2004

“Ronnie, stop frowning, when you are older you are going to have lines in your forehead,” fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Dew, said. I didn’t think that I was frowning. What worried me by the time I was nine years old?

I was in a new school. My country school of three years had closed. Now, instead of two in my class (with me being pretty independent), there were 24. Most of them were new. Sharon Linsky seemed smarter than me. Getting to school meant a four mile plus bus ride with lots of other students. That was different from a quarter mile walk up the hill on a country road. All the bathrooms were indoors for the first time in my life. We had organized gym classes three times a week. In winter we played indoors in the gym at recess. While life for sure, that sounds like a lot going on for a nine year old.

I think I worried that my father had more financial obligations, including six children, than he was able to meet. Dad worked all the time. His only recreation was hunting ‘coons’, but he skinned and sold the furs from what he caught. Mom cooked, cleaned and did laundry for nine of us all the time. In the winter her fingers would bleed when she hung clothes on the outside clothesline to ‘freeze-dry’.

In rural America mail was delivered to a box on a rural route. Where we lived, boxes didn’t have numbers, but our address said RR #3. Getting the mail from the box as soon as the mail carrier dropped it off was a minor thrill, as we soon found the answer to, “What came today?” I was about six when I learned that some letters came with a red stamp. When I asked my mother what those were she said they were overdraft notices from the bank.

She explained to me what those were. In rural America, overdrawn checks were mostly not returned, but an overdraft notice was sent to the check’s writer. To a kid sometimes picking up the mail, overdraft notices seemed regular in our mailbox.

The oldest child, as one Christmas approached I asked all of my brothers and sisters to meet me in the living room. Everyone sat on the couch or a chair, facing straight ahead and I was at the front, in charge. “We don’t have very much money,” I began, “With Christmas coming, let’s all try not to ask for much!” Solemn looks returned to me. No one had any questions or comments.

When my father told me I as going to have another younger brother, going from five to six siblings, I think I surprised him by being angry. “Why would you want to do that?” I said,  “We already have enough!” I could tell he was mad. He didn’t hit me. That wasn’t Dad’s way, but the conversation was over.

One other incident, I remember, was when I as working at Barnett’s Hy-Klas grocery. I admired and adored Alva the owner. Once he was behind the checkout counter on one register, checking accounts of those who owed the store money. Some customers, as they checked out, said “Put it on the tab please.” On this day, Alva said to me, “Would you ask your Dad, if he could pay some on his bill?” I was angry and felt humiliated. I would ask Dad I knew, and I did. I didn’t want to and still wish that Alva hadn’t asked that of fifteen year old me.

My frown lines are now permanent. Daily they seem more like etched in stone. I sometimes self-consciously work to make them better by relaxing my forehead and by massaging my brow as I learned in meditation classes. While I can make them better I can’t erase them. My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Dew, was right once again, but what she was observing was an way that showed in my face.

When it came time to raise my own family, we had one child. Of my four sisters, two of them had no children; one like me had one child. Did having one child avoid all the problems of a large, poor family? Maybe it did, but no one told my son. What looks like a perfect childhood to me falls short in his mind?

I don’t think there is such a thing as a perfect childhood. Some growing up experiences are better than others, for sure, but perfect is not the human condition. We’ve got to go with what we’ve got. That’s all there is. In my case, I look at where I came from and feel blessed.