Breaking Bad!

Hat the heck, may as well go back to 1969...

The marches are over the school is integrated, and I have my first and last black teachers because I went to summer school in 
'69 so I could graduate as a Junior in June of 1970.  I needed only one English credit to graduate and I had a plan!!

I recall very well how it was when we lined up to watch the buses bring black kids in...then later their homes were added to our bus routes...I rode a school bus until we moved into the city limits and either my sis who is 5 yrs older drove us or we walked back n forth after that.

So if I could go back to 1969...I would correct all the mistakes I now know I made when I was a teen, when I was a young adult, and through each decade...I can list them one by one.  I know exactly when my pivotal points were and how I made some wrong and some right decisions...some I agonized over others I didn't even know I was making a life altering decision until ole' hindsight came into being...sometimes that takes a lifetime.  Im sure I am making one right now but I don't know it  yet.  I don't have the wisdom I keep hoping to gain and it eludes me in some instances, most especially in relationships. 

I'd rather not be bothered.  I don't want to make commitments, I don't want to compromise, and I don't want to "work on my issues".  At this point I feel as if I earned each one.  I have these issues because of: those pivotal points.  

Why did I go on that hayride, why did I say I'd meet Gaye at the Burger Family, why did I let that jerk ride my horse so I could drive his corvette? Why didn't Deborah tell us what she was going through...Why did my 5th grade science teacher Mr Melton threaten to jump out of the window of the 3rd story right in front of us...I froze unable to move...Poor guy he was literally at the end of his rope.  Then the kids were going around calling him Mr Meltdown. You see these events altered my life...but how was I to know?? Somethings and some people the harder you push the farther away they get...then  you stop pushing and there is nothing left. 

In 1970 all the black and white schools consolidated in our county. 
So I had Mrs Collins for US History, she was a black educator who was sent to our high school campus to teach that year.  She was a good teacher excellent in fact....but she was fat.  SO all the kids made such fun of her and  if you didn't agree that she was fat, then you were ridiculed too.  I liked Mrs Collins, and I leaned a lot from her.

Then there was Mr. H.  I completely forgot his whole name...because we all called him Mr. H.  Do you know who Henry Louis Gates Jr is? Well he reminds me so much of Mr. H.  A very small, neat, quiet and highly intelligent English Lit. teacher who I liked so much but I rarely got to sit in his class as my friend who I had that class with 6th period always talked me into skipping Mr H's class.  She hated Blacks as did most of the kids I knew.  NOT me or my sisters we were never brought up with racism.  Not one word uttered in our home about any race.
So....
Joy encouraged me to skip school with her, we would walk to the Burger Family (think pre Burger King) and have a milkshake! I had no money she would pay...OK Then!  It was about 1 mile from school.  So we huffed it down Laurens St. and we  got about 4 blocks away and there he was...

He was 7 feet tall if he was an inch and he wore a size 14 shoe...he carried a billy club and a big radio attached to his belt and always smiled even when he was trying to scare the living hell out of you...it was  Roscoe the school truant officer! If you want a visual to me he resembled Fred Gwynne, who played Herman Munster. 

We saw him when he pulled his patrol car over,  he slid his club down inside the big belt after he got out, pulled his pants up, then walked toward and  behind us.  I was trembling, my friend grabbed my hand and headed us up a walkway and onto the porch of a nice well kept 2 story home on the left...She began to knock on the door...no one answered, and by then he was on the steps...

"Hi there girls, why are you off school grounds?"
My friend did the talking as I just stood there; being I was only there cause she wanted me there and I really would rather have been back in Mr H's class reading about Shakespeare or Lord Bryon.  

So Joy replied...."My Aunt lives here  we're gonna have lunch here today."
Seniors could leave the school for lunch...but lunch was well over by 2 pm. And he knew it..but he looked at  his watch sort of to let us know he was no fool.
So he didn't get upset or give us a speech, he said,..
"So your aunt lives here eh?" 
"Yes sir...sure does." 
Well how is it you're a white girl and the lady who lives here is a ( 1) negro lady  , I see her out here watering her flowers all the time, and when she is not at work she sits here on the porch in that rocking chair and I've had many nice conversations with her."
So my friend thought a minute...then said,

"OH, that is the MAID."
OH MY GOODNESS. 

That did it...I thought he was gonna bust an artery his lips got tight and his face got red and I just wanted to crawl in a hole. 
He turned our asses toward school and he slowly followed in his cruiser till we got to the school and went inside...We were too ashamed to creep into Mr H's class already in session and so we went into the girl's bathroom and hid till the last bell rang! 

Another time same girl convinced me to cut class to go to a new   store Grand Opening..."They are giving out free hot dogs, balloons, and the radio station is gonna be live!" Really
"So what's this new store?"
"It's called Wall Mart." 
"Never hear of it."
"Me neither but free hot dogs?"
Okay so we headed North off the campus up Broad St to the area called Dusty Bend...a little over  a mile walk...
When we got there that free hot dog and COKE was mighty good...there was a lot of people, they had clowns, balloons, and the radio people were there...SO we walked over to their outdoor booth and the DJ guy sticks a mic in my face and asks, "what's your name?"
"MY name is Sondra..." and then I proceeded to tell him my whole name...
Little did I know my sis was out driving in the car she had the radio on...it was 11 am in the morning...on a school day and guess who she just heard on the radio? 
Yes --->she told on me!! OMG 
I never got away with ANYTHING when I  tried to Break Bad!

(1)   no one used the term black in those days, not until the "Black Power" movement of 1966 coined  the term 'black' and later in the mid 1970's it become the accepted terminology