Growing Up As A Girl Child In America: Part 3
My career in chemistry began early and ended in high school
It turned out that my daughter would have attended the same elementary school where I started kindergarten, but I couldn’t bear to enroll her. When I visited the school as an adult mother, it was so overcrowded, half a dozen children sat outside of their classrooms weeks into the semester.
When I was seven, we moved away from the orange grove to a rural house with an acre lot next to it where I kept my pony Dapple and Bampy created his vegetable garden.
I started third grade at the rural, countrified Mentone School. As the “new girl,” I had to prove myself and it turned out I made friends pretty quickly. A few weeks after school started, we all had to take standardized tests.
My principal Mr. Nease, who became a lifelong friend and counselor, called my grandparents to see him. I sat outside his office wondering why I was in so much trouble.
I knew I’d finished reading all of the colors of the reading books pretty fast, and it was boring to start with the basic colors again. It turns out that these books are still around today, published by one of my former employers.
But that wasn’t what Mr. Nease was talking to my grandparents about.
He was telling them that I was going to go on the bus one day a week to my old elementary school where I’d be part of a gifted program.
Upon being told this, I was inconsolable.
“I don’t want to leave my friends,” I said.
“It’s okay honey,” Bampy said. “You’ll make new friends there.”
I went on the big bus every Wednesday. There were only two others on this bus: Cheryl, who became my best friend, and Rhoda Floy, an autistic girl who was difficult to get along with.
It turned out to be a good thing, going on this bus every Wednesday. I made lifelong friends with Mr. and Mrs. Long, the married teachers who were in charge of the program.
Our bus came from farthest away yet we were the first three students on that first day. The room filled quickly. Most of the other kids — dozens — came from the richest schools on “the hill” — the neighborhood where the wealthiest families lived. We were country hicks. I don’t think there were any kids from RLS/NS — Northside Redlands, where the poor, nonwhite families lived.
Mr. Long told people that I was one of the first to arrive on the first day and my comment was, “This room is devoid of people.”
Colored reading books. Vocabulary.
This was an era when gifted programs were just emerging. I had some friends who’d already been given musical instruments. Some others attended Montessori school, where they had freedom to do whatever they wanted during the school day.
I couldn’t imagine how that would work.
We adjusted to our Wednesday schedule and Cheryl and I became best friends very fast.
Back at my regular school, someone donated a gigantic, high school level chemistry set.
After another visit with my grandparents, Mr. Nease announced another plan. Because this chemistry set didn’t have enough supplies for every kid, one kid would be put in charge of it.
This kid, at age 7, was supposed to set up experiments and invite her friends. The group was supposed to report back to their classroom and show the others what the experiment did.
This kid, at age 7, wasn’t very interested in chemistry. She had already burned her hands multiple times playing with the Creepy Crawler-Maker.
So, the chemistry set got set up in the school’s old library, a dark, dusty room with a few windows set high on the walls and broken-down old bookshelves.
The chemistry project went like this:
Day 1: Turn liquid blue
Day 2: Heat liquid, it turns blue
Day 3: Heat liquid, it turns blue
Day 4: Try to use pH strips, fail
Day 5: Let’s use the bunsen burner to burn …
Chicken bones!
And set the room on fire.
And that was the end of my first career in chemistry. A failure and school arsonist at only age 7.
By the time I got to high school I was in the complete college prep program which included calculus, physics, and chemistry.
I hadn’t developed much more interest in chemistry in the intervening years despite the fact that my friend-boyfriend B-R-A-I-N was (and later became a chemist like his father).
I was not in B-R-A-I-N’s chemistry class; he’d already completed the course the previous year.
I got stuck in Mr. Cruikshank’s class. A lot of kids liked Cruikshank, mostly the basketball players. When he wasn’t pretending to teach chemistry, Cruikshank coached the basketball team. Our school was not a basketball school, despite the fact that one of our best players, Tommy McCluskey, went on to be an awesome prep basketball coach.
Redlands High School was a football school. And football — along with chem class — was one of the few places where white elites at our school mixed with nonwhite non-elites.
Mr. Cruikshank assigned Bernard Bang to be my lab partner.
Bernard was a small, angry Asian boy who hated everyone and everything.
The first thing he said upon being assigned to be a lab partner with me was, “I don’t want a girl lab partner.”
The second thing he said was, “Stupid American girl!”
Cruikshank was a tall, thin man with a white bowl cut straight across his forehead and beady dark eyes. He thought this was funny. He refused to spend any time outside of class with any student who wasn’t a basketball player so —
I was screwed. Bernard did not fit the stereotype of “brilliant Asian kid.” He was not only angry all the time, he was also not a “brilliant Asian kid.” Maybe he could have been a good student but he was so hostile that it was impossible to communicate with him.
We failed every experiment. Finally I got permission to drop the class. Mr. Nease, who had moved through each school with me all along the way, came to the rescue, although my substitute dad Mr. Long probably also played a role.
My grandfather had been gone four years, I’d moved to my dad’s house in Hollywood for a year, and then moved back to Redlands to finish high school.
There may have been — and were — lots of problems at Redlands High School, but nothing like LeConte Jr. High and Hollywood High in the city. My dad had his hands full with my younger half brother. I reasoned I’d be able to finish high school in the more stable, predictable small town environment.
I don’t think I ever picked Chem up again in summer school; I think I got by with taking Biology with a semi-competent teacher.
Everyone else was taking and passing Drivers Ed.
My grandmother Nana forbid me to drive or take the course.
She had taken to driving around school during the day, looking to see if I was hanging out with kids she didn’t approve of.
Some of my friends were wealthier and their parents bought them cars. Most of my friends had hand-me-down cars, sometimes passed from sibling to sibling.
I was already in the band, the wind ensemble, the woodwind quintet, the jazz ensemble, and taking a full college prep load. I had to tone down taking art because I was practicing my clarinet so much every day. I was the second-best artist at our school. Here is the boy who was by far, the best. He was always so good, and always a super-nice young man.
A senior boy asked me to the prom and I went with him.
Nana stalked us the entire time.
After the dance, he said, “Come on, let’s go for a ride.”
Nana had a white Firebird; Todd had an ancient VW Bug.
We took off in his rattling jalopy and raced down Redlands Blvd., the Firebird in hot pursuit.
She caught us at the light at Bob’s Big Boy.
If you’ve seen the movie Carrie, you can have a slight idea of what it was like to be in the house with my grandmother during high school.
I didn’t go to a single dance throughout high school without being afraid somebody was going to dump pig’s blood on my head.
I thought I would spontaneously combust if any boy, from B-R-A-I-N to Todd or Sam, kissed me.
I didn’t want anyone to know I was smart or think I was a nerd.
That was the beginning and end of my career in chemistry.
I’m writing the steps of my life in order to try to understand how a little blonde girl could have such value to some in her family, yet so little value to others in the world.
I think understanding that every child has value is what needs to happen for every person to have true value for themselves — and what we need to do to move forward … together.
This hits home so much! And the references to the crazy toys we had. I always love how your writing ends with something positive that we can all take and learn from.
Again, so many familiar touch points, Amy. Mattel Thingmaker! Glow-in-the-dark Creepy Crwalers! LOL