When I was Young
Posted: Wednesday, November 16, 2011
by Darcy DeMarco
When I was young, we lived in El Cajon, CA. A suburb of San Diego. We had moved there when I was six. Unlike Methuen, Massachusetts, where we came from, El Cajon was dry, somewhat like a desert. It has a semi-arid climate, with winters in the 60s and summers topping 100 degrees. We had left Massachusetts because of my sister Karen's chronic bronchitis, which left her coughing well into the night. My parents had seen the Rose Parade on TV in Methuen and when the announcer said it was 70 degrees there that day, they decided to move. That's how we ended up in El Cajon.
During the summers, the ice cream truck used to come around. We always knew it was coming from the bell. Even when we had ice cream in the house, something from the ice cream man always tasted better. He had Creamsicles and other treats you couldn't get in the store. My favorite was something like a push-up with a paper cone over it. You pushed up from the bottom, and the ice cream would slowly emerge from the top. Orange and vanilla. Delectable. Just what a nine-year-old would like on a hot day.
Even though the Viet Nam War was going on, we were allowed to play with cap guns. These little guns had tapes with powder pressed into circles on them. You'd run the tape through the gun and it would "Pop" when you pulled the trigger. My brother, Eric, and I would play "Good" and "Bad" guys. We'd choose which side we were on, and run through the house shooting at each other. My mother, who was a home maker, didn't mind. Our back yard was decomposed granite, and you couldn't really play out there. Nothing would grow in it, either. So, we played in the house and in the street, which ended in a cul-de-sac. We would ride our bikes - no, we didn't have Schwinns, like the other kids; our mother wouldn't allow them - down the hill and go roller skating. The rollerskates had brackets that you had to tighten with a key, like the ones mentioned in the Melanie song. We played Mr. Potato Head, and Slinky. During the summer, I would make lemonade and sell it on the sidewalk to our friends. Our friend, Dawn, from La Mirada, would come and visit her aunt across the street from time to time. We would play jump rope and hopscotch. Until I was in the 5th grade, my friends from up the hill behind us and I would play dolls. We had a lot of fun and had no problem tolerating the heat that became so oppressive when we got older.
My brother and I went to the local Catholic school, St. Kieran's. This was when the nuns had to wear their habits. Sister Mary Ann, my second-grade teacher, was wonderful. My classmates and I all loved her. Unlike the other nuns, she was relatively young. She had a beautiful smile. Second grade was fun, and I remember that my grades didn't matter as much as they did a few years later. Once I was in the fifth grade, because of what had happened to me by then, I became like a drill with my studies, and got straight As from then onwards. By high school, realized that I would much rather have been more relaxed and gotten a few Bs. But then it was too late.
Throughout school, I loved music. My first grade teacher in Methuen had played "Peter and the Wolf" (Prokofiev) for us. We five- and six-year-olds loved it. In the fourth grade, I joined the choir with my friend, Patricia Piette. She was in the fifth grade. Unfortunately, we were both kicked out for being unable to carry a tune. God, did I cry. I think she did, too. The next year, we tried again. This time, we got to stay. But when we went to sing our concert with Our Lady of Peace, up the hill from us, I got confused and ended up in the section with the altos (I was a soprano). I got flustered and didn't enjoy singing at all. There was no choir in the 6th grade, and I really didn't like to sing after that until 8th grade glee club.
One thing I've noticed about today's middle schoolers is that they start thinking about college in the 6th grade. In 1972, this was just an impossibility. College? What was that? I knew vaguely that my father had gone, and that my mother had dropped out after one class. We did not take aptitude tests until high school. Because my parents were provincial New Englanders from the 1940s, I did not know when I reached high school about any activities. My mother and father either were completely ignorant or simply did not participate. I filled out my schedule for 9th grade without knowing about the clubs I could join. I also felt that I didn't want to go to college, so took some "A" classes.
"C" meant "college prep." "H" meant "Honors." Because I wasn't college prep, I didn't take chemistry, a foreign language, or biology, the way my 8th grade friends did. I was able to make friends who were "not college material." Although my lack of preparation did affect me when I decided to go to college after all, it did me some good in that even now, a lot of people I am friends with do not have college degrees. I feel I have a wider perspective than my sometimes elitist friends who went right after high school. Just because someone doesn't value reading the great books, doesn't mean they can't be my friend.
It's very difficult to say how I am different, because events of the past decade have led me to wonder if I am too trusting. I generally liked, and was happy to make friends with, any one willing to get to know me. I loved school, and still do. I just keep going back to it! Unfortunately, one way I have changed is that I now know that people are not always what I think of them. Additionally, since I am no longer to put myself into a pressure cooker for any reason, I see that I am not usually what they want me to be. I must conclude, though, that it's really their problem now. Not mine. And that I have to live with myself, like everyone else does. That is how I've changed. No more people pleasing - which I might still have to work on. I have to please myself.
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