I'm a proud part of a natural and add-on family: Boggan, Maselle, Monsour, Kindred, Jordan, Vance, Ayers, Scott, Cole, and Brent. Somehow, as large as our family is, we manage to get together once or twice a year, and when we do, almost everyone shows up. After our greeting, meeting, eating, and then goodbye hugs, later in the day, I settle at home with my doggie.
All quiet on the home front, just me and Lettie Lou, every now and then I can't help but think about our family get-together; and when I do, I kinda recognize a younger version of myself in the eyeroll or upper-lip curl of one of the trifling teenage grands or greats when they didn't get their way or like what was being said by their elders. And I saw the head shakes and looks of disappointment on the faces of their parents, grands, aunties, and uncles as they sipped their Bloody Marys, wine, ice teas, or coffee.
What goes around comes around, I think. Some moments are worth revisiting; and as I often do, I return in time and memory to some of the long-ago days of yore.
***
To go back to high school is like unloading a carton that's been put away in the attic for a long time. As scraps and pictures are pulled out, layer by layer, those years of the fifties and the ways we learned about morals, goodness, and evil, back when my friends and I thought we had answers for everything, come back to mind.
"Are you from Moscow?" I find myself singing.
As if her ears were being invaded, Lettie Lou shifted her weight, hopped to her feet and skedaddled to the back door.
Time for Lettie to do her business, so I let the doggie out and sank back into my chair.
Oh, wayward one! The skeletons that were locked in your closet! Sometimes more dry bones than I can count.
Thinking back on those old ways and days, I hope I can be judged on who I am now, not who I was back in the fifties. Back then, it was like the world was ours, and we were going to be the first generation to truly taste of it.
One spring morning before time to go in, one of the male students at Central High stood on top of the school bell; another held his feet so he wouldn't fall. Everyone who was scattered in front of the building gathered close while he sang, and we all joined in:
"Are you from Moscow, I say from Moscow; Where the Kremlin sits on top of the world; Are you from Moscow, I say from Moscow: Well, I'm from Moscow too."
The sounds must have drifted into windows opened to let in fresh sparkling air. None of us knew what communism was, probably didn't even know that Moscow was in Russia, or that Russia was on the continent of Europe. Everyone could have been singing, "Are you from Onward," and it would have been the same. But in that day and age, of course, there was a difference.
The next morning the FBI swarmed into Central High's halls, interviewing students in empty rooms, behind closed doors. It wasn't so funny then. There were limits, and you didn't joke about communism in the fifties.
My face burns, my mouth goes dry as some other head shaking moments swirl in my brain.
A lot of us students would skip the cafeteria lunch lines and sneak down to the Hollywood Sweet Shop or Grillis Café, both on Lamar Street. Sometimes we eased on over to Capitol Street, stood next to the Parisian, looking at the Twentieth Century Pool Hall.
Boys in leather jackets would mysteriously appear in the doorway like an unexpected book thrust in front of you. They would light a cigarette, suck in deeply, flick a few ashes, then vanish silently back into the dark doorway.
A few of my friends wouldn't go past the pool hall to ride the bus and would even walk another block up by the Governor's Mansion to catch the bus home.
The sap was rising. I was rather fascinated by what I thought was sinister-the pool hall and the silent unknown boys who weren't in school; and I would often have to run to get back to school before lunch period was over and the next class had started. And, brazenly, I mostly caught the bus down by the pool hall.
One day some of us slip-slid from school to H.L. Green's store on Capitol Street to try on earrings and buy some Tangee Natural Lipstick. We were slowly strolling down aisles, when Mr. Holliday, our assistant principal, pushed open the glass door and came in. Spotting him, frightened, truant girls ran around and hid behind counters. Somehow everybody got caught but one, your humble correspondent. All of my friends were in trouble. There was a heavy price others would have to pay.
So, I went to Mr. Holliday's office and turned myself in.
"Mr. Holliday, Mr. Holliday. I did it too. You didn't catch me, but I'm coming clean now."
Mr. Holliday sat back, rubbed his chin and said, "Young lady. You'll have to be punished with the other truants."
No, no. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be.
"You can close your mouth before a bug flies into it. You'll have to stay in after school for a month."
All I wanted to do was to get my friends off my back. They were mad at me.
"Whatever happened to George Washington and the cherry tree?" I asked in a shaky voice.
"That's not the way it works," Mr. Holliday said with a hint of a smile.
There was no more argument. I guess I had really known it all along.
Morality and rules then were clear as a piano tune played with one finger; I had recently walked the aisle for Youth for Christ, and "Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out," rang in my ears.
You might not like the music, but you knew the song.
***
Hearing Lettie Lou scratching at the back door to come inside, I get up and amble to grant her entrance. Still, I wonder with a shiver what catalyst it will take for today's youth to march to a different beat and when they're old, finally understand the wisdom of "What goes around comes around."
