1958

1958
"I told the witch doctor I was in love with you
And then the witch doctor he told me what to do.
I told the witch doctor he told me what to say.
He said oo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang."
Seven year old Teresa Elena Jackson opened her eyes. She sat up in her bed, rubbed her eyes, and stretched. In a few minutes her father would be opening the door and telling her to get up.
Sure enough, a few minutes later Daddy peaked through the door. "Time to get up," said Daddy. "You've got a busy day ahead." Teresa's father was a trim efficient military man with confederate blue eyes and thin light brown hair. Col. Jackson joined the military when he was fifteen by lying about his age and eating bananas and drinking water so he'd make the weight.
During World War II Jackson saw action from Pearl Harbor to England to Germany. Now he was a lieutenant colonel and worked at the Pentagon. Teresa didn't exactly understand what he did but she knew there wasn't a lot of pressure and she didn't see him very much.
Teresa slid off her nightgown and slid on her robe and flipflops and slipslapped to the bathroom. She tried to run a comb through her shoulder length light brown hair but she knew it wasn't really much use because her mother would redo her hair after breakfast like she redid almost everything Teresa did. Teresa put down the comb and slipslapped into the kitchen. "Here's your breakfast," said Mother, handing her a plate full of scrambled eggs and bacon. The eggs were kind of runny and the bacon was undercooked but Teresa was too hungry to really care.
Mother was pale blonde, almost albino when she didn't have her makeup on. She was short and well endowed. She and Teresa's father met at a bar one January night in 1947 in Greenville, Sc. Mother also served in the military. She was a captain in the women's army corps during World War II and she also trained troops. Teresa felt like she'd already been through boot camp since both parents trained troops and they both used their techiniques on Teresa and her little brother Tommy.
Teresa shoveled her breakfast in her mouth as fast as she could. She envied her brother Tommy. His eyes were hypnotized by the black and white Looney Tune figures racing back and forth across the televison screen. He didn't have to go anywhere. Back in Michigan where they used to live he'd started kindergarten, but there were no kindergartens in Fairfax, Virginia where they lived now.
"Let's go, Teresa," Mom said. Teresa hustled back to her room,yanked off her robe, dumped her slippers, slid on underwear, slip and socks and pulled her lemon yellow dress over her head and pulled her brown and white saddle shoes over her white cotton socks.
"Let's go," said Mother. Teresa met her mother in the bathroom and sat as still as she could while mother twisted her hair into pigtails and tied two lemon yellow ribbons around each pigtail.
"Have a good day, sweetie," Mother said, kissing Teresa on the mouth and handing her the Petunia Pig lunchbox and the plaid book bag and hustling her out the door. The bag had her two library books, Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who and Horton Hatches an Egg, inside.
The world outside exploded with spring. Chrissie Waverly sat in her lunchbox making mudpies. She didn't even look back at Teresa. She walked by Herbert Worthington. He trimmed his hedges and mumbled to himself and didn't even look up at her. A big black dog bounded out at her and barked loudly and threateningly. She almost jumped out of her skin every time he did that.
The dog didn't scare Teresa as much as he did when she first moved to Fairfax back in February, but she knew she would be less scared if she had friends to walk with to school. She still felt like an outsider. She walked to school by herself and walked home by herself.
Teresa reached the school yard at eight oh eight. In one corner a bunch of girlfriends waited in line to jump rope. In another corner a group of girls waited to play hopskotch. Out on the field most of the boys played baseball. Teresa didn't join any of the groups, instead, she joined her friend Lannie zipping toy cars around imaginary freeways in his corner of the playground.
Lannie lived in a shack at the edge of town. His family had lived in a shack at the edge of town since the time of George Washington. He always dressed like a ranch hand on one of those televison westerns: shabby cowboy shirts and rundown jeans. Lannie and Teresa had a great time playing cars. They raced cars up and down those imaginary freeways into shopping centers and around office buildings and factories.
"Line up," said the teacher. Lannie stuffed the cars back into his pockets and the children raced to Mrs. Janet Burton's line and followed her quietly, keeping their hands to themselves as they marched into the classroom. The classroom smelled like freshly mopped floor and freshly shined blackboard. The teacher started the roll. She spoke with a Virginia accent, almost with a touch of a British accent.
Mrs. Burton clattered to the front of the room in those little tiny black heels that were like a regulation part of the uniform for classroom teachers back in the l950's. "Good morning, boys and girls. I hope you'all are doing well today. Let's start with the Pledge of Allegiance."
Sharon Potter, a skinny girl with an earnest looking face, marched to the front of the room, put her hand over her heart, and proudly recited the words to the Pledge of Allegiance. The rest of the class followed along. Sharon returned to her seat and Raymond Potter walked to the front. He lead the Lord's Prayer.
Teresa's parents were Jewish and it kind of bothered her that the class had to recite the Lord's Prayer but she would rather die than say anything. She wanted to be part of the whole, one of the group, a piece of the pie. She basically wanted to be invisible as much as possible.
After opening exercises the teacher reviewed the subtraction facts with the students. Mrs. Burton distributed mimeographed sheets with subtraction problems to each student. The class got quiet. A few pencils got sharpened; a few students got up and got drinks. As the students began working the problems the teacher distributed other seatwork: reading comprehension problems, spelling puzzles, phonics. In no time at all it was time for recess.
Teresa followed Lannie out to the playground. He pulled out the toy cars and they raced the cars around imaginary freeways again. "Pea pot, pea pot," somebody called. "Pea pot, pea pot," somebody else hollered. Lannie tried to ignore them. Teresa ignored them too. People were always calling Lannie names. It hurt Teresa's feelings, she really like Lannie.
"Line up," called the teacher. Everybody raced to line up. The students followed Mrs. Burton quietly into the classroom. Nobody talked and everybody kept their hands to themselves. After recess the teacher called Teresa's reading group, the Cheetahs, to the table at the front of the room. The Cheetahs consisted of Teresa, Susan Miller, Mary Ellen Patterson, Mary Jane Anderson, Annette Howard and Raymond Henderson. The Cheetahs were the fastest group in the class and had already finished the regular second grade reading curriculum so Mrs. Burton provided supplementary reading material for them. Today they read a story called "Silver Dollar." After reading there was English and at eleven thirty the children went to lunch.
At twelve thirty Mrs. Burton called the children in from lunch recess and they followed her back in the classroom. As soon as they settled back in the seat Mrs. Burton pulled Little House In The Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder and read some of the Ingalls' family adventures to the students. Teresa imagined herself living in a cabin in the woods and Dad going out to the woods to hunt for dinner and having to help Mother with the chores. After the story the teacher presented a lesson on seeds and the children planted seeds in little paper cups.
At one thirty the children raced outside to afternoon recess. Teresa and Lannie raced their cars around the imaginary freeways. "Pea Pot! Pea Pot!" someone yelled. "Pea Pot! Pea Pot!" Someone else yelled. "Mr. and Mrs. Pea Pot!" echoed over the playground. "Mr. and Mrs. Pea Pot!" All of a sudden Lannie stood up, threw down his cars, and didn't make a sound. The playground got real quiet, like the air before a thunderstorm. Lannie and Teresa, the school misfits, were about to GET MAD!
"Aayah! Lannie tackled the biggest boy that was teasing him. Teresa didn't say a word. She started kicking the next biggest boy in the shin. The boy kicked back--with his boots. That hurt. She tripped and fell and landed on one knee, that hurt. She got up and started looking around for another person to kick.
A teacher pulled her off her latest victim and hauled her off the the principal's office by her blouse.