Running Away from School - AKA - In the Trees Talking to Birds

If only I were this cute...

I was fortunate enough not to have to grow up with having a terrible last name.  Or at very least, was fortunate enough not to grow up around terribly clever children.  I embraced "Rotten" myself fairly early on and so even if the other kids had though of calling me that, it wasn't an issue for me.  Other than that I was only ever called Otter, but otters are wicked clever and freaking adorable so that's hardly an insult.

Back in grade 5, we had a substitute teacher for French class.  Childhood rules clearly state that no work is to be done while under the supervision of a substitute teacher.  As such, Jeremy was testing out how I responded to being called an otter.  In kind, I tested out how he enjoyed being called Frosty the Snowman.  After a short period of consideration,  he let me know that he'd rather be cool than swim well.  The two of us were at a standstill.  Lesrick decided to try jumping in, but neglected to realize that with a name like Lesrick, he was a bit vulnerable to being called "Lessy-rick".  And by sitting across the desk from him, my shin was vulnerable to a good swift kick.

I was too proud to show weakness and cry, despite feeling like my bone had cracked.  Luckily for me and the poor substitute teacher, the lunch bell rang then and we were able to leave for lunch.

Both feelings and shin bruised, I opted to walk home and play sick for the rest of the day.  Unfortunately, as my mom wasn't expecting me home for lunch, my house was locked and I couldn't get in.  No matter, I went next door to camp out at Aunt Barb's until mom returned.  Wincing in pain from my shin, Aunt Barb believed I was sick, called the school to report my absence, and I spent a relaxing afternoon lying on her couch watching The Flintstones and Out of This World.

An hour or so later, my mom is at the door and looking very serious.  She had arrived home to find teachers looking in our windows and in our backyard.  My homeroom teacher had noticed that I was missing after lunch, causing a school wide lock-down (or what was then known as all grade 5's hang out in the gym with minimal supervision) while the teachers combed through the parks and creeks between my school and my house.

Holy crap was I in trouble.

My mom sent the teachers back their classes and I was due to meet with the principal the next morning.  My fake-sick day turned quickly into a real sick day thinking about the heap of trouble I was in for.

The next day my mom drove me to school and we went to meet with the principal.  She gave me a reaming about how they nearly called the police thinking that I'd been abducted.  They sent teachers combing through the creek just in case I had drowned.  Everyone was worried sick about where I was, and my teacher had been in tears.  At this point, so was I, so my mom calmly turned the discussion around.

Did they check the auto-absentee phone line?  No, they didn't, otherwise they'd have known where I was.

Did they call my emergency contact?  No, they didn't, otherwise Aunt Barb would have told them I was there.

Should they have called the police without checking those two basic first steps?  No.

I had never been so grateful.  I was able to walk out of the principal's office with my head held high and most importantly without detention. 

Back in class, I was a bit of a star.  Everyone was really pleased about the free gym time and wanted to know where I had gone.  My story wasn't that exciting (I didn't tell them that I left because of being kicked in the shin) but apparently the rumours flying around the school were.  The best one, and consequently the only one I remember, was that I had climbed a tree and was talking to some birds. 

The icing on the cake is that while I was missing, Lesrick and Jeremy were bragging that I had run away because they called me Otter.  Both of them got detension, while I did not.

When I Discovered I Was White

I've sat on writing this post since I began this blog.  It is one of the clearest memories I have as a child as it was such a revelation for me, but race is always a strange thing to talk about because it's so easy to offend, especially when I haven't been victimized by it.  That said this blog is about my memories, and this is my memorable memory as I remember it.

 ~

I recall very clearly the day when it was revealed to me that people come in different colours.  Prior to that day, I don't believe it ever occurred to me.  Brampton was a wonderfully diverse city to grow up in and as my family was quite active in community sports, clubs, and activities, and went to a public school, we were well exposed to many different cultures from the very beginning.  Over the last few years Brampton has apparently gotten worse for gangs, violence, and cultural divide, but when I was young it was a very safe place to live. 

I was in Mrs Maynard's class...aka she whom did not give me a turtle...and the class was called to the carpet for a lesson.  One of the other children must have made some sort of a racist comment as Mrs Maynard began a very stern discussion that even though people's skin may be different, we are all the same inside.  She went on to tell us that sometimes people are judged because of what colour they are, and that is wrong.

I'm that nearly see-through kind

Wait.  What?  People were different colours?  I surveyed the class seated on the floor around me and was shocked to see how different everyone looked all of a sudden.  Shannon was white, and so was Matthew.  Natalie was black and Harman was brown.  I had gone to school with these kids for over a year now and never realized what colour they were.  It was sublimely awe-striking and a concept so bizarre that it just didn't make sense.  And yet...there it was.

Whatever else Mrs Maynard had to say flowed from one ear right out the other.  I was stuck on the suggestion that people were judged for what colour they were, even though they couldn't help it.  I like Shannon, but didn't like Matthew, and they were both white.  I like both Natalie and Harman----

WAIT!  What colour skin did I have???

I looked down nervously to discover that I was white.

And a huge wave of relief flooded me.

Despite just being told that everyone was the same no matter what colour they were, I already know within minutes that my life was going to be a lot easier that I was white.  It's hard to say exactly why I knew that, especially since I can't recall the rest of Mrs Maynard's lesson, but I remember clearly that one moment of complete relief knowing that I didn't have anything to worry about...all the bad things that she warned us about would not be directed at me...

(Interjection:  Okay, there I go being un-PC.  I know racism affects us all, and I know that white people can be racialized too.  This is just an account of my memory, and that was my honest 6-year-old reaction.)

These new revelations rocked my boat a little bit, but didn't change my life very much.  Shannon, Natalie and Harman (but not Matthew...I hated him) were all still my friends, but now I was conscious of our topical differences.

Vomit Stories

Bargain Herold's
Remember "Bargain Harolds"?  I like to think I had somewhat of a role in it's eventual demise.  When I was somewhere in-and-around 10, my mom took Trevor, Sarah and my cousin Amy with her to the Rat Plaza, with Bargain Harolds at the entrance.  As soon as we entered the mall, my stomach turned and I paused to puke while my family carried on ahead of me without notice.  When I was done, I realized that I had ralphed from one end of the Bargain Harolds threshold to the other, completely carpeting their entrance way with my undigested lunch.  I ran to catch up with my mom to tell her what I had done, but didn't make it further than 20 feet before I hurled again.  When I was done my floor pizza, I realized that now I had effectively sealed all the unfortunate Bargain Harolds customer's inside the store with my vomit force field.  I definitely needed my mom to sort this mess out for me, so I caught up and told her I barfed.  Except in my family we weren't allowed to say barf (or puke, or hurl, or yak.  Not sure about vomit force field, though as I just made that one up now) so I had to say 'throw up'.  She stopped in her tracks.  I thought I was in trouble for sure.

Mom - "Where?" 
Me - "Bargain Harolds door"
Mom -"Which one?" 
Me - "Both of them"

Whereas I would have been tempted to run away and pretend that it wasn't my kid that just made a guttural (pun!) statement on the quality of products and services at the store, my mom did the honourable thing and marched back to Bargain Harolds, jumping over the chuck and informed the Manager what had happened.

Manager - "Where?" 
Mom - "Your door"
Manager -"Which one?" 
Mom - "Both of them"

As we all left, my mom and myself quite embarrassed, Trevor, Amy and Sarah all dying of laughter, the unhappy Manager threw some cardboard down on top of my refurbished lunch.

Later, while exiting the Rat Plaza, we noticed that the cardboard had been removed and stacked up next to the mall's candy machine.  That nearly caused us all to puke again.



Doorway Vomit
Here's another quick one that still makes me laugh.  When I was really young, let's say 5, I woke up suddenly in the night and couldn't make it to the bathroom in time to throw up.  My mom had super sonic hearing and always knew when one of us was awake at night.  She came out of her room to see what was wrong.

Me - "I threw up"
Mom - "Where?"
Me - (pointing at her feet) "There."

Luckily for both of us she was wearing her slippers.

Sugar Babies

Sugar Babies.  Neither sugar nor baby

Back in junior high, our biggest project for Home Ec was Sugar Babies.  Not to be confused with these happy little exotics to the right, rather a very translucent lesson in what a pain-in-the-ass a teenage pregnancy would be.

Each 8th grader had to lug around a 2lb bag of sugar for two solid weeks, pretending it was a baby.  I personally found this project embarrassing, but I will conceded that we learned a lot about babies that year.  For example:

• Babies are square and weigh 2 pounds.
• Babies melt in the rain.
• If you drop your baby, you can sweep it up, funnel the mess back into its body, and tape it up.  If it's a big accident, you can buy a new baby from the store and throw the old one out.  No one will know; all babies look the same.
• Babies take up a lot of room in your backpack.
• New parents are lying.  Babies do sleep through the whole night.  And day.
• Your parents will forget that you have a baby and/or don't expect you to care for it at home.
• Babies are fun to throw at each other when the two weeks are up.

In actuality, all our teachers were aware of this project and which of their class members had Home Ec that semester.  As such, babies were not allowed to be carried around in backpacks and to be kept in plain eyesight during other classes, and could be confiscated and marks deducted if you mistreated yours or someone else's.  I believe we were even required to keep the bag of sugar clothed or wrapped in a blanket.  Parents were informed of this project and notified to maintain the strict guidelines at home as well.  Luckily my parents weren't so stringent, but Amanda's mother had her set her alarm a few times in the middle of the night.

Most students did this project with as little effort as they used with all their other projects, but not the aforementioned Amanda.  Even at that age she was quite convinced that she would end up being a high school drop out teenage mother, and no less seemed quite pleased with that notion.  Her Sugar Baby had a name and arrived each day with a new outfit.  She happily carried it around with her for every moment of those two weeks and refused to join in the sugar fight when the project expired.

After school one day, Amanda, Dana and I went to the mall as we were apt to do, and Amanda was intent on renting a stroller for her Sugar Baby.  We went to Guest Services and rented one without needing to  explain, as Amanda's Sugar Baby was wearing a sleeper and had all the extremities stuffed, so it looked like an actual baby.  Mine and Dana's were both halfway between infant-resemblance and looking like we'd just been to the grocery store.  As Amanda carefully loaded her baby into the carriage,  I said to Dana "I'll just put mine underneath."  As I went to do that, a lady came screaming and running at us out of nowhere!  She let us know with no uncertain terms that babies are very delicate and cannot be left under strollers.  She was quite embarrassed when we told her they were bags of sugar, but it only served to teach us yet another lesson about babies - there is always someone watching and willing to tell you what you're doing wrong with them.

The Turtles

As well as frogs and toads, I also raised a host of turtles growing up.

When I was 6, my mom and I went to Big Al's and the turtle tank was right near the front door. I studied the tank for a long time before choosing the tiniest turtle they had. I had saved up my allowance to buy Shelly and I distinctly remember he cost $7.99. Shelly lived on the kitchen counter in a plastic container called "turtle island" that had a bridge and plastic palm tree. He ate a boring diet of turtle pellets peppered with the squashed body of any fly who tried to make our house it's home.

After reading my journal, my grade one teacher Miss Maynard invited Shelly to join my class for show and tell. Always eager for a chance to show off, I happily complied. A week or so later, miss Maynard told me she had some exciting news for me. Her daughter found a little turtle in their backyard and named him Freddy (after Kruger, based on his claws). I was super excited, thinking that she was going to give him to me, after all why would her daughter finding a turtle be exciting for me? Sadly, this was not the case, but it did spark a series of careful backyard inspections and finally the accumulation of another $7.99.

Shelton brought new living accommodations with him, and joined Shelly on the kitchen counter. They got along well, sharing flies and playing with the cat.  Blackie and the turtles had a good dynamic.  Since salmonella didn't seem to be a concern in our house, we used to let the turtles walk around the kitchen floor.  They were zippy little suckers, despite the rumours about them.  Blackie would let them get fairly far away from them, then pounced and smack their shells with his paw to make them retreat into their shells.  Then later, if Blackie got distracted  by something, the turtles would attack his tail.  

When Sheldon reached maturity he starting trying to eat and/or kill Shelly.  Shelly was the size of a small dinner plate at this point so we decided to send him to university. That's not a euphemism for killing him, by the way, we literally took him to the conservation area at U of Guelph and let him free.  Now regarded as an unacceptable threat to biodiversity, at the time we thought we were doing a good thing.


Not too long later, I was playing at Fung-Ying's house when I saw a little turtle in an empty margarine container sitting on their kitchen counter.  I was upset and asked why he was in such a small container. Her brother had bought him for a friend's birthday, who wasn't allowed to keep him.  Thus, a margarine container.  To the delight of both myself and Fung-Ying's mom, Rocky joined Sheldon on my kitchen counter that day.

At this time I'm going to invite you to feel free to stop reading at any point...I have another 5 turtle stories to make my way through...

Still here?  You must be bored.  Or love turtles.  Possibly both.  Alright then, thanks for humouring me.  Carrying on...

Laurie and I were bike riding around the twin ponds one after noon when we saw a turtle near the edge of the water.  We got off our bikes to go check it out.  We were quite familiar with those ponds and as far as we understood, didn't support life outside of perhaps three-eyed Simpson-esque fish.  I'm ashamed to admit this, but I was too scared to pick up the turtle.  It was Laurie who grabbed him.  Despite having had three of my own at this point, this pond-caught turtle frightened me.  It might have had razor sharp teeth or some sort of venom.  But of course, it did not.  In fact, he didn't even see her hand coming because he was nearly blind with a disease contracted by neglect.  All of a sudden, me letting my turtle go in the conservation area doesn't seem that bad, does it?  Thus, "Pebbles" came home with me, and my allowance was diverted into turtle eye medication.  Because, yes, such a thing does exist.

At some point in this disjointed memory (remember the whole point of this blog is because my memory stinks), my Sunday morning habit of pouring through the penny saver and flyers got the better of me, and I bargained with my dad to buy a great big aquarium, complete with three turtles.  I was allowed to keep Stoney, Buddy, Frisky, and Sunshine (at this point I ran out of rock-related names) for the rest of the summer and my dad got the aquarium for his tropical fish afterward.

The story stops being interesting here (if ever it was actually interesting to begin with...).  I had six turtles for one summer, and all six went to post-secondary education in September.  I recall very little else about them, but having that many turtles at once must have been a trying summer for me, as it effectively ended my turtle-keeping.

____
Update: May 13
I just found this You Tube video of how turtles bully cats.  Mine weren't quite this vindictive, but it just goes to show you that turtles aren't pushovers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFP6kzZJGOs&feature=endscreen&NR=1