| Biographical Non-Fiction posted May 31, 2020 | Chapters: |
...37 38 -39- 40... 
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All three children are going to school.
A chapter in the book Remembering Yesterday
School Days and Work Relations
by BethShelby
| Background All of my children have stated to school. This chapter is about how they are dealing with school, and also a bit about what is going on at my job at the printing company where I work in Jackson. |
In the fall of 1968, all of our children were in school. Carol was in second grade, and the twins were in first. The twins started school at age five, and since there was no preschool, they weren't as prepared as Carol had been when she started. If their birthdays had been in January instead of December, they would have had to wait another year. One of our neighbor ladies looked after our children before and after school.
Christi was cute and tiny, and the older children liked playing with her. She was a quiet child who could spend hours playing with Barbie dolls. She was a mommy’s girl and had seized on the roll of being the baby in the family in spite of being the same age as her brother. She was able to learn fast and hold facts. She liked school and enjoyed the attention she got from other children.
Don didn’t seem to mind that Christi had the role of the baby. He was always busy doing something and was curious and creative, but he had a very short attention span and had trouble concentrating. If he’d gone to school a few years later, he would have likely been on Ritalin, because I’m sure he would have been classed as hyperactive. Carol was smart and placed with the top achievers in her grade. When I looked at their school work, Carol's and Christi's papers were always neatly folded, but Don’s work was squished into a ball and stuffed into his pocket.
The neighbor children walked to school in the mornings and afternoon. They couldn’t go straight from the back of our lot, because the area was now fenced so they had to walk around by the street. Some of the older neighborhood boys liked to pick on the little ones. One of the favorite insults they yelled at first graders like Don was “Retard!” Don had no idea what that meant, so it didn't bother him.
After a couple of months in school, there was an award ceremony for the children. I didn’t know about it, so I didn’t attend. After school, Don borrowed the neighbor’s phone and called me at work. He was excited to tell me about his day.
“Mom, guess what? I got called up on the stage today, and they gave me an award. It’s on paper.”
Puzzled I asked, “Really? What kind of award?"
“I don’t know. You can read it when you get home. It’s something about me being retarded.”
”What? It better not say that. You’re not retarded. Are you sure that’s what it says?”
“Well I can’t read it, but they said something like that when I was up there.”
I had trouble finishing my day. When I got home I wanted to see his award certificate right away. What I read was, `Congratulations, Donald Shelby had not been absent or tardy this year.' Retard and tardy. Okay that explains it. Now I don’t have to go have a talk with the principal.
Not long after that our son informed us that he had a girl friend.
“Really?” I said. “Tell me about this girl. What is she like?”
“Her name’s Angela, and she’s really pretty, except her roots show a little.”
“Her roots?” Are you telling me a six year old has dyed hair?”
“On no. Not her hair. I’m talking about those tiny little blue roots in her neck.”
We got a good chuckle out of that. Apparently this girl had fair skin on her neck revealing a few tiny blue veins.
Another incident that made my life as a parent more complicated was the day Christi handed me a printout from the teacher. The message was, `Don’t forget, tomorrow is our school play. Make sure your children wear their costumes to school, and they have their lines committed to memory. Parents should be seated in the auditorium by 1:15 p.m.'
“School Play? What school play? This is the first I’ve heard about a school play,” I said.
“Oh, I thought you knew." Christi informed me. “Don and I are Jack and Jill.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m just finding this out, and you are supposed to have costumes by tomorrow?”
I picked up the phone and called their teacher. She assured me that she had sent out notices over three weeks ago. “Just make sure they know the poem, and have them dressed like children of the turn of the century. They’ll need to bring a bucket. You know Jack and Jill were carrying a pail of water when they fell down the hill.”
This meant I had to go shopping and find something I could turn into costumes. Christi had a cute little blue dress. I used a lacy kitchen curtain to construct an apron to go over it. I bought Don a pair of blue short pants that matched the dress and a blue girls shirt with large sailor collar and then I found a big yellow sand bucket. They actually looked like storybook characters. I took off work to attend the play, much to my boss’s displeasure. After all that stress, I found my kids were among the few whose parents had actually bothered to put a costume together.
------------
At work, our company was getting a lot of magazines, fliers and brochures which required more and more four-color-process work and precision registration. Because Robert had chosen to discard the use of the more stable masking material for our negatives, no matter how carefully we matched the negatives for each color on the light table, the paper masking sheet would stretch or shrink causing the dots not to register properly. As a result the printed photographs would come out blurred. It was driving the pressmen nuts having to have more and more of the aluminum plates remade. The blame always fell back on the stripping department, even though that wasn’t where the problem lay.
Another stripper in our department had quit, and Robert hired a woman to work in the department with me. Mavis and I got along great in the beginning. I trained her to do the work, and unlike the men I had trained, I was making more money than she was. This time, like when I worked with the gay guy, I didn’t have to worry about dealing with an angry wife. However, I had forgotten just how petty women can be. I could tell she was miffed when the salesmen and customers were always sent to me when anything of importance was discussed.
One day Robert came in and told me the company had decided to send me to a printing school in Nashville for two weeks. They would put me up in a nice hotel and pay all my expenses. He hoped I would learn the skills needed to keep us from having so many registration problems with our color jobs. When I learned the classes were only four hours a day with no homework, I was delighted. Nashville sounded like a dream vacation to me. Right away my co-worker, Mavis, became offended and refused to talk to me. She was apparently jealous that she wasn’t the one being sent away to school. I dealt with it the best I could, but no matter what I did, she remained distant and abrupt.
When I told you about the trip, you were concerned about me traveling alone and suggested that I take my mother with me. I thought about it and asked my boss if he minded as long as I took care of the additional expense. Once again, Mother was thrilled with the idea of going anywhere. This would be an easier trip for her than the one to Colorado.
Since the children were in school, you would have the responsibility of being home when they were and caring for all their needs. You and I had seldom been apart, and you dreaded me leaving. I would take the Chevrolet and drive the four hours to Nashville. Mother and I would leave on Sunday.
Christi was cute and tiny, and the older children liked playing with her. She was a quiet child who could spend hours playing with Barbie dolls. She was a mommy’s girl and had seized on the roll of being the baby in the family in spite of being the same age as her brother. She was able to learn fast and hold facts. She liked school and enjoyed the attention she got from other children.
Don didn’t seem to mind that Christi had the role of the baby. He was always busy doing something and was curious and creative, but he had a very short attention span and had trouble concentrating. If he’d gone to school a few years later, he would have likely been on Ritalin, because I’m sure he would have been classed as hyperactive. Carol was smart and placed with the top achievers in her grade. When I looked at their school work, Carol's and Christi's papers were always neatly folded, but Don’s work was squished into a ball and stuffed into his pocket.
The neighbor children walked to school in the mornings and afternoon. They couldn’t go straight from the back of our lot, because the area was now fenced so they had to walk around by the street. Some of the older neighborhood boys liked to pick on the little ones. One of the favorite insults they yelled at first graders like Don was “Retard!” Don had no idea what that meant, so it didn't bother him.
After a couple of months in school, there was an award ceremony for the children. I didn’t know about it, so I didn’t attend. After school, Don borrowed the neighbor’s phone and called me at work. He was excited to tell me about his day.
“Mom, guess what? I got called up on the stage today, and they gave me an award. It’s on paper.”
Puzzled I asked, “Really? What kind of award?"
“I don’t know. You can read it when you get home. It’s something about me being retarded.”
”What? It better not say that. You’re not retarded. Are you sure that’s what it says?”
“Well I can’t read it, but they said something like that when I was up there.”
I had trouble finishing my day. When I got home I wanted to see his award certificate right away. What I read was, `Congratulations, Donald Shelby had not been absent or tardy this year.' Retard and tardy. Okay that explains it. Now I don’t have to go have a talk with the principal.
Not long after that our son informed us that he had a girl friend.
“Really?” I said. “Tell me about this girl. What is she like?”
“Her name’s Angela, and she’s really pretty, except her roots show a little.”
“Her roots?” Are you telling me a six year old has dyed hair?”
“On no. Not her hair. I’m talking about those tiny little blue roots in her neck.”
We got a good chuckle out of that. Apparently this girl had fair skin on her neck revealing a few tiny blue veins.
Another incident that made my life as a parent more complicated was the day Christi handed me a printout from the teacher. The message was, `Don’t forget, tomorrow is our school play. Make sure your children wear their costumes to school, and they have their lines committed to memory. Parents should be seated in the auditorium by 1:15 p.m.'
“School Play? What school play? This is the first I’ve heard about a school play,” I said.
“Oh, I thought you knew." Christi informed me. “Don and I are Jack and Jill.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m just finding this out, and you are supposed to have costumes by tomorrow?”
I picked up the phone and called their teacher. She assured me that she had sent out notices over three weeks ago. “Just make sure they know the poem, and have them dressed like children of the turn of the century. They’ll need to bring a bucket. You know Jack and Jill were carrying a pail of water when they fell down the hill.”
This meant I had to go shopping and find something I could turn into costumes. Christi had a cute little blue dress. I used a lacy kitchen curtain to construct an apron to go over it. I bought Don a pair of blue short pants that matched the dress and a blue girls shirt with large sailor collar and then I found a big yellow sand bucket. They actually looked like storybook characters. I took off work to attend the play, much to my boss’s displeasure. After all that stress, I found my kids were among the few whose parents had actually bothered to put a costume together.
------------
At work, our company was getting a lot of magazines, fliers and brochures which required more and more four-color-process work and precision registration. Because Robert had chosen to discard the use of the more stable masking material for our negatives, no matter how carefully we matched the negatives for each color on the light table, the paper masking sheet would stretch or shrink causing the dots not to register properly. As a result the printed photographs would come out blurred. It was driving the pressmen nuts having to have more and more of the aluminum plates remade. The blame always fell back on the stripping department, even though that wasn’t where the problem lay.
Another stripper in our department had quit, and Robert hired a woman to work in the department with me. Mavis and I got along great in the beginning. I trained her to do the work, and unlike the men I had trained, I was making more money than she was. This time, like when I worked with the gay guy, I didn’t have to worry about dealing with an angry wife. However, I had forgotten just how petty women can be. I could tell she was miffed when the salesmen and customers were always sent to me when anything of importance was discussed.
One day Robert came in and told me the company had decided to send me to a printing school in Nashville for two weeks. They would put me up in a nice hotel and pay all my expenses. He hoped I would learn the skills needed to keep us from having so many registration problems with our color jobs. When I learned the classes were only four hours a day with no homework, I was delighted. Nashville sounded like a dream vacation to me. Right away my co-worker, Mavis, became offended and refused to talk to me. She was apparently jealous that she wasn’t the one being sent away to school. I dealt with it the best I could, but no matter what I did, she remained distant and abrupt.
When I told you about the trip, you were concerned about me traveling alone and suggested that I take my mother with me. I thought about it and asked my boss if he minded as long as I took care of the additional expense. Once again, Mother was thrilled with the idea of going anywhere. This would be an easier trip for her than the one to Colorado.
Since the children were in school, you would have the responsibility of being home when they were and caring for all their needs. You and I had seldom been apart, and you dreaded me leaving. I would take the Chevrolet and drive the four hours to Nashville. Mother and I would leave on Sunday.
 Recognized |
I'm continuing to recall memories of life with my deceased husband as if I am talking aloud to him. I'm doing this because I want my children to know us as we knew each other and not just as their parents;
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