One thing is very true: I learned for more from my students during all those years of teaching than I taught them. Not that they knew any more about the English language or about literature than I, but that I walked into the classroom so naive, so innocent, so protected, so unenlightened about the realities of the world, that every day brought something new into my experiences that I had never dreamed existed.
As I was 'growing up,' I had no idea that not everyone lived like my family and those of my friends. I must have lived the perfect, idyllic life as a child, surrounded by very loving parents and a host of extended family members, the friends of my parents, and the members of our church. I knew nothing of the ugliness that existed in the world outside out little town. Now, I wasn't uninformed. I read the newspaper as soon as I could read. I heard the news on the radio and knew all about World War II (not that I had any idea what that was all about.)
In my family, my daddy got up and went to work every day and came home every night at 5:30, ready to eat supper. And supper was on the table at our house, ready to be eaten. Mother was a terrific cook, preparing all those things that families in the south ate in those days. You will have to take my word for the fact that most of the things on the grocery shelves that we take for granted every day today didn't exist when I was a child. There were canned goods and Wheaties, Cheerios, and Post Toasties, oatmeal and Cream of Wheat. But the shelves and shelves of ready-to-eat snacks of every kind had not yet been thought of and all of the processed foods from Hamburger Helper to cake mix wasn't yet in the stores. Jello was there; but ice cream was not yet.
Supper at our house meant a protein, a starch, a green vegetable, and a salad. Women's magazines blossomed after that war and all kinds of exotic recipes were printed. Mother made tacos. I know that isn't very exciting for you all, but we had never seen tacos at that time except at the El Fenix in Dallas where we ate when my aunts from California came to town. Oh yes, part of that extended family lived in very exciting places and when they came to town, there were big dinners with aunts and uncles and cousins everywhere. I loved it when Aunt Jessie came from Reno. She had a big, full length fur coat. I would put it on and parade all over the bedroom, looking at myself in every mirror and imaging the day when I would have my own fur coat and drive across the Golden Gate Bridge in my yellow convertible.
Life in my family was quiet and contented. We didn't have stacks of things, no electronic toys to keep us isolated from the rest. We had one radio in the house... AM of course... that played "The Early Birds" in the morning, "Stella Dallas" and "Ma Perkins" in the afternoon, "Gunsmoke" on Saturday night, "Jack Benny" on Sunday night, and all kinds of programs all through the week. Yes, there was children's programming. On Saturday morning, we had "Let's Pretend" and on weekday afternoons, "The Lone Ranger" and "Sky King." We would sit around the radio or let it play while we worked in the same room with it and we were contented.
My daddy would bring brain games to the table at night, quizzes and other 'stump the kid' stuff. And I had the states and their capitals right along with my mother's home made hamburgers. I learned them too! And people from the Bible, the rivers in the United States, the countries in South America, and everything he could find in between. And before I was ten, I could spell those rivers in the north, the Mononghela, the Susquehanna, and the Allegheny. All without a computer, just two very intelligent parents who made certain that we learned everything we possibly could.
Soft drinks were a true luxury. Once in great while, my mother would give me a quarter and I would walk down to the little store and bring back a carton of Dr Pepper. One swallow of that strong, icey drink would tickle my nose while at the same time I loved that sweet taste. Whenever my California aunts came to town, they wanted Dr Pepper and that meant I had some also. And when they came to town, we went out to eat. There was one cafe in the small town where I lived, one little cafe that served exactly what you think it did, chicken fried steak, fried chicken, pot roast, fried fish, baked ham, and hamburgers with potatoes, peas, green beans, and tomatoes. There was absolutely nothing exotic in my life.
Life was very easy. We had no problems that I knew anything about at all. Our little town didn't even have a policeman. We didn't need one. While my daddy read the newspaper each night, I lay on the floor beside him and read the sections when he dropped them to me as he finished. My greatest ambition (aside from the yellow convertible and the long flowing hair blowing in the wind) was to live in one of the apartments that were always listed for rent in the Want Ads and have one of the puppies I read about being for sale. It was a wonderfully quiet life, filled with family and good things and I was a much loved and very happy little girl who loved strawberries and paper dolls and had never heard an expletive in her entire life. That was not what I found when I began teaching.
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