Long Ago...Seems Like Yesterday

I was pretty uncoordinated as a kid.
I’d stumble over a gnat if it was in front of me.
At St. Monica’s Girl’s High School, I played
basketball for P.E.
I was pretty good, except I kept popping the
ball into the wrong hoop.
The teacher pulled me off the court and put me
in the gym basement, along with my friend, Theresa, and gave us ping-pong paddles.

We stunk at ping-pong.
Everything but the table was a target.
The ball was flying off the ceiling, the windows.
You name it.
We made so much of a ruckus, the teacher, a
dyed-in-the-wool mean-as-a-drill instructor
woman [with little emphasis on the woman part]
came bursting into the room…
I think we cracked a half dozen ping-pong balls.
She ranted and roared for a few minutes, saying
she’d never known such two inept girls in all of her life.
If anything, Theresa and I were enthusiastic.

We both flunked first aid.
I could never figure that one out.
What’s so hard about putting on a bandage?
Oh, you’re supposed to clean the wound first..?
But there isn’t a real wound…

I went two years at St. Mo’s before transferring
to a closer school.
I wonder if Sister Ignatius ever found the bunnies
that were bunny-napped from the bio lab…?

Busting Out...

When I was 13, my family moved from Santa Monica
to a new home in the San Fernando Valley.
I still wanted to attend Saint Monica's High School with my friends.
Every morning I commuted with my dad to Santa Monica.
Dad dropped me off at Gran's at 6:00 a.m., where I caught a bus for school.
Gran would be up, waiting for me.
Occasionally, she bestowed little 'pearls' of advice to me:
“Nancy, don't ever dress like a tramp...”

Me?
Dress like a tramp?
How could I?
Roll up my green plaid uniform skirt until my knees were showing?
Every morning we were made to kneel before school began—to make sure our skirts were touching the floor.
Wear makeup?
The nuns made sure all of the girls looked like wallpaper paste.
Makeup was forbidden, though I knew some girls cleverly disguised the fact.

After 2 years, I transferred to a public school in the Valley
for my junior and senior years.
I'd had enough of 5:30 risings.
Gran was really worried then.
I'm sure she thought I was going to hell in a hand basket...

I cut up my uniform with intense joy!
The baggy, white gym shorts were shredded.
Mom bought me a few dresses, blouses and skirts.
I replaced my suede buck shoes with pumps.
I lingered in the cosmetics department of our
drugstore, buying my first tube of lipstick, mascara,
and blush.
I felt emancipated.
I'd peeled back the veneer of years of stringent policies,
revealing my authentic self.

My personality bloomed, all in a good way.
It felt great.

Grandma worried over nothing.
Just look at me now...