NEW CONFIDENCE

          “Try outs for the ninth grade play will be held today.  If you are interested in a part, see me in the gym.” Mr. Mahoney said.

          The announcement intrigued me.  Later in the day, I made my way to the gym.

          “Miss Williams, why don’t you try out for the part of Miss Spinster?”

          I wrinkled my nose in distaste.

          “That is a cameo part Miss Williams and I’m confident you could put a lot into the character.”

*************************************************************

          The curtain rose on the “Jury was Hung” to a packed audience of Hotchkiss students and parents.

          As “Miss Spinster” I flirted with the foreman of the jury throughout the production.  Finally my finale scene arrived and I threw caution to the wind playing it to the hilt.  My swept up hair bun swayed as I flew across the stage in hot pursuit of the foreman (alias George Wilson). Throwing my arms around him I planted a loud kiss on his made-up cheek. “Oh Mr. Wren, you are just toooo cute for words!” I squealed.

          The audience roared and I loved every minute of it.

          “I have never laughed so hard in all my life,” Agnes said after the play.

“You were terrific,” complimented Diana.

          The click of ninth grade girls surrounded me and gave me approval of my performance.
                                                          ***********

       The all school picnic was held on the last Friday of the school year. When the coach called for participants in the pie-eating contest I decided to give it a try.  The contestants were lined up behind a wooden table, covered with large napkins and told to keep their hands behind their backs.  My pie was crème, which was fine with me.

“Get set! Start eating!

My face hit the crème filling.  It was hard to keep my hands behind my back and only eat with my mouth.

The onlookers cheered from the sidelines.  My face tried to cover the whole pie and swallow without chewing.  Finally the coach blew his whistle.  One of the boys at the end of the table had finished his pie. I looked at the other pie eaters and we broke into laughter.  All faces were covered with cherry or crème pie filling.

I ran to the outdoor water spicket and began washing the sticky crème from my face, eyebrows and hair.  The group of ninth grade girls joined me.

“We were rooting for you Gloria,” Agnes laughed.

“Well, as you can see...I tried,” I laughed back, as I took my fingers and worked some glued crème off my eyebrows.

“Come on Gloria, let’s get a hot dog and a coke,” Diana invited with a bright smile.

The circle of girls opened and I walked along joining in their chatter and giggles.  I would never think of this group of girls as a “click” again, for no longer would I be an outsider.  They became my friends. The walls had come down.  I belonged.

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Hotchkiss Colorado....the girls who became my friends....taken at the High School

         

         

KIRTLAND, NEW MEXICO

A traveler passing through Kirtland might have mistaken the small village for heavier populated countryside.  Far spaced houses, large shade trees, one gas station with restaurant, and one church made up Kirtland.

Behind many of the houses were cornfields and farmland.  It was a warm, cordial community, and I made many friends before school ever began.

          The last of the summer, with companions, was enjoyable.  We waded in a nearby green-banked creek, splashing each other and catching tadpoles.  Hide and seek was played in the cornfields, as we wondered if we would ever find our way out again, and when we did emerge, we itched all over.  We ran freely in the town where no one was a stranger.

           When school began I had an incredible feeling...”I belonged!”  My personality blossomed with the acceptance I experienced.  I received two honors that boosted my lacking self-esteem, cheerleader and Homecoming Princess.  As far as I was concerned we could live here forever.

The school in Kirtland did not consist of only those from the

Community.  Buses transported children from the Indian reservation and from farms miles around.

           Bronco was in first grade.  The day of his seventh birthday, Mom told him he could invite a few friends after school for a birthday party.  Bronco invited “every one” of his classmates.  Mom panicked and cut the cake and ice cream into smaller servings.  After the party, with the station wagon packed full, she spent two hours delivering Indian children (who usually rode the bus) to their homes on the nearby reservation.

          Kirtland was predominately a Mormon settlement.  Many of my friends were Mormon.  Most of them came from large families, but Jenny, a pretty blond girl, topped them all.  She was her parent’s twenty- first child.  (There had been three sets of twins).  When I visited Jenny’s house, I marveled how her small, healthy mother ever survived.

          I attended a couple of church services with my friends, but I didn’t understand what the Elder was saying, and I was bored.   The entertainment of the community centered on the church.  On Wednesday nights, they showed a secular movie in the basement and everyone came.  It was a convenient time to sit next to a current boyfriend.  I learned to dance in the Mormon church hall at the weekend dances.  Mom let me attend them because there was no liquor allowed.

          Deryl and Mom also made friends who were Mormon, but they didn’t follow the convictions of their church when it came to alcohol.  The couples began attending dances in nightclubs and drinking.  They laughingly called these escapades, “honky-tonkin.”

          On mornings following the nights of “honky Tonkin”, Mom would get up late.

          “Be quiet kids, Deryl doesn’t feel good.  He has a headache.”

          I noticed Mom wasn’t too chipper herself!

          Drinking, and the companionship of others that did the same, was becoming a part of their social life.  To them it was only a lark, something they could give up at anytime.

          We would find out alcohol was our enemy.