The day we moved to Montgomery, my dad drove us into our neighborhood and told us we were close to our new home. We passed some larger homes in what was clearly a more affluent area of town. Our dad told us the home was a black brick house, and we were pretty sure he was kidding. But then there was a large, mansion-like house ahead of us that was built entirely out of black brick. We excitedly asked: “Is that our house?!” My memory is that my dad said “Yes!” and then laughed as we drove past it. Maybe he didn’t, but my brain holds that memory. For a brief second, I thought we were moving into a black brick mansion.
The truth was that the car continued past the large homes to a modest suburban neighborhood with ranch style houses, small yards, sidewalks, and pools behind every few houses. We knew we didn’t have a pool, but we started to hope for a neighbor who did. We pulled up to our black brick home. It was one story with scraggly grass on the rectangular lot that stretched from the neighbors yard to the corner where our lot ended. Our driveway was on the side street, creating a boundary between the back and front yards. The house itself was small, a rental that only needed to serve the purpose of housing us for 9-12 months until my dad got his next assignment. My momentary hope that the brick mansion was ours made this home feel even smaller by comparison.
My family had moved from a robust community in Leonardtown, Maryland to a small neighborhood in the unfamiliar southern city of Montgomery, Alabama. We weren’t thrilled. We were there less than a year for my Dad’s completion of War College. I don’t really even know what that is but it meant he wasn’t that busy. We called Montgomery the “armpit of the world,” which was just our snobby protest to living somewhere unfamiliar. We quickly adjusted. Our neighbors did have a pool that they kindly let us use. Because my dad was less busy with work, he was home early nearly every day. He was relaxed and had ample amounts of time to spend with us. We had a swing set in the backyard with a hanging monkey bar that I proudly perfected hanging upside down and flipping off in dismount. My little sister spent a lot of time in the kid-swing, being pushed by any one of the rest of us. I remember there was a hose in the back yard that we used to spray each other on particularly hot days when the neighbors weren’t around to let us in the pool. The long side yard was optimal for my dad’s “catch and throw” lessons, and we felt the success of each step away we could take and still throw and catch the ball successfully. I learned how to throw a baseball and football that year.
The schools in Montgomery were… interesting. I was in 3rd grade, so much of the racial tension that permeated this southern town was lost on me. However, even naive, sheltered me noticed that every one in my school had two teachers: a White one and a Black one. It felt weird to me, and I don’t think at the time I could name why. My White teacher was stern with very little emotional affect. I remember struggling to understand her because her lips were always in a thin, straight line without much movement, making it hard for me to read her lips. The Black teacher was my favorite, probably for the very 3rd-grade reasons that I could understand her better, AND she regularly showed Reading Rainbow on Friday afternoons. Perhaps the other teacher did the same for her Friday students, but in my mind she didn’t. I don’t remember much other than Reading Rainbow, except one memory of my Phonic Ear.
Have I mentioned the Phonic Ear? Oh the bane of my hard-of-hearing childhood. The Phonic Ear was a LARGE hearing-accessory that strapped to my body with elastic cross-straps like a parachute, with a cassette-player-sized box situated right on my chest, and long, ugly beige cords that attached to earpieces in my ears. The cords curled and got caught on things, sometimes pulling my earpiece out at inopportune times. The Phonic Ear device was basically a personal microphone/headset piece like the tour guides in Europe use for tour groups in heavily-populated tourist spots. Only it was the 80s, so, you know- not wireless. The teachers had a smaller, less parachute-y device clipped on to their pants or pockets, with a long, thin black cord that stretched to a microphone that they clipped near their neck for my optimal speech understanding.
Different teachers had different levels of success with this device. Some forgot to turn them on or wear the microphone (which I rarely corrected, as I searched for excuses not to wear the damn thing), but some forgot to turn the microphone OFF. This was the case for my White teacher. I apologize but I don’t remember my teachers’ names. Anyway, I wasn’t ever a very popular kid, and often hoped to blend in as best as I could. The Phonic Ear hurt my chances of blending in, but on this day, it did make me slightly popular. My teacher had a student step into the hallway for some mild chastising, and I discovered quickly that she forgot to turn off the microphone, so I had a front row seat to her lecture. I’m not sure how it became known that I was listening in to this conversation (monologue), perhaps I whispered it to the students near me, but in no time at all, I was quietly relaying the lecture to a small group of highly curious peers. I don’t think the lecture was particularly long or vicious, and thank God it didn’t get confidential or personal, but for five shining minutes, my Phonic Ear was a source of pride and excitement. That excitement quickly faded. I just confirmed with my older sister (who shares my genetic hearing loss and many of the same “stories” of our mainstreamed education), with the Phonic Ear, we could not hear our peers- just the teacher. That’s… not great. For the longest time I thought I was stand-offish and awkward and that’s why I missed so much growing up (my husband still finds little pop-culture references that he cannot believe I don’t know)… but no- I just literally couldn’t hear what my peers were saying. Oof. To be unpacked at a later date.
I remember very little about the inside of our house. There was a small kitchen with green plant wallpaper (which I’m sure my mother itched to replace, but it was a rental), a small family room and a narrow, L-shaped hallway that led us all to our rooms. My room I don’t remember much, except a vague image I have in my mind from when I locked myself in it for fear of having to go to the emergency room. Oh right, that event, the one that forever changed my relationship to earrings.
The Earring Event: There was a neighborhood pool (or maybe it was a friends’??) that my sister and I frequently played in. One day, after I had gotten my ears pierced, I swam in this pool. There must have been some instruction/concern about me losing my earrings in the pool, because the entire time I swam, I constantly checked the backs of my earrings to make sure they were on tight. As if by self-fulfilling prophecy, after a particularly daring dive, I checked my ear again and I didn’t feel the backing at all. Mortified, I told my mom and sister. We searched everywhere (now that I think about this, why did I search so hard for a backing??), and nothing turned up. I told my mom what happened, “I kept tightening it- how did it fall off?!” and she looked for herself at my ear. I saw the expression on her face change and knew that something was not right. She said simply “the backing is there, it’s just, inside your ear.” Inside?! What did she mean, inside?! What she meant, my friends, is that I pushed the backing so tight that I pushed it into my earlobe. For 3rd grade me, this was terror at its height. What would happen to me?! To my ear?! To my earring?! I was paralyzed with fear and sobbing with all the drastic scenes I imagined unfolding in my future. Mom drove us home, and I must have bolted from the car and run to my room and locked the door, because the next thing I remember is my Dad knocking on the door with some options. I’m sure he said comforting things, but all I remember are the options: “You can either come out and we’ll go to the ER and let some doctors look at your ear after waiting for an hour and have them surgically remove your earring… OR you can let me look at it and get it out with my pliers.” Obviously my dad was leading the witness, but if you think for a moment about the level of trust I must have had to take up his offer on removing my earring with pliers- I mean- that’s impressive. I remember putting my head on his lap, with him comforting me and telling me he was sure he could do it (I kept asking) and that it wouldn’t hurt a bit (it really didn’t). He successfully removed my earring. I’m assuming my parents sanitized everything because my ear healed without any sign of infection and a year later I re-pierced my ears, slightly to the right.
That story should give you some insight to why I have hesitated to go to the ER (my dad was right not to go, after all), have a healthy critical eye of those in medicine (I’m trusting, just discerning!), and decided after my ears started to get irritated by earrings in adulthood- just to give up on earrings altogether. They had their chance.
Three more stories and then we’ll leave Montgomery.
The Bike Fall. Our neighborhood in Montgomery was a great place to ride, lots of sidewalks and not a huge amount of traffic. One day I was riding my bike and must have hit a tree branch or large crack in the sidewalk, because my bike lurched- with my body continuing the momentum and landing on the ground. It was a good ol fashioned bike fall, with a giant knee gash and significant elbow road-rash. I was just far enough away from home that I was scared, worried how I was going to get home with my bike and my injuries. A man (might have been a teenager, but in my eyes he was a creepy man) stopped and I was even more terrified. Not only was I injured, now there was stranger-danger. I’d never seen him before, but the situation was dire and I needed help. He helped me up and offered to walk my bike with me while I hobbled home. I think any tears I had were stunned silent. I quietly walked home with his help and…. well that’s all I remember because he was a normal nice person who just walked me and my bike home. I still have a scar on my knee and elbow though.
The Boy who liked Kelly. My sister was in 6th grade, and I was in 3rd. We must have been at the same school or shared a similar time to walk to school. One day we walked home, only Kelly had a boy walking with her. My social skills were that of a stunted 3rd-grader, so the ENTIRE walk home I poked my sister at various moments and obnoxiously winked at her, elbowed her, puckered my lips, etc. I don’t really remember much other than the fact that I had a BLAST doing this, and my sister was not impressed.
The Boy who liked Me. There was a boy who, every morning, would walk up to me before school started and “bop” me on the head with his clumsy, heavy fist. It didn’t “hurt” so much as it annoyed. He would narrate this move with the ever-so-original exclamation of “BOP!” and then run away. I remember complaining to my mom, and as per the time, she would tell me “that just means he likes you!” Now, as problematic as this is, I can’t disagree with the final analysis. That boy probably did like me. However, in a more sophisticated time, both he and I might have been able to communicate our bodily boundaries and crushes with slightly less offense. But honestly, we were 8? I’ll settle with “it’s ok to tell a boy not to bop you on the head” and allow the whole “he likes you” thing, because 8 year old children are physical and not super sophisticated. Perhaps he could have just waved, that would have been better.
Ok- if I keep thinking I’ll keep remembering (like when Kelly was at a sleep-over during a tornado warning/siren and was deafly-lead into a bathroom where she slept in a bathtub and had no idea what was happening).
The year in Montgomery, while not our favorite location, was packed full of memories and life-lessons! And other people’s pools.
