dark, but the light was on in Mr. Taylor's classroom.  That made me happy.  I tried to run but I slipped and fell.  My lunch box and shoes went flying into a snowdrift, and the jagged ice scraped my knees even though I had my pants on.  My hands got scraped up too, but they didn't hurt like my knees did.  When I reached to get my lunch box and shoes out of the snowdrift, my hands stung a bit.  My hands were too cold to work right anymore, so I dropped my lunch box and shoes several more times before I reached the school doors.  I had to struggle to open the door.

I turned down the hallway to go to my classroom.  My Taylor was at his desk, working.  He looked up and smiled at me.  I went to put my lunch box, boots and coat into my cubby.  I tried to hurry, but my fingers wouldn't work.  When Mr. Taylor came to check on me, tears began rolling down my face.  My fingers throbbed like my heart does when I play too hard, only this was a hurt-throb.  Mr. Taylor told me to leave my fuzzy coat on.  He looked at my hand and took them into his own.  His hands were warm.  They were big, too.  He walked me to the teacher's lounge and put my hands under warm water.  I hated crying.  It was such a stupid thing to do.  The more I hated crying, the harder I cried.  I tried to tell Mr. Taylor I was sorry for being stupid in between my sobs.  I was crying some for my hands hurting, but more because Mr. Taylor wouldn't like me anymore now that he knew how stupid I really was.  I bet he was going to tell my mother and then I would really be punished.  Mom didn't like it when I put people out.  Mom always told me never to bother anyone and here I was being a bother.  I was putting Mr. Taylor out all because stupid me forgot my stupid mittens.

I pulled my hands out of the water.  They were really hurting.  The water made them hurt even worse.  Mr. Taylor put my hands back under the running water, rubbing them together with his own.  I howled out of pain and fear.  It took quite a while for me to notice Mr. Taylor was not yelling at me.  I stopped crying so I could hear what he was saying.  "Shhhh" he said.  "It's OK," he said.  "It will stop hurting in a minute."  He said.  I stared at him in amazement.  Had he forgotten I was the stupid one?  It was my fault I left my mittens at school.  I tried to tell him I was sorry.  He told me I had nothing to be sorry for.  WHAT???

Another teacher, Mrs. Speicher, came into the teacher's lounge.  She demanded to know why Mr. Taylor was in there with me.  He explained my fingers were frostbitten.  Mrs. Speicher acted funny---not friendly, but not mad, either.  Uh, oh.  Now I was going to be punished for getting Mr. Taylor into trouble and now he really wouldn't like me anymore.  Mr. Taylor shut off the water and dried my hands, ignoring Mrs. Speicher.  I knew all about Mrs. Speicher and how mean she was.  All the children said she was mean.  Mr. Taylor and I left quickly.  Neither of us spoke the whole way down the hall.  When we reached the room, I apologized for causing him trouble.  He told me I wasn't any trouble.  He said "Everyone forgets things sometimes.  Would you like a piece of candy?"  Of course I would!  This was all mixed up.  Mr. Taylor seemed to like me, even though I was stupid, even though I put him out, and even though I got him into trouble with Mrs. Speicher.  Then he said "not to worry, everyone forgets things at times and it does not make them stupid."  I was very confused, but Mr. Taylor still liked me after all.  He never told my mother I put him out, either.  As fourth grade progressed, my fondness for Mr. Taylor grew.  I was sad when summer vacation came because I would not see Mr. Taylor all summer and he would not be my teacher in fifth grade.  I loved Mr. Taylor as much as any little girl could love her teacher.  It was not like the school girl crush I had on Donny Osmond or on the sixth grade teacher, Mr. Raymond.  It was the kind of love that even after many years had passed the kindness Mr. Taylor had shown to me would be memorable.  As it turned out, I was never to see Mr. Taylor again.

Barberton was a small, blue collar community.  There were blacks, but they kept to themselves on the other side of town.  Blacks were also called niggers.  I could tell when Christmas was getting close because mom bought us nigger toes to eat. I thought nigger must be a good thing for people to be because when it was time for nigger toes, Christmas was coming and Christmas made me happy.   My dad had a pollack for a friend.  He must have been a really funny friend because everyone laughed about "that dumb pollack."  I wish I could have met that dumb pollack so I could laugh, too.  My dad told us funny things the pollack did all the time.  It must be fun to live with pollacks.  Then there was dad's friend, "that damn dago."  He was dad's very best friend in the entire world.  I would be an adult before I knew his name was not dago, but Ed Bush.

When I got to U.L. Light Junior High School, I became best friends with Nina.  She is the kind of childhood best friend I would be thinking about the rest of my life. If I wasn't with Martha, my other best friend, I was with her. I was allowed to be friends with her as long as I didn't bring her to my home.  I didn't tell my mother I was too embarrassed to bring her into my home, so that rule was fine with me. Nina is the kind of childhood friend I was to have for the rest of my life, and she would teach me more about love, kindness and generosity than anyone else I have encountered since. Nina, her family and Mr. Taylor would shape the ideas about race and equality for the rest of my life, though it would be decades before I would understand just how much their presence in my life would come shape my life.  I loved and admired my dear friend so much, I would come to name my youngest child after her, and would spend decades missing her after we lost touch.

Nina and I were joined at the hip as much as we could get together.  It was difficult to find time to play together since we were not allowed to play at each other's houses.  I had just found Jesus at the Barberton Friend's Church located next to U.L. Light.  The pastor and his wife were very nice.  Sometimes they opened up the church early and Nina and I would go there to play before school.  She loved to sing as much as I did, so we sang hymns about Jesus.  We talked and we read the bible together.  We walked most of the way home together, singing his praise the entire way at the top of our lungs.  Some people thought it was strange we were such good friends, but I didn't understand why.  Since I was younger than my classmates, I never felt like I fit in with them.  Some of the girls were boy crazy, too, and I liked boys and wanted a boyfriend, but I felt so shy and awkward.  Nina didn't seemed to fit in very well either, so it felt like it was her and I against the world.  Well, her and I and Jesus.

She came to church with me on some nights, and I came to church with her on others.  Our churches were quite different!  My church was a Quaker church and women always had to wear skirts.  They did not believe in going to war, either.  Sundays were very sacred days, dedicated to worship and family gatherings.  The family gathering part was tough because I really didn't have a family to go to when church was over.  One day I brought my Girl Scout Cookies to church to sell and wasn't allowed to sell them because they said commerce was not permitted to occur on the Lord's day.  I knew I wasn't smart, but there was plenty of commerce going on in that building.  Everyone had to pay the church just to be there.  I didn't really feel like I fit in there, either because although church people seemed happy to see me, I always came alone and no one ever invited to to Sunday Supper.  Everyone at my church was very polite and proper, and the songs were nice and hymnal.  We were expected to sit quietly (and I was never good at that) when we were supposed to sit, and to stand and sing when we were told to. The songs were long and boring, too. They had a little choir and since I loved to sing about God I wanted to join, but they wouldn't let me do that, either.  For it being a church, I never felt like I fit in there. Sometimes they made me help out in the nursery during church. I loved the babies, but they weren't fooling me.  They didn't like it when I fidgeted during the sermon so that's where I was sent. I felt like I was tolerated except by the preacher and his wife.  They were always nice to me.

WOW! Was what I felt like when I went to Nina's church! I had never seen anything like it!  I did happen to notice I was the only white face in the crowd, but I didn't feel out of place.  I felt comfortable.  Everyone welcomed me warmly and it seemed like they really wanted me there. Many of the black women were a little bit bigger than the white women at my church, so when they hugged me, they hugged ALL of me.  And their hugs  felt sincere, not stiff.  I liked being there, even after things got a little weird for me.  It was weird because church is supposed to be silent, solemn.  The preacher would say something, and someone would yell out "Amen, Praise God!"  People yelled out whenever it moved them.  And the songs, the hymns!  They were so much fun to sing.  The different culture, this foreign way of worship was perplexing to me.  I felt good to be at church and if I squiggled or chatted, no one sent me to the nursery.  A lady gave me a pencil and paper to write with and she SMILED at me like she understood how hard it was for me to sit still.  I wasn't punished.  I knew of the words nigger, pollack, dago, wop etc., but I did not comprehend what they meant.  I didn't know what racism or prejudice was.  I knew blacks had their own table in the lunchroom, but so did the cheerleaders, the jocks, the nerds, and the outcasts. Segregation was not just about color, it was about popularity and status.

I would not comprehend the full meaning and significance of those terms until nearly two decades later.  I was reminiscing with my mother and I asked her if she knew what had happened to my beloved fourth grade teacher, Mr. Taylor.  In the same manner she would relate any bit of frivolous gossip, she told me a story about how he had been beaten and run out of town the summer he disappeared from my life.  It seems the good people of Barberton did not want a nigger teaching their children.  My mother babbled on and on about it, but her words could not pierce through the horror I felt.  It was that single moment that defined race to me. That was when I realized Mr. Taylor was black.  I never saw that when he listened to me.  I never saw his color when he held his hands around mine, warming them.  I never saw him as a black man or as a nigger because in my little girl world, I only saw people as "mean" or "not mean."

Throughout the years, I have become much more aware of racial issues, though I still do not fully comprehend or understand the significance race holds in this world.  I understand and even appreciate racial and cultural disparities and can discuss such matters with some level of intellect.  I know why the terms my family used to describe others are offensive and derogatory.  I see racism and prejudice still exist today, though it is not polite to talk about it.  I see how race and culture affect and reflect attitudes and belief systems.  But when I am alone, though it may seem childish, I still prefer to see people as "mean" or "not mean."