In high school, I took part in choir and in plays. There were several plays that I had roles in: South Pacific, Pygmalion, and others. The first two I truly enjoyed. In South Pacific I played an island girl, small and coated with skin darkening makeup. The songs were marvelous; my favorite was the one where the lead character sang "Gonna wash that man right out of my hair". It was such a spirited song of an independent woman. The costumes, the staging, the colorfulness of it all, gave me such joy. In choir, we sang the song about the lord god onmipotent and other popular songs. I was classed as a contralto by the instructor and I enjoy knowing that I was able to span the gap between the sopranos and the altos. To me, it meant having a range that others did not.
There was also archery instruction, which was so different from the ordinary public school curriculum that I simply had to take part in it. In addition to that was a class in Russian language. I took two semesters of Russian, in a class taught by a French man. He used a paperback Russian I instruction book, with a red cover on it. The Russian conversations in it were full of drama, that showed the Russian personality and culture. There were dialogues based on love lost, betrayals, and challenges for duels. Another class was centered on word origins and dissections of word parts. The derivation of prefixes and suffixes, the mother languages of various word parts, it was all fascinating. The class was taught by a Mrs. Peters, who ate several boiled eggs for lunch each day and they made the classroom smell.
I had several friends, not one for a huge social network, one of which was Jennifer Hume. Jennifer's father had been posted with embassy duty in London for some time. Her family was prosperous. She had a thoroughbred stallion named Maximillian, stabled at one of Houston's country club stables. She rode in competitions, English side saddle. I remember how jaunty she looked in her leather patched jodphurs. Her horse was a magnificent chestnut. I would spend days and sometimes overnight with her family, going with her to the stables.It was so pleasant to have a friend who actually did things that were different from the majority of other students I knew.
I spent my high school years lamenting my poor background and wishing for some opportunity to come along, some miracle to happen that would skyrocket me into a different life. I studied the Peloponessian Wars in history class, spending an entire semester on that war, with every battle strategy and details of the leaders.
Those years are so long ago, and it is hard to call into my mind just what I was like, how I felt then... I really never got to know that little girl as well as I should have. She deserved so much more than she had. Sigh...
I attended Westbury Senior High School in Houston, Texas, for the last year of high school. I was still very introverted, a thinker and dreamer, and had no interest in dating any of the boys at all. After all, who would want to waste time with a high school boy? There was no way I was going to pretend to be impressed by them, when they were so young, so unknowing, and so completely cocky and even arrogant. What could they possibly have that would be of interest to me? I had learned some years earlier how to give myself an orgasm in the bathtub, with the running water doing the stimulating. I could satisfy myself whenever I wanted, so sexuality was not driving me to dating. My thoughts were continuously on the life I wanted to have, once I was able to escape the bounds of my family. My older sister Rosa Lee was going to college at Texas Women's University in Denton, and she was going to graduate summa cum laude with a degree in Spanish. That last year in high school is now just a vague memory. I do not remember much of that last year, except for the senior prom. My mother wanted me to go, and sewed me a pink frothy net dress with poufs at the shoulders. It was silly looking, but I wore it for her. She said since I had no date that my brother Larry could be my date. I balked at that. No self respecting girl goes to the prom with her BROTHER ! So I went alone and spent the entire evening walking back and forth across the dance floor. No one asked me to dance. Eventually I went into the girls restroom and sat for awhile, thinking. It was the most awful evening, pointless really. But soon it was over and would fade into history. Then there was the summer ahead. Now there was no structure, no plans, and great uncertainty as to what I would do. I applied to the University of Houston to begin college, and was accepted. Wow, I was thrilled that they accepted me. Just a day after getting the good news, my mother told me we were moving to California. That drained me. There was no one I could stay with in Houston and I had no job or money to live there on my own, so my chance to start college was ended. The letter wound up in the trash. The end of that summer, in fact we did all load up in the station wagon and started the long drive to California. We were going to Anaheim, where my mother's sister Marie lived. She probably had asked for Marie's help in getting settled there. Any way, Dad drove his truck and in the station wagon was Mom and all of us kids, seven of us. Rosa Lee had married and was going to stay in Houston with her Canadian husband, Walter. As I recall, she was already pregnant.
No comments:
Post a Comment