presents

I loved Christmas as a kid. I know now that Mom and Dad didn't have much money to buy presents for four children but they managed to make the season special for us. I remember getting a baby doll every year until I was about 11 and that's when I asked for a Barbie. Mama didn't want to get me a lady doll but she did. She loved the babies and thought I was too young to want a grown-up doll. She didn't buy me Barbie, though. She got me a Tammy doll. Tammy wasn't as busty and as fancy as Barbie and she was probably less expensive, and she was a lady doll, but she sure wasn't a Barbie. I was the only one of my circle who had Tammy.

While we still believed in Santa, Mom worked hard to keep up the charade of the fat, jolly man in the red suit. To get presents for us, without much opportunity to shop, (Dad had the car at work), she'd give us the Sears Christmas catalog. She called it the wishbook. We'd wish and wish and wish as we scoured every page. Karla and I'd lay down on the living room floor on our bellies with the book in front of us. She'd have the left side pages, I'd have the right. (The right side person got control of page turning.)

We'd skip to the girl's toy section and start our toy selection ritual. At first glimpse of toys on the page, we'd find the best one and slap our palm over it, "I get this!" The slower one of us, usually the younger one (Karla) would have second choice in the palm slapping selection process. Sometimes though, she'd be just a little quicker than me and pick the better of the toys on that page. Of course, I'd brush it off as though I didn't want that "old thing" anyway. Always a competition...

After we'd worn the catalog out with our marathon page turning, Mom would get on the phone and pretend she was talking to the North Pole. I remember one time in particular when I caught her on the phone in the kitchen.

"Yes, Santa? I would like to tell you what my children want for Christmas this year."

"Yes. 919 E Shevlin, Hazel Park, Michigan. My first item? Yes, C156-876 page 22."

And so on, and so on. Hey, she had me fooled. I was impressed that we didn't really have to go sit on the old guy's knee and tell him what we wanted. Going to visit Santa when I was a kid wasn't like it is now. Now, he's treated like the king of the season. He's inside the store and everything is beautifully decorated. Our Santa was treated like an afterthought at the dept stores. Even in the depths of winter, with snow blowing and freezing temperatures, poor old St Nick was outside the front door of the store in a little tent-like structure. There were bare lightbulbs strung to give it some sort of semblence of warmth and cozyness and Santa was inside the lean-to sitting on a chair waiting for children to tell him their deepest toy desires. The cold wind and snow flurries whipped around us as we climbed up on Santa's lap. It was no picnic to put in your order. It was more like a necessary evil, that is, until the Sears wishbook. Now Mom could just phone it in. What progress we'd made!

As Christmas day drew nearer, Mom would make us narrow down the few things that we really wanted. Then she'd choose from the smaller list. As we got older, she made us pick one thing that we really wanted. I remember Kathy with her sno-cone machine. Man, icy treats ANY time. For me, it was the year I was twelve and I asked for and got a transistor radio. Now everyone else I knew got a long, narrow, hand held radio in a black case...maybe a 3"x5" or so that fit nicely in the palm of the hand. That's what I wanted. I wanted one like everyone else. But, nope. My dad prided himself on buying a better radio, (or a different doll), you get the picture...so I got a wide, handheld radio with a BROWN case. Yes, when I first saw it I was disappointed for a split second, but Dad was so proud of his selection, I wouldn't dare be ungrateful. And, besides, at least I had a RADIO! Whoo-hoo! Beatles, Temptations, Supremes, Herman's Hermits, on WKNR--Keener radio--my music anytime I wanted--until 11:00pm when they cut the signal and it was over for the day. Turns out it was a good little radio and I used it for a very long time. I thought it was my best Christmas present ever.

My worst Christmas as a kid was when I was 13. It was Christmas Eve at home. The house was decorated, there were specials on television and I think Aunt Wanda and Uncle Bill were coming over, and I was sick with an ear infection. I was miserable. I had fever and my ear hurt really badly. Mom fixed me a bed in the middle of the action in the living room on the couch with a heating pad for my ear. I felt very sorry for myself and started to cry. Mom asked me what was wrong, other than my ear hurting, and I said, "I don't want to ruin Christmas for everyone else."

I was trying to work up some sympathy for myself. After all, I WAS SICK, on Christmas Eve! Good Grief. Have a little compassion, people. My dear mother, with all her country girl practicality, said, "You're not going to ruin Christmas for anyone else. We're not the ones sick. You are!" And she walked away.

Boy, I couldn't even drum up sympathy from my mother. It caught me off guard when she said it. I'd really expected some pity for my circumstances, but the thing is, her reply put the whole experience in proportion for me. It wasn't the end of the world because I was sick on a holiday. It was an ear infection, for goodness sake, not a catastrophe. My ear didn't stop hurting until the next day when the abcess broke after a night on the heating pad, but it got OK pretty soon and Christmas got off without a major hitch.

Maybe one of the best presents my mother ever gave me was the gift of no outward sympathy and of not being allowed to be too full of myself and my circumstances. When it's all said and done, it really isn't all about me. Fancy that.

Thank you, Mom.

Merry Christmas, all.
Suz

that cute paper boy

I can see it all now--It was four o'clock in the afternoon and Alice, Rose and I were sitting on my front porch hashing and rehashing what had happened at school earlier in the day. That's when we saw him. Mike Johnson. He was the cutest fifteen-year-old paper boy ever. At least that's what I thought when I was 13. He delivered The Detroit Tribune to our neighborhood every afternoon and Rose, Alice and I made sure he noticed us most of those afternoons. OK, maybe I was the instigator, but he really was cute and I just knew if I could get him to notice me, he'd recognize what a great catch I was and then he'd like me, too.

Mike Johnson was a tall, lanky dark haired all-American boy wearing cut off jean shorts, madras shirt and funky fishing hat pulled down over his eyes walking down our street. He carried a canvas bag on his shoulder filled with newspapers that he'd roll up just before throwing them at his subscriber's porches. When he got to our porch he didn't throw it and take a chance on hitting us. He politely walked up the sidewalk, smiled and handed it to me. He was cute, polite and friendly. It was official. I was in serious "like." I was smitten.

It was after that first encounter that the plotting and planning began. All our parents got the Tribune so we made sure we were sitting on one of our porches everyday about four so we could do the "get up and take the newspaper from the cute boy" maneuver. Alice and Rose were kinda shy, and I wasn't, so I got to take it from him no matter on whose porch we were sitting. After a couple of days, we figured out that if we went to Alice's house first and got the paper from him, while he was at the end of her street, we could make our way to my house and take it from him there, then we could beat him down the street and also accept it from him at Rose's house. Three interactions in one afternoon. Brilliant!

But, after a while, it just wasn't enough. Mike was diligent about his work so even when we asked him a question to try to prolong his visit with us, he'd answer politely and keep walking. We had to have more time with him. Got it! We'd start paying him--OK-I'd start paying him-- at the end of the week when he had to collect the money for the papers he'd delivered. And that's what we did. Same order of business. Pay him at Alice's house, pay him at my house, and pay him at Rose's house. On a really sneaky week, we go to Rita's house and even pay him there. He must have thought we were very silly little girls. Either that or he thought we were insane. Either way, all our plotting and planning never got us, er..me, anywhere with Mike Johnson. Nope. Nunca. Nada. Nothing. He was just the same nice, polite, friendly paper boy each and every time he saw us. Rats!

The next school year we went to Hazel Park High School. Mike was a junior, we were freshmen, and he'd given up his paper route for football and sports. We still got to see him, but he never acknowledged if he recognized us or not. It would have been kind of embarrassing so I'm glad he didn't.

Once, in everyday conversation, I told my friend, the beautiful Connie Hughes about him, you know, telling her that he'd been our paperboy for a while and how cute I thought he was, etc. It wasn't two weeks later, she made sure she let me know she had gone on a date with him. Now, I can't say for sure that she did it just because she could, but it still seems a little fishy to me. Reminds me of that Dolly Parton song, "Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Joleeeen. Please don't take him just because you can."

I was diligent in pursuit but the boy liking thing never worked too well for Jr High Suzanne, or, even High School Suzanne. Let's say it never worked for me when I tried to make it work. I had more success with boys when I ignored them and let them find me. Go figure.

Junior High Beauty

I was a pretty nondescript girl at Hazel Park Junior High School in 1963. My hair was dishwater blonde and my clothes, while not the worst, were just ok, too. I wanted to be cooler. Prettier. Dress more stylishly, but it just didn't happen. I did have lots of friends because I'd gone to school with them since the third grade. There were Rosemary, Alice, Jackie, Mary Jo, Karen, Kathy and a host of others. I was in love with the Beatles and Motown, but mostly the Beatles. Paul McCartney was my favorite of all times. I thought he was the most beautiful guy I'd ever seen in my whole 13 years. Sigh.

Much of what my friends and I talked about during these couple of years were the Beatles and boys...and our hair...and other music boys...and boys at school. Are you seeing a pattern here? It was all about the boys and how to attract the boys. We grew our hair out. We wore mini-skirts. We studied boys and analyzed our every interaction with them.

"What'd he say?" "How'd he say it?" "Why did he say it?" "When did he say it?"

"What'd you say?"

Boys were magical creatures and I had no clue about how to get one of them to like me. In fifth grade, Butchie Osterhout asked me to go steady and gave me a little silver colored ring with a round light green stone without ever even talking to me first. Out of the clear blue he decided he liked me. I didn't even know how it happened, just that it did. When I didn't know which finger to put the ring on, some girls in my class laughed at me and told Butchie how dumb I was, and that was the end of the budding romance. It didn't matter too much to me, after all, I didn't even know how I'd gotten him to like me in the first place! It stayed an unsolved mystery.

Mom wouldn't let me wear makeup in 7th grade so I sneaked around and did it. I found an Avon sample lipstick in red at Aunt Wanda's house and she let me keep it. I hid it in my pencil case and took it to school. The first thing I did when I got there was paint up those 13 yr old lips in this garish red lipstick. I was gorgeous! All day long I felt grown up with my scarlet mouth. On the way home from school I'd wipe the stain off my lips as best I could so my mother wouldn't know I'd been wearing it. Everything went along peachy keen until the day I forgot to wipe my mouth.

I walked into the house one afternoon with my bright red mouth and Karla spotted it immediately.

"Suzy, you got lipstick on?"

I started wiping my mouth furiously.

"NO! I DON'T!"

"MOM! SUZY'S GOT LIPSTICK ON!"

"Suzanne! Do you have lipstick on?"

"NO!"

"You better not lie to me, little girl. And you better quit sneaking around putting on lipstick, too!"

"Yes, Mom."

I was so mad at Karla I could have eaten her for lunch, but I didn't get into as much trouble as I thought I would. I had to lay low on the lipstick wearing for a while. That's when I concentrated on secretly shaving my legs. I wore my dad's red long johns to sleep in so Mom never noticed. Then I'd scoot out the door in the mornings before her eyes were open enough to catch sight of my new smooth legs. It worked for quite some time even though Dad was complaining about his razor being dull even though there was a new blade in it. Nobody said anything to me until the warm spring day when I was wearing shorts.

"Suzanne. Are you wearing hose?"

"No, Mama."

She bent down and felt my legs.

"You've been shaving your legs?"

"Sometimes."

"Well, once you start you know you can never stop it, and you better be careful. Don't cut yourself. That razor's sharp."

"OK, I'll be careful."

There was little to no battle over that issue. I was safe.

As mythical and magical as boys were, beauty was also an illusive thing for me at age 13. The model of beauty my friends and I set our sights on came from 16 Magazine. All the girls were from England so they had long straight hair, heavily made up eyes and white lips. They were beautiful, but mostly they were cool! I wasn't sure how to go about finding my own personal beauty, so I took various measures trying to capture the Mod English look as my own. I wore red lipstick, secretely shaved my legs, dyed my hair green with food coloring, cut my hair, rinsed my hair through with beer to straighten it, used Curl Free to straighten it, and wore Peppermint Pink lipstick that tasted good, but made me look like a corpse.

Studies were secondary for me in Jr High. I did a mediocre job with my classes. Bs and Cs with the occasional D. Had it been possible, I'd have gotten an A in History of Paul McCartney, or What Not To Do With Your Hair if those had been two of my classes. Let's suffice it to say that not too many of these efforts succeeded for me, so I'd surely have gotten an F in Nabbing That Cute Jr High Boy.

sixth grade--Railroad Blessman and the beating

Richard Robert Blessman was my sixth grade teacher. He had a buzz haircut and wore a dark suit and tie every day to school. RR was retired Navy and ran our classroom like a military unit. He made the mistake of telling our class about his nickname in college--Railroad Blessman. His friends called him that because his first and middle names both began with R. We had fun with it when he wasn't around. It was the only humorous thing about the man.

We had lots of rules in our class, but the biggest deal was that we were not allowed to say the word "ain't." To keep us from it we each had an index card called the Ain't Card which RR kept in a box on the corner of his desk. Each time we slipped up and said that nasty word it was marked on our card and we were docked points on our grammar grade. His methods of changing our grammar only made it a game for each of us to sneak to say the dreaded "ain't" behind his back. Sometimes, in September, in the middle of a weekday afternoon, if you listen closely you can still hear the echoes of a bunch of silly sixth-graders mocking old Railroad Blessman.

"OOOOHH. Ain't, ain't, ain't, ain't."

One term I got creative with my handwriting and wrote backhand instead of in the Palmer method--you know the kind of loopy and slanted to the right way most of us use now. Even writing backhanded, I was very neat. It just didn't look like it was supposed to look, so I got a D in handwriting that grading period. I thought my mother was going to explode. When she questioned Mr Blessman about it he made her even madder by saying, "No student ever deserves an A." She told me I'd better do exactly what he wanted me to do in class because she didn't want anymore Ds on my report card, so I abandoned my evil, creative ways and joined the herd once more.

I was a Safety Patrol that same year. My post was at the corner of Mapledale and Vassar. I was very proud to have the responsibility of helping kids across the street. There never was much traffic but it didn't matter to me. I was a patrol. Donna Rudnik and Mickey McMasters were also safety patrols on streets in my area but further out from the school. I'd only known Mickey since fifth grade, but I had known Donna since third grade when I moved to Hazel Park. I thought Donna was my friend. I'd been to her house many times after school. We'd gone shopping together with her mom. I went to church with her once. We laughed. We talked. I liked Donna. I liked Mickey. I thought they were my friends. Then one afternoon they both came to my post and started laughing and acting silly.

"Here. Hold her arm."

"OK."

Donna grabbed one arm and Mickey grabbed my other one.

"Now hit her with your patrol belt."

With one on either side of me holding my arms, they both began swinging their rolled up patrol belts against my bare legs, metal buckle and all. It wasn't funny at all but they both laughed as they wailed on me over and over again.

It hurt.

"Hey you guys. Let me go!"

"Aw c'mon. You're a Safety Patrol. It doesn't really hurt."

They each kept a tight grip on my arms and kept swinging.

"Stop it! Let me go!"

I struggled against them twisting and turning until I broke loose. They both laughed like fools as they watched me run home to safety. When I got there Mom could tell something was wrong even though I wasn't crying. I think it was the welts on my legs from the "goofing around" that my friends had just done that gave me away.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"What in the world happened to your legs?"

"Oh, Donna and Mickey were just goofing around."

But my mother didn't buy my simplistic explanation and grilled me until I told her exactly how they were 'goofing around.' She called the school immediately to tell Miss Morris what had happened. The next day all three of us were called into her office. Miss Morris was an imposing figure. She was a large elderly woman with gray hair, black glasses, a stern look, and a withered arm. We were all scared to death of her.

Miss Morris told Donna and Mickey she knew about what had happened the day before and lectured them on responsibility and setting an example for the younger students. She took away their Safety Patrol posts and belts and required them to apologize to me. Which they did right then and there.

They had to or they would die.

As we left Miss Morris' office together to go back to class, Donna asked,

"What did you tell on us for?"

"I didn't. My mom did. I didn't want you guys to get into trouble."

If I live to be a hundred years old, I will never completely understand why I didn't want them to get into trouble. I didn't get mad at them but I was puzzled about why they'd doubled up on me and hurt me. In spite of everything that happened to me that day, I still thought of them as my friends. Especially Donna. She couldn't have meant to hurt me. They were just goofing. Weren't they? Surely they didn't mean to be hateful and rotten to me. Friends just sometimes make mistakes. Friends don't hurt you like that. Do they?

So, I let it go, and I never got mad or ever became their victim for the spur of the moment beating they gave me on the corner of Mapledale and Vassar one fall afternoon on a Friday in Hazel Park, Michigan.

a few potatoes

My mother used to send me to Bob's Produce Market once in a while when she was cooking supper. She'd tell me to go buy her a few potatoes. Why couldn't she just say, "Suzanne, go buy me 6 large potatoes," or "7 medium ones." Something specific. Not just a few.

I was only 11 years old. I didn't know! I'd beg her to tell me,

"Mama, how many is that anyway?"

But that's all she'd say. A few. So I'd hop on my big blue bike and ride the 3 blocks to dear old Bob's.

I loved how the produce market smelled. Apples, carrots, potatoes, pomegranates--we called them Indian Apples--and cantaloupes and corn. It smelled fresh, sweet and good for you, but as good as it smelled, I didn't like going in there. Bob was about 60 years old and not a friendly guy. I don't think he liked kids in his store.

I don't think he liked kids. Period.

When I opened the door to go inside, the little bells on the door handle jingled. There were never any other customers in there. Maybe he was unfriendly to everyone. He sat at the back of the one room market in his chair and never said a word to me. When I got about halfway into the store, he slowly stood up and moseyed a few steps toward me--still not speaking. I got all nervous and spoke because he wouldn't.

"My mom wants a few potatoes."

He stopped dead in his tracks and then he just looked at me.

Now what? Was I supposed to get a paper sack and pick them out myself? I didn't know. He still didn't say anything to me so I spoke again just to break the silence.

"Just a few."

That's when he figured out that I was waiting for him to pick them out for me. He moved silently over to the unwashed white potatoes and started placing them in the paper bag. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Five potatoes. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Nine medium potatoes. A few? Then he walked slowly over to the hanging scale and placed the bag carefully into the pan to weigh them. I now wonder just how much all the dirt on those potatoes weighed.

"55 cents."

I handed him the money, folded the top of the bag down and hurried out of the store. There was no "Thank you." No, "Come again." No, "Kiss my foot."

Silence.

I was so glad to be out of there I could have shouted. The good smell of the store was just not worth the misery of doing business with silent, old Bob.

I wrapped the top of the bag over the handlebar and placed my hand over it to get my treasures home because there was no basket on my bike. Off I went. That's when it started to sprinkle rain. I'd only gone one block, just up from Frankie Polito's house, when my bag started getting weak from the water. I hoped it would let me get home before it disintegrated.

It didn't.

One potato fell out. Two fell out. They all fell out. I had dirty, little potatoes all over the ground, and a soggy mess of a holey paper bag wrapped around my handlebar. It couldn't get any worse.

Then it really started raining.

The thought never entered my mind to simply leave them there and go home. I was too responsible to do that. I needed those potatoes. Mama needed those potatoes. Besides, she would kill me if I left them there and I surely couldn't hold them with one hand. There were too many of them.

Now what was I going to do? I was stuck.

So I arm wrestled with muddy potatoes in the rain. I put a couple in the crook of my arm, one under my arm, I held one in my hand and shoved two under my chin...I had potatoes everywhere. Then I tried to ride my bicycle. What a fiasco! I'd go 2 feet and drop 2 potatoes. At that rate I'd never get home.

Then I heard my name.

"Suz-ay-anne!"

My Aunt Polly was visiting us from Tennessee and Mama had sent her to look for me because I'd been gone so long.

"My bag broke. I can't get the potatoes home!"

"Well, let's see what we can do."

She tried carrying them, but it seems a few potatoes is too many for anyone to carry without a bag. Rain was still coming down. We were too far from the store to go back for another bag and still 2 blocks from home. We were soaked and now both of us don't know what to do. That's when I had a brainstorm. The light bulb came on. It was an epiphany.

I was wearing a yellow, flowered sunsuit. Remember those? One piece play suits with string ties at the shoulders? Elastic at the waist and at each leg? Why not put the potatoes in my sunsuit? Drop the muddy little suckers down the front and back of my top. I'd sit down and ride my bike home so they wouldn't fall out the legs and we could at least get them home to Mama.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Aunt Polly hesitated for a split second but she knew there was no other solution, and finally gave in. As I sat on my bicycle seat, she loaded me up, front and back with wet, dirty potatoes. We both laughed at the sight of my lumpy, muddy rain soaked sunsuit. She told me to go ahead and ride and she'd catch up with me, but I rode slowly so she wouldn't have to walk home in the rain alone. I wasn't going to leave her. She had rescued me. We were filthy and soaked to the bone by the time went the 2 remaining blocks home.

We crashed triumphantly and noisily through the back door, laughing loudly at the ridiculousness of the whole mess. We were ecstatic. We had succeeded. We had scaled the mountain. We had overcome our adversity. We had brought home the bacon...er, potatoes!

As Aunt Polly unloaded my dirty sunsuit of its cargo at the kitchen table, we spilled out our whole sordid story for Mama. She listened calmly like a disinterested bystander and then matter-of-factly said,

"Well, why'd you get so many? I told you just a few.

fifth grade--The Malinowski Baseball Incident of 1963

After reading my posts and noticing my negative happenings, a friend asked me, "Did you ever have a good year in school?" Sure, I had some good times each year but there seemed to be one thing or another every year that was dramatic for me. Fifth grade was one of those years.

I think my teacher was Mrs Fain the school's Spanish teacher. At least I had her for part of the year. She was OK. No problems there. See? It was OK so I don't remember much about it. Uncle Bill always said if nothing ever goes wrong, you'll never remember it. Well, I don't remember much about fifth grade except for the day I sent Eugene Malinowski to the hospital.

Yep. I did. We were outside at recess and on this particular day we were playing an organized game. Baseball. Everything was going along all right. I wasn't very athletic as a girl, much like I am now as a grown up. I didn't like to be in the spotlight but it was my turn to bat. I wasn't optimistic enough to think I'd hit the ball, I was just hoping I wouldn't swing so hard and miss that I'd screw myself into the ground.

I was up. Holding the bat at ready. Here comes the pitch. I closed my eyes and swung the bat. Whap! I connected. I couldn't believe it! I HIT THE BALL! Now I had to run. RUN, SUZANNE! I slung my bat backwards to give myself momentum. I forgot that poor Eugene was stooping down behind me playing catcher. I took off toward first base. About halfway there, the cheers telling me to "Run," stopped and I slowed down. As I got to first base, there there was no cheering. In fact no one was paying me any attention. Everyone was now gathered around poor Eugene. He was sitting up and our teacher was holding a bloody handkerchief over his forehead. What happened? Who'd hurt Eugene? Then someone told me that I'd clobbered the kid.

I felt awful. First, because I'd put in all that effort batting and running for nothing. Second, because I was so stupid I didn't know not to throw the bat and I'd hurt an innocent kid. They called Mrs Malinowski and maybe an ambulance. I'm not sure.

We all headed back to class and Eugene with his broken head went to the doctor for stitches. School went on as usual although the mood in our classroom was somber. None of us had much experience with accidents like this. We didn't even know if he was going to live. No one fussed at me. My classmates didn't ostracize me or get mad because I'd hurt our classmate. Later that afternoon our teacher told us Eugene was fine and only had to have a few stitches. I was very sad about the whole thing.

What I didn't know was that the principal, Miss Morris, had also called my mother. I went home as usual that afternoon never telling my mother what had happened. After a few minutes at home, she asked,

"How was school today?"

"OK."

"Did anything unusual happen?"

"No."

"The school called."

That's when the dam burst. I broke into tears and confessed to Mom that I'd almost killed a kid. Why not confess? She already knew anyway.

After a good cry, some consoling and reassurance from my mother that Eugene really was going to be all right, my mother had me call Eugene at home to apologize for the accident. Life went back to normal. He was out of school for a day or so but came back almost good as new. Neither one of us ever mentioned it again.

Maybe we had them but I don't ever remember another baseball game for the fifth graders at Longfellow Elementary. I never played baseball in school again for fear of a repeat of the Malinowski Baseball Incident of 1963.

fourth grade--Charlotte Surdaki and the loss of grace

Miss Charlotte Surdaki was my fourth grade teacher. She was not a young woman. She was perhaps in her early 40's and was swift to politely correct any student who called her Mrs Surdaki.

"I am Miss Surdaki, not Mrs Surdaki."

Her white porcelain skin was impeccably made up with deep red lips to accent her exotic beauty. Her hair was jet black which she wore completely off her face in a classic chignon at the back of her neck. She wore tailored clothes which matched her cool, calm and collected personality. Our class loved her. I loved her. She treated us with respect and we felt as though she enjoyed teaching us.

Miss Surdaki made our classroom fun in an orderly way. We worked hard on our regular schoolwork, but she also gave us little bits of fun information to hold our interest. She told us we would be losing our teeth at a quickening pace and not to worry. We were not actually falling apart.

Miss Surdaki also encouraged us to stand tall and proud when we recited the Pledge of Allegiance and to sing loudly and clearly our national anthem. She's the one who told us the national anthem's "sweet land of liberty," was not, "sweet land of liverty," and had nothing to do with our liver. Her enthusiasm for us and our class was uplifting and I just knew this would be the best school year I'd ever had.

Then one day, all was not well in Mudville. I cried when she told us she wouldn't be our teacher anymore. It was a blow to the gut that I will never forget. My classroom in paradise was gone.

Miss Surdaki's mother had become ill and it fell her responsibility to take care of her. After the Christmas break our class was given to Mrs Arnold who was already teaching her own fifth grade class. We were moved into her classroom with the fifth graders for the second half of the school year and taught in one room school house style.

What a difference a day makes. Everything changed. Mrs Arnold was a longtime, no nonsense school teacher who didn't have a fun bone in her body. She wasn't impolite to us, she just wasn't as polite and as graceful as Miss Surdaki had been. Her motto seemed to be,

"School is work. Do it"

There was no charm. There was no beauty. There was just the business of learning. Our job. So we worked joylessly and even though I was glad when that school year ended with Mrs Arnold, I took with me the joy of learning I had gotten from Miss Surdaki. She had made school as beautiful and as exotic as she was.