Flash Back Time?....What?

Flask Back Time

I had an awful, heavy urge to write this morning, but I wanted to take a break from my story writing that usually consumes my waking thoughts. I got up with my son this morning, and watched him as he got ready for school. His school is only three blocks away from my house, but its raining and very cold outside. I asked him if he wanted me to give him a ride as he got his things ready, but he said no. He said that he could make it just fine, and there was no need for me to get dressed and all just to take him three blocks up the street.

I thought of how mature he is at his age; not at all like I was at fifteen. I sat back in my easy chair and a memory struck me from a time when I was even younger than fifteen. I was only interrupted in my thoughts once as my son asked me if I was ok, because I had that obvious blank look on my face. When I have that look its usually accompanied by a very goofy smile. My kids are very used to seeing that look and usually break it with a question.

Anyway, I was remembering a time that one of my earliest and most proud moments in my life had happened. Now, I was very proud of myself for my accomplishment, but it was almost destroyed by my father. You see, my father was a head football coach at the local high school back when we lived on the island of Guam. We had lived there for roughly two years and all of us really liked it quite a bit. I was the oldest of three kids. My sister was into modeling and had actually had some pretty good jobs for a kid at the age of six. My brother was eight, and he was a bit of a jock even at that age. I was ten, but my interest were far from my father's and sibling's. I loved to write, paint, draw, and loved music. I was very partial to Kiss at that time. Well, at my school I had a favorite teacher like most kids do. She was my math and language arts teacher. I seemed not to like her so much when we were doing our math lessons, but I loved her to death when it was time to do the language arts lessons. These two classes were split by lunch time. When we returned from lunch, it was time to read or whatever she had in mind for us to do as far as language arts is concerned.

One Monday in December of that year, was a very odd day. Our usual menu at that school consisted of mainly rice with some nasty gravy type substance dumped over it. There was always some chicken or beef in this slimy mess sided with fruit and the warmest milk to wash it down with. But, on this particular day we were served turkey and gravy dumped over an ice cream scoop of dressing. This was sided with cranberry sauce and a type of fruit salad topped with warm Cool Whip. I know in the states this would be no shock around Christmas time, but we didn't get that type of a lunch for Thanksgiving. We had been served our meal, and to my surprise, some of the island kids weren't at all happy with the lunch. As it goes in the cafeteria, a lot of times I gave my lunch of rice and that crappy gravy stuff away to whomever ask for it without a fight. I hated that stuff with a passion, but on that day, I was the happy receiver of many a slice of turkey and the scoops of dressing. It was quite a task to eat the mound of dressing, but I did so without complaint.

When the bell rang, instead of running and chasing the girls around, I sat under a tree and digested with a big smile of contentment. There wasn't a bell that ended our short recess, but rather the teachers and paraprofessionals screamed for us to come in for our next class. I entered the room slowly as I had noticed a few things were new in the room and the chairs were out of place. The new things in the room were very exciting to me. The teacher had a guitar case laying across the front desks. The chalk board had words written in bright pastel colors. I walked up to the guitar case and gawked at it for a few seconds, then I began reading the chalk board. "One Week Writing Contest," was what the chalk board had written on it. Mrs. Salas instructed us to sit, and filtered through the myriad of questions that were flying at her. She was one of the most patient teachers I had ever, from that year until I graduated high school. She held her hand up to silence us, and then proceeded to explain the rules and intentions of the contest. Most of us were concentrating on the guitar case more than anything, but her voice counting off the rules seemed to break that attention deficit right away.

The rules were simple. We were to enter the room quietly for the entire week and begin writing a mixture of poetry and short stories. In the last few minutes of the class, we would turn in our writing and she would peruse the entries. The ones that caught her attention would be read out loud by her. Of course we were all dying to know what the guitar had to do with all of this. I mean, writing and a guitar? What did this have in common with the lesson, right?

She didn't explain the guitar. She gave the order for us to begin writing and not to ask any more questions, or we would never know the reason for the instrument to be in the room with us. As we began writing our master pieces, she removed the guitar from it's case and began playing a song that was very familiar to me. It was the theme song from a popular television show. "Suicide Is Painless." You know from the show M.A.S.H. Well, it was just fantastic! She had such a beautiful singing voice! Who knew! We were all lolled into a silence of artistic creation.

I didn't inherit my father's athletic competitiveness, but as far as writing and art were concerned; that was a different animal altogether. I wanted to win the prize that had not been disclosed to us at that time. Another set of eyes also had wanted to claim this prize as well. We had been graced with a very snobby new student a week before this contest. She was from Alaska. I don't remember her name, but I do recall that I was not fond of her rude behavior. She came from a military family that was stationed on the Air Force base, and to hear her tell it, her father was the master and commander of all under the sun. I absolutely hated her. I had mentioned her to my mother one day after her arrival, and was quickly informed that I must have a crush on her because, "That's the way boys act toward girls that they really like." I was totally disgusted with the idea of holding hands with this coarse of a personality. I knew one thing was for sure though; she was not going to win this no matter what! GAME ON!

Every day we labored on our works. I spent my nights perfecting my writings which consisted of one poem and four short stories. I gleamed a huge smile every day that my works had been chosen as the winner. By Thursday, I had one poem and two short stories read before the class. But that day my sworn enemy had beaten me! She turned in two short stories that the teacher read before us all. I had to admit that they were really good. I mean really, really good! I was very nervous. I thought to myself though that I had the contest in the bag. By the number of days left in the week; I couldn't be beaten. I was thrown a horrible curve ball by the teacher. She stated a rule change in that whomever turns in the best works as well as the most, would inevitably win the contest. "Foul Woman!" I shouted inside my head. How could this be! Never before had there been a rule change in any competition I was involved in. I was sick to my stomach. As the teacher announced the changes, I sank into my seat with defeat upon my face. I looked around the room and noticed THAT GIRL smiling at me. I imagined her to be a horrible beast with sharpen fangs. My blood was all that would satisfy her lust for something inside.

I worked at a heated and feverish pace every second I could devote to writing for the next night. My stories of science fiction and newly discovered worlds would not do. I needed depth and soul to compete with this villain.  That's right VILLIAN! A final poem.

I handed in my final pieces to Mrs. Salas that Friday. My friends had turned on me, telling me that the new girl was a shoe-in for the first position. Before the teacher read the final writings, she decided to tell us a story about her guitar playing and her hippie days in California during the Sixties. I heard very little of any of her going on. I was sure I was going to have a heart attack with the coming announcement. At last the teacher read the final work. It was mine! I was so wound up I hardly understood a word of it. I didn't even recognize it as my work. 

Mrs. Salas asked me to come to the front of the room. Before she would hand me my prize, she made me explain what the poem meant. I told the class in the best way I could that the poem was a true story. It was. I don't remember the poem now, but I do remember that it was an explanation of sorts. I had to be in a certain place; not only in my darkened room to write, but also in a certain darkened state of mind to explore my feelings and get them on paper. My teacher followed my small speech with an explanation of her own. She had to do the very same thing when she wanted to be artistic and write for herself.

The prize box was handed to me and I quickly returned to my desk. I shredded the paper from the box like a wildcat on a dog. The box had several things inside. A set of books consisting of: a poetry book, a dictionary, a thesaurus, a box of pens, and finally a new writing tablet.  I was so happy! I was more than happy, maybe elated is a better word. My pride lit up the room, except for one corner desk. The girl I had set out to destroy had her head across folded arms; physically crying and shaking. I didn't know what to do!  One thing for sure about me that many people in my family know is that I have a very tender heart. I hate the word tender except when talking about smoked brisket, or a very rare steak, but I just couldn't and have never been able to handle a female crying. I also wasn't a huge fan of poetry, so I reached in the box and pulled out the poetry book I had just won. I tapped my nemesis on the top of her head with the book. When she looked up, I handed her the book. Yes, I know I'm a sucker, but I just couldn't take the tears.

Now this act of kindness had a double edged sword result. One, the other kids in the room teased me, and said that I really liked the girl. Two, she thought I liked her despite my verbal hissings at her expense. I quickly tried, with no effect what so ever, to dispel that idea right out of her head. It didn't work at all. The rest of the day, I carried my prize box around until I reached my home.

I very proudly showed my parents what I had won. My father's comments were something to the effect of, "Now if you'd only try that hard at football!" I absolutely hated him for saying that. My mother was very pleased, and commented on how proud she was that I had attacked this contest and won. I went to my room and went through my winnings. I was not in the mood to write, not only because of what my father had said, but also that I had just spent the last four nights writing like I was trying to beat a deadline at The Washington Post. I napped for a few hours.

When I awoke, I did my usual of going down to the pool and swimming until dark. I came home with a ravenous hunger. As I ate, I told my mother about how I had given away the poetry book, and she told me how sweet that was. Then the phone rang. It was that girl!!! My father handed me the phone, and I had to listen to her talk. She had a very beautiful sounding voice. I think I actually liked talking to her until my mind set in on the thought that I would have to be nice to her at school from here on out. (I am now hiding a lot of other things I thought about just so that no one reading this thinks I am totally nuts, or even dangerous).

As with every year in a child's life, Christmas break and the rest of the year passed quickly. I only talked to that girl a few times in public. My friends teased me relentlessly for it. But, the end of the year came with big news for me.

My parents informed me that we would be moving back to Oklahoma for the summer and then off to Texas for the next school year. God, I was so happy! We prepared for our departure, saying goodbye to our friends. We took off from Guam on an early morning flight, and landed in Hawaii some hours later. We were in line to board a flight to L.A. when I heard my name called loudly in the terminal. I knew that voice, oh God did I know that voice! It belonged to, of course the girl from school! She walked up to my place in line and began explaining that she and her family were being moved back to the states. I couldn't believe it! Not only was that not who I wanted to see, but she ended up sitting on the flight from Hawaii to L.A. right next to me. Eight hours!

You know, I felt something for the first time toward her other than hatred. I had a little tickling in my stomach. Every word she said floated into one ear and out the other. I was extremely light headed. I suddenly wanted to look at her very close in her face. I looked into her green eyes, and I think I was falling in love with her. I wanted to touch her.  But, it was short lived. That eight hour flight seemed to be over just as it had started. (My apologies to you romantics that maybe thought this was going some other place.)

When we landed, I hugged her and said bye. We both had broken hearted looks on our faces. I wonder if she felt as horrible as I did. I felt as if someone had died, or like young boys feel when we lose a pet to the road, or whatever. I had exchanged my grandmother's address with all the class on the last day of school, because I knew that's were I was going for the summer, but her address she had given me on Guam was no good now. I got one letter from her a month later. She was moving again after summer and didn't know where she was going. I never heard from her again.

I wonder what she went on to do after we grew up. Now that I think about it, she was very cute, and no doubt became a very beautiful, possibly striking woman. Oh well, that was what I wanted to write this morning. You know, there is still some little feeling in there for her even after thirty years. I wonder what she is doing right now at this moment.