My mother would look for volunteers before prepping the flower beds for planting. At some point, I also began looking for volunteers. My zinnias are awesome volunteers. The volunteers are a distinct zinnia leaf green that stands out in the weeds that pass for a lawn, so they are easy to spot. Although, I have to say that when the weeds are mowed, they make a passable lawn. Which is to say that from a distance, the weeds actually look like grass.
I don’t really want to think about junior high or high school. We had to get up early to catch the bus because it was about an hour’s ride to school. The junior high was in C’ville and the high school, newly built, was on the outskirts.
Nothing much happened in the ninth grade. I took Home Ec. My mother was a home economics major in college…I think. She was a meticulous seamstress who preferred (?) Vogue patterns. I never liked Vogue patterns…too complicated. Didn’t really like Butterick patterns, but I would use them. I preferred Simplicity’s and McCall’s patterns. I was never more than an adequate seamstress. I couldn’t cut a straight line, even when following the pattern. My mother made most of my clothes. At that time material was cheap, patterns were cheap, and my clothes fit well.
I have no idea why I took Home Ec. I was not interested in sewing or cooking. I also had French, Algebra I, Geography, English. That’s what I remember. Some were semester classes and some lasted the entire year.
In the ninth grade, one became aware of the schism between the Blacks who lived in the country and the Blacks who lived in town. We really didn’t mingle. We had nothing in common. They mostly lived in the projects, and I don’t think I ever had a reason to visit the projects. I was probably in the ninth or tenth grade when I found out where the projects were located.
I think it was the ninth grade that I met M who was my best friend during High School. She lived in town, but not in the projects. Her mother was a nurse? or was that P’s mother? Maybe it was the summer after ninth grade that I was a Candy Striper. I wanted to be a nurse until that experience. I worked in different wards, and everytime a doctor (male) made his rounds, all of us had to stand at attention until he left. I decided that was one profession, I wanted no part of. I thought about being a doctor instead and, after a day touring a teaching hospital, I decided I didn’t want to pursue that profession. During that tour, at least one of the touring students fainted. I didn’t faint, but the sight of blood and a dog’s heart beating was not my cup of tea. I will say…the fried chicken we had for lunch was quite good. Isn’t it strange what one remembers?
There have been book(s) written about lunch room dynamics. We always had a table where we sat. There was no mixing. It was the only time that we could relax.
I’m writing this and everyone is talking about AI (Artificial Intelligence). Unfortunately, AI has been created by persons who belong to a group that is invested in hate, greed, misogyny, inhumaneness, homicide (indiscriminate murder), prejudice, bias, jealousy, racism, othering…and the AI that they created is just like them. Just like that boy who spewed hatred at me for no reason other than the color of my skin was different. Maybe, we as humans cannot create other than what we are intrinsically. If anything their creation of AI should give all of us pause… A white god would have never created a rainbow. A white god can only see itself and create itself. As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, and is relevant to what we are dealing with today. We need to rethink the allegiance to a religion appropriated and corrupted by the white group.
The same group of people who incited violence at the high school when the Black high school closed and there was only one high school for all. So really nothing new to talk about. I graduated in the top ten percent and received some scholarships to college. I understand why my Elders did not want to talk about their everyday experiences. As an Elder, you just don’t want the young ones to experience the same, but you have a sense of helplessness because what can you do to prevent it?
I was rereading this and I always forget to include that Mama died while I was in high school. I think that’s a big part of why high school is something of a blur and not a time I like to revisit.
Don’t get me wrong. There were fun times. I think long term memory is geared to retain what might be a threat to one…physically, mentally, emotionally, psychically. And the good times are ephemeral… The good times are glimpsed fleetingly and one smiles and then wonders why one is smiling. I loved to run. Running freed my mind to think, to dream, to imagine. One could do that in the country…run through the fields, through the woods…just run.
Back to a previous thought…how could they create differently? They are a group of people…thought experiment here…Plato’s cave. They are in the cave and flames of fire protects them, cooks their meals, etc. Beyond where they are….all they see are monsters…gesticulating toward them…coming for them. They are filled with fear and never leave the safety of the area bounded by fire. If any approach the menace, it gets larger and gesticulates its anger, its hunger…for them. But amazingly, nothing breaches their bubble of safety. In the ones gathered in the bubble, no difference is tolerated. When there is difference, the monsters become agitated. They make their fearful presence known until the difference is eradicated.
That’s who we are dealing with. The ones in the cave who have not the courage or the intelligence to see that the raging monsters are nothing but their shadows, a reflection of themselves. They are afraid of and for themselves and project that fear to everything that exists on this Earth. That person who killed the last bird of a species and knew it…did it make that person feel all powerful…so for a moment that person forgot how tiny the person was? What level of Dante’s Inferno does its soul inhabit? Same for those who hunt for pleasure. There is no courage or humaneness in shooting an animal so that you can use parts of its body to decorate your home.
Primogeniture and criminals…that is the WASP stock of this country. That is a topic for another day.
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