My First Attempt at Poetry~

Wells Road Christian Academy

1982

 Mrs. Pugh published it in the church bulletin.  I’d forgotten about Mrs. Pugh.  Remind me to tell you about her and the “Barbie Bra.”  Another humiliating experience in my life.

When I think of my school

I think of a good school

A school by the golden rule.

(I wish I could remember this line but it rhymes with shout.)

A school where there is never a scream or shout

Someday I will be in college thinking of that school

My favorite of many schools.

A school by the golden rule.

Chautona Deanne Avants

Pathetic isn’t it?  Can you tell I’d read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn around that time?

The Bible Story~

One memory of my childhood didn’t make sense until I was an adult.  Ok, so a lot of them didn’t but this one in particular was one of those things that illustrate just how valuable wise and discerning parents truly are.

Mesa, Arizona.  John Hancock Academy.  Third grade.  Mrs. Rothlesburger’s classroom.

We were given an assignment.  It was simple, or so it seemed.  Come to class prepared to tell a Bible Story.  It seems innocent enough.  It also seems commendable and easy.  However, for me, it was confusing.  Up until that part of my life, I hadn’t heard a lot of “Bible Stories” as such.  I knew a lot about Bible Doctrine.  My father was very fond of Bible doctrine.  We had bookshelves filled with the reel-to-reel tapes sent by Berachah Churh and R. B. Thieme Jr. as well as booklets on subjects like, Wittnessing or The Old Sin Nature vs. The Holy Spirit.

So, my first inclination was to go home, pull out those booklets, and find a “Bible Story” to read.  I remember not understanding a thing I read.  Not a word.  I took the booklets to mom and asked for help with my Bible Story.  I remember my utter confusion when she told me not to do the assignment.

I learned later that my parents complained to the school.  The assignment was immediately dropped.  My parents went to the school and reminded the principal that they had been assured no Bible or doctrine would be taught in the school.  This seems a bit strange from Christian parents but this was a non-religious private school run by Mormons. 

At the time, and for years afterward, it seemed like over-kill.  I always thought it had something to do with not wanting to open a door to muddy the waters.  As an adult, with my own children, I get it now.  The Mormons don’t just have “our Bible”.  They have the other “books of prophesy” that any of the Mormon children in class could have read as a “Bible Story.” 

As a child, it was one of those blips on the radar of my life.  I  hardly noticed it even though it was memorable.  Now, it seems like one of the greatest proofs of my parents protection of me.  They loved me enough to keep me out of the Catholic School where they wanted to enroll me.  The doctrine wasn’t something they could support.   And, at good old John Hancock, they kept me from ‘Bible Stories’.   I would never have imagined thanking my parents for keeping me away from “Bible Stories” but I do.  I am more appreciative than I can say.

Hairspray- The Second “Universal Solvent”

Most adults know that hairspray is an excellent way to get rid of ink stains.  I don’t know what chemical reaction happens to cause the ink to dissolve and run off with a good shot of hairspray but man, it happens everytime.  I do remember, however, when I learned of the miracle cleanser that also makes your hair stink and look great.  (Even if a bit fake when overused as it was in 1975)

Julie (yes, there is a recurring theme here) and I were playing.  I don’t know what, exactly but it feels like it was hopscotch.  We wanted chalk to write on the sidewalk and couldn’t find any but we did find this blue stick of something in the garage.  Julie’s garage always terrified me a little.  It was full of strange and mysterious things like charcoal, lighter fluid, yardwork tools, and cleansers of every description.  And this blue stick.  It was bright cobalt with white flecks in it and it got on Julie’s hands when she picked it up.  We decided it was perfect and skipped off to use it for chalk.  As I said, I think for hopscotch.

At some point, I got that feeling in my stomach.  You know the one.  It’s the same feeling you get when you realize that you forgot your homework, you are going to be late getting home, or got caught slipping your dinner to your Aunt’s pug dog.  (Uniquely named, “Pug”)  Oh wait, I dont’ think she ever caught that.  It wasn’t that dinner wasn’t good Aunt Barbara.  I remember liking it.  I also remember being stuffed and knowing I’d never get anymore down.  And Pug looked so hungry Aunt Barb.  Really.  Poor thing.  

Anyway, the feeling.  I got it.  I looked at my hands.  I looked at Julie’s hands and the stick.  I remember asking what it was.  She didn’t know.  I panicked.  She panicked.  We looked at each other and raced to the bathroom.  My heart was in my stomach.  We were in trouble.  Again.  I wondered why it was that I didn’t get in trouble like that at home.  Only when I was with Julie.  How much you wanna bet that she was wondering the same thing?

In the bathroom we scrubbed.  Our hands stayed brilliant blue.  You know that scripture “be sure your sin will find you out?”  This was a great object lesson for it.  Aunt Barbara missed a great opportunity.  Anyway we scrubbed.  We used everything under that sink.  I can’t believe we didn’t cause a combination of toxic substances that knocked us flat.  Maybe I should attribute my current asthma to it.  Eventually I moved to the medicine cabinet.  I was frantic.  Must. Get. Blue. Off.

I wish I’d known about the Picts.  I could have at least pretended I was a modern day Pict painting myself blue for whatever reason that they did that.  Instead I grabbed the hairspray and sprayed.  Julie’s and my eyes bugged out as the blue ran off our hands and into the sink.  (I wonder if it stained the sink.  I didn’t think of that as a kid.)  We sprayed and scrubbed and sprayed and scrubbed.  Apparently the massive chemical perfumes we created eventually wafted to wherever Aunt Barbara was. 

I don’t remember much else but I do disctinctly remember the phrase, “giving you two a good spanking.”

We deserved it.  However, after all, it was Julie’s idea.  Therefore it was her fault.  That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

(Hey Julie, got any chalk?)

The Demon~

Sometime in the winter of the sixth grade.  1982.  Blythe, California.  My permed hair looking as ’80’s curled as it could.  How funny, when I had it done I assumed it wasn’t in style but I liked it anyway.  I wore my last year’s jacket.  Grass green with red, yellow, and orange stripes near the shoulders.  Tan corduroy pants I think.  Or were they blue Sasson?  Blue.  Definitely.

We wandered up and down the washes of the low desert.  Dad was on a mission.  We looked for Manzanita trees that were drying in the arid climate.  I now wonder how they died.  What made trees just fall over like that?  We looked for ironwood.

Ironwood.  It wasn’t a misnomer.  That stuff can go through sawblades faster than you can count them.  Dad had the cool idea of making gorgeous chess sets out of it with the dark rich ironwood pieces for the “black ones”.  I think he planned on a white oak for the “white” but I’m not sure about that.  The manzanita I think eventually became clocks that Uncle Gene made.  What I wouldn’t give to own one of his clocks or tree tables.  I loved those things.  I wonder if that is where dad got the wood for the tree shelves in Uncle Gene’s house.

It was amazing.  Dad and Uncle Gene cut a tree down the middle and attached it to one of Uncle Gene’s walls.  Then they added shelves by taking the other half of the tree and cutting shelves from it and attaching it here and there.  Aunt Lita put pictures between the branches and nick-nacks on the shelves.  It was a beautiful “family tree” in my mind.  If I ever own a cabin, I’m doing that.  In the meantime, I think I’ll stick that in one of my books.  Hmm.  I think I need to write a new book.

So what does this all have to do with demons?  Am I now possessed by the spirit of Blythe?  Nope.  Nothing that preternatural.  We just happened to find one.  High up in a tree (remember that Blythe California is closer to the Sonora Desert where there are real trees!)  there was a gnarled knot.  Huge.  That thing must have been three feet in diameter.  One look at the thing showed the twisted contorted face of a “demon” complete with a pointy wicked looking nose. 

I have a picture of me leaning against that tree.  I loved that silly tree even though I only saw it the one time.  Dad loved that tree.  We’ve talked about it a few times over the years.  Dad taught me to see those little things around me by his own sheer delight in them.  Some fathers push their daughters on swings and teach them to find fairies or rabbits in the clouds.  My father took me hiking and taught me to see demons in trees.  I loved every second of it.

Christy~

She wasn’t really a cousin but she seemed like one.  Her mother and my aunt Susan were sisters.  She was John&Gloria’s granddaughter.  She just seemed, well, cousinly.

Her dad, Joe, was a kind man.  Somehow, I always think of Bill Pullman when I remember Joe.  Her mom, Sandy, worked at Newberry’s where I often shopped on trips to Pic ‘n’ Save.  She always took a moment to say hello and that, of course,  made me feel good.

Christy and I always got along famously.  I remember spending the night with her at John&Gloria’s and hearing how the funny little bug-like thing in a jar was something from outer space.  I didn’t believe her but I wanted to. 

John&Gloria, Joe and Sandy, and Christy and I all went to Pismo once.  I remember buying sand dollars, sea urchins, and a blue felt covered box with shells encrusted in the top and around the edge.  I lost that box in a move and I’d still like to find another one like it to remember that trip by.  It was a marvelous time.  I ate clam chowder, slept in a hotel room, and heard all about the Madonna Inn and Hearst Castle.  Oh it was so exciting to me.

She spent a week with me when we lived in Hesperia on Santa Fe.  Some days we went shopping in town.  I remember that she bought a pair of blue Sasson pants that she later decided to return.  However the store only offered store credit, something I’d never heard of, and since she didn’t live there, she decided to keep the pants.  I remember being facinated with her experience!  She not only knew what store credit was but she also knew it was something that wasn’t a good idea for her!

We played games, created doll houses, walked all over the place, and talked.  I have no idea what we talked about.  I remember one dinner though.  We sat at the table and talked about where we were all born and Christy said, “I was born in Simi Valley.”

I quipped, “Yep, when she was born she popped out and said, ‘See Me?  See Me?’”  It was my first successful attempt at a joke.  I was proud of myself.

The San Buenaventura Center.  We went there just to shop around.  One waterbed store had entire rooms of matching furniture so we pretended we were wealthy girls looking for new furniture in our new home.  Oh how I bet we’d both hate whatever we chose back then.

My last memory of Christy was walking through the Esplanade.  She found a store and the hip-hugger Chemin de Fer jeans she’d been looking for.  I remember her calling Joe and asking him to come get them for her but I don’t remember if she did.

She was a lot of fun, Christy.  I miss her every time I remember her.  Kind of like now.

Wheaties- Breakfast of Livestock?

We went camping once when we lived in either Fillmore or Moorpark.  Mom, Dad, Bear, my cousin David and possibly Julie, and I.  I don’t remember a lot of that trip except that David was very out of his element.  I remember camp fires, and I think Bear and David did some hunting.  I dont’ remember if they were succesful.

However the morning we left, David tried to feed Wheaties to a nearby donkey or mule.  The mule was not impressed and showed his disdain for the lack of carrot or apple by kicking David in the gut. 

Why is it that I always giggle at that thought?  Shame on me.

Giggle.

Waiting…

 I have one reundant memory of my mother.  One, I confess, I cherish and wish I didn’t have both.  Mom waiting.  She did a lot of waiting.  For me.  She waited, outside church, outside school, movies… you name it.  I cannot fathom the number of hours that my mother sat in a vehicle, often in the heat, reading a book, crocheting, or working a crossword puzzle in order or me to attend choir practice, a music lesson, or some other social engagement.

Sunday morning, night, and Wednesday nights for church.  Thursday night AWANA on nights when the bus didn’t run.  Sitting at school waiting for me after basketball practice or for me to finish teaching VBS.  Sitting in the parking lot of a roller rink or at a shopping mall.  The hours probably add up to weeks of mom’s life.  From the time we moved back to Ventura in 1981 to the day I moved to Texas in the summer of 1987, mom drove me everywhere and waited patiently for me to return in order to drive me home.

I was a selfish child- like most.  I don’t know about my younger years but I know that after about age eleven, it wasn’t deliberate but looking back, I’m ashamed of my selfishness.  I never thought about her  at all.  It never occurred to me that she might not like sitting in a cramped hot car while I roller skated or sat in my comfortable air-conditioned church.  I never bothered to think of her at all.  She was  mom.  That is what she did.  It truly hurts me to realize now how thoughtless and insensitive I was to her.

I waited today for my Braelyn.  We were planning a trip to Lone Pine to give her a long time in the car for driving practice.  She called from work when she was ready and I went to get Challice’s smaller car.  By the time I arrived at Challice’s, held the bestekid, filled the tank with gas, and made it to Braelyn’s work, almost an hour had passed.  I sat in the car for about fifteen minutes waiting for her to notice me.   During that time, I remembered mom and how many hours she’d waited for me. 

Her cell phone rang.  She was calling to see where I was.  She’d walked in the direction she expected me to come in order to save me any waiting time but I hadn’t come the direction she expected.  Her first words to me were an apology.  I’m so ashamed.

Mom,  thank you for all those hours you sat in the car so that I could do the many things you and Dad encouraged and allowed me to do.  And mom?  I’m so sorry that I probably never thought to thank you back then.  Please forgive me.

The Autumn Leaves…

Pasted on the window…

The Autumn leaves…

 That I colored…

What?!

Late summer often found us at Grandma Avants’ apartment on Osborn in Phoenix.  Uncle Oscar and Aunt Kay drove up from Kearney and while Dad and Uncle Oscar debated football scores, politics, and who knows what else, Aunt Kay and I would cut out decorations for the bulletin board and windows of her third or fourth grade classroom. 

Leaves of red, gold, and brown appeared and we wrote the names of her students on each leaf.  She talked about her classes and the children that went through her room each year.  To be honest, I didn’t listen to her stories as much as I did her voice.  I tried to imagine myself as a student in one of those desks with my name on a nearby window or bulletin board.  I tried to hear her tell the class to take out paper and pencils while she gave out spelling words that I knew instinctively I would spell correctly.  I was always very good at spelling with the exception of the word very.  I had serious issues with very containing only one r.  For a word that implies a great quantity or deep meaning, very with one r just didn’t make sense.  it should be verry.  Well, that was my story and I was sticking to it.

You know, two of my uncles were also teachers but I knew little about their classes.  Uncle Lon taught automotive shop at Channel Islands High School.  Uncle Oscar taught at Kearney High School I think.  I have no idea what he taught and if I am correct about the school where he taught.  I do remember Aunt Kay and though I never saw it, her classroom.

Ingenuity: Or How Julie & I Got in Trouble This Time~

We raced around the house playing all kinds of exciting games.  We dug in the garden, “rode” on my fathers motorcycle, played with my toys and then something changed.  Any time children get antsy, they’re liable to do something odd and we did.  A game of hide and seek turned into an odd game of tag.

There were steps of some kind leading into French doors.  I think to my parents’ room.  Julie slipped into the door and promptly locked it before I could get in.  The second she saw me turn to go downstairs and come in that way, she raced to lock that door.  I, on the other hand, was prepared. 

On the railing, near the door, was a hammer.  I  have no idea why there was a hammer there- it certainly didn’t belong there.  However, a hammer was exactly what I needed to “best” my cousin.  I was four or five at the time.  No older than five though.  Once I saw Julie run out the door, I picked up the hammer and broke the pane nearest the door handle.  I simply reached in and opened the door.  Oh the look on Julie’s face when she saw me come into the kitchen from behind her!

Oh the look on Mom’s face when  she discovered the broken pane!

Sally~

Who is Sally?  Why me!  Haven’t I ever told you that in addition to my unique name created by my father, I have a very common nickname that only my great grandmother called me.  Granny never could say or remember my name so she called me Sally whenever she referred to me by name.  I was always in a little awe of her.

Granny chewed snuff.  It’s odd, I never thought anything of this habit except for the occasional moment when she’d pull the lid off of an old coffee can and spit into it.  It wasn’t until the day I saw Grandma Avants dump one of the cans down to toilet that I developed my revulsion for the habit.  There is nothing like a spittoon emptied in your presence to ensure that you never touch tobacco in any form.

I think Granny had false teeth but I don’t remember seeing her with them.  She didn’t talk to me very often that I can remember.  I don’t know if it was because she didn’t talk to many people or if she wasn’t comfortable with me, or what.  We have a picture of my mom and dad laughing with her and it is one that makes me smile every time I think of it.  Apparently she talked to some people!

The only negative memory I have of Granny has nothing to do with her per se.  My sister’s husband, Kelly, took Vyonie and I to see Granny one day when Grandma Avants was out for some reason.  I’m not sure why we went but as we walked along the covered walkway to Grandma’s house, Kelly pulled me aside slightly and said, “You behave yourself in there.  If you sass your Granny I’ll take you out here and whip the tar out of you.”  I was terrified.  I’d never been rude or sassy to Granny and I couldn’t imagine why Kelly would say that.  I remember getting it into my head that Kelly was looking for a reason to thrash me and I knew why he might want to but that is for another story.

However, I remember one day at grandma’s when Granny cornered me in her bedroom.  I admit I was slightly frightened which Granny noticed.  She asked me if I was afraid of her and I lied.  I said I wasn’t and smiled and then surprisingly, I wasn’t afraid of her anymore.  She called me Sally again and asked me if I loved her.  It was a strange question to my ears.  She was granny!  Of course I loved her.  I had that child-like love for everyone I was supposed to love regardless of whether or not I really knew them.

I assured Granny of my love and she pulled a dress from her closet.  Grandma and Mom had made several dresses for me to wear to school.  I had them  in several colors of gingham with white aprons.  This dress was brown calico.  It had a heart-shaped pocket with lace around it  I don’t remember much more about the dress but I remember the color and that pocket.  I remember being so happy about that dress.  They’d made another one- a pink one.  I actually remember more about that dress but I didn’t care much for it.  I wish I had a picture of that brown dress.

A few years later, when I was eleven, Granny died.  honestly, I think she was the first person that I ever knew personally that had died.  I’m sure others did but Granny is the one that registers first.  Within the next twelve months or so, my brother and my Grandma Fullerton died as well so I was introduced to death quite rapidly but I remember feeling so awkward about going to Grandma’s house after that.  Granny wasn’t there and it felt strange to be there without Granny.