Welcome to the Kibitz!
with Richard Marcus and Nobody N. Particular
So, The “Chosen” one says, “Go forth and BLOG!!!” sigh
Chosen
It was 1959, and it was me, a Jewish kid in elementary school, against Gagliano, Stamingo and O’Mera. What chance did I have?
by Richard Marcus
Gagliano. Stamingo. O’Mera.
Their names sounded like the mob muscle spawned in Hell’s Kitchen and Five Points. But they were tougher than those thugs. And they wore makeup. They were my elementary school teachers. It was 1959.
Ah, O’Mera. Her rimless glasses and squat, angry potato body hovered over me on a daily basis in anticipation of my next screw up. She was almost never disappointed.
By third grade Miss Stamingo would send me to Principal Whitman’s office without even the benefit of a trial. I understood. I had already been tried and found guilty of everything for eternity in Miss Gagliano’s lower court of second grade. Since my criminal record had proceded me, there was no need to cover old ground. I was resigned to the fact that any disturbance occurring within 15 yards of my Sears-and-Roebuck-Kid’s-Mix-n’
I spent so much time sitting in Principal Whitman’s office that I like to think there’s a velvet rope across that hard wooden chair on which I squirmed almost daily. Maybe even a small plaque with my name on it honoring my many years of service.
Related Article: A Jewish Child on Christmas
The second most heinous crime I ever committed was when I told Miss Stamingo (who played the piano for all the music classes) that my rabbi ordered us to refuse to sing Christmas carols.
As I trudged to Mr. Whitman’s office, I figured not singing carols because I was Jewish must be a whole different way of being wrong.
I secretly felt that my religious boycott was a very courageous act on my part. Not because I was a nine-year-old who was inflaming the wrath of a woman whose Catholic indoctrination (and anti-Semitism) began in the less enlightened 1880′s. It was an act of kid bravery and sacrifice because I liked Christmas carols. I liked to sing. And I did have a nice voice. In fact, except for the Jesus part, I liked Christmas. I mean, what did Jewish kids have back then? Chanukah? Forget it.
These days it’s been super sized. But back then Chanukah was a minor, vaguely understood celebration. Every Jewish kid knew that you could get a lot more presents under that tree than you could ever shove under a menorah.
Jewish parent/child negotiations had stalled at the “Eight nights = eight presents” rule. We were the “Chosen People” except when it came to how much kids could choose from the FAO Schwartz Christmas catalogue. Another irony; a guy named “Schwartz” puts out a Christmas catalogue?
Chanukah didn’t have even one remotely catchy or inspirational tune. Nobody was dreaming of a white Chanukah. “I Had A Little Dreidel”? Seriously?
I suppose I was getting mixed messages about a lot of things. Which was why the next year, when O’Mera broke out the lyric sheets for “Silent Night” and “Oh Christmas Tree,” I, who marched to the beat of a different drummer boy, went to Principal Whitman’s office without even being asked.
Every morning when I walked into her class, I fought the feeling that just by showing up I’d spoiled her day. I realize, now, that it took grit for a little kid to enter a room knowing he was in the cross hairs of a dangerous mind.
It was the day after I had refused to sing the carols in O’Mera’s class when it happened. My name was called. (In a cartoon it would have been drawn “frozen,” with icicles hanging from it.)
I knew the drill: Up to her desk, head down, get chewed out, then listening to the desolate echo of my footsteps as I trudged down the empty, well waxed hallway to the chair.
She mumbled through my career of past felonies. But then her voice got this weird sound in it. I heard her say that I was a trouble maker and always would be a trouble maker. Okay. We know this. Just stamp my file with whatever violation I committed and let me go do my time.
But O’Mera shook me from my daydream by turning to the class and announcing that I was “insane and went to a doctor for crazy people.” Then she looked at me as if she was waiting for me to, I don’t know, explode? Melt? Admit I was a nut case? I was fascinated. Not only because I felt the announcement of such a thing was a new level of cruelty and shame – she was always raising the bar on that score – but because she was wrong.
Those monsters in a flower print dresses were a lot of things – mean, hard, unforgiving, but to a kid in the 1950’s they were never, ever wrong.
Except on that day. Wouldn’t I know if I was going to a doctor for crazy people? I didn’t go to any doctor except for Dr. Hirsch. And every kid in town went to Dr. Hirsch. Miss O’Mera was wrong. And this thing she was saying – it didn’t make sense. Then it sunk in. She was using a lie to embarrass me in front of the whole class. She was trying to ruin my whole life. She was about to make every future recess and lunch and kick ball games – previously off limits to teacher’s opinions and criminal records – a living hell.
I did something no kid had ever done. What did I have to lose? I was dead either way. I yelled back.
“You’re wrong! I don’t see any doctor!”
It was a toss up as to who was more surprised.
Miss O’Mera’s usually florid countenance dropped several shades into a thunderhead of raging purple. I immediately flashed on Miss Stamingo’s quiet, frigid mustache hairs. I would have welcomed them.
O’Mera squawked that my being crazy was in a place called my “records” (It was on an album?). Then she said I was seeing someone called a “psychologist.” Ah ha! I knew she was lying. There was no grownup in my life with any name like “psychologist.” Dr. Hirsch was a “pediatrician.” My dad’s company had a “Superintendent” named “George,” and my mom’s friend, Sandy, was a “Dance Therapist.” Those were the most complicated grown up names in my life. I felt an even stronger sense of purpose.
“You’re wrong! I don’t see anybody called a psychologist!” I yelled with all the fervor and truth my stout little body could marshal. (I was also quite impressed that I pronounced “psychologist” correctly). Sure, I was crying. I was terrified. I was taking on “The Man.” “The System.” Nurse Ratched.
Then I had a sense of another force at work: The class.
They were hanging on every word. They weren’t actually rooting for me. (Mobs hedge their bets till they see who’s winning). I couldn’t blame them. They were as scared as I was. And yet…
Miss O’Mera became more livid and insistent that I was a horrible, evil psychotic troll (not her words exactly). I kept shouting my passionate denials. “Wrong! You are wrong!!”
I could see the fascination on my classmates’ faces. Nobody knew how this was going to turn out. A kid, a Jewish kid no less, was standing up to one of them and to the injustice that was heaped upon little kids all day long. I yelled one more time, although not quite as loud. Dr. Hirsch was my doctor and she could call him if she wanted and he’d tell her.
I caught O’Mera’s look. There was a flicker in her eyes and a pinched lipped grimace of frustration. I stood my ground. Mostly because I knew I was right but also because there was nowhere for me to go. She studied me hard for several moments. Perhaps the calling-Dr.-Hirsch gambit was a really good threat. Then she straightened up. She let out the tiniest pfft of air. I knew what was coming next. I wondered if Whitman would even bother to come out and talk to me or would I just sit in the chair till I was 65 years old.
“Go back to your seat,” she said.
I was stunned. For a moment I didn’t understand English. My “seat?” In the class?
None of us knew what would happen next. The world was a very different place if things like this could happen.
Miss O’Mera went back to whatever it was the class had been doing. (Her slides of The Grand Canyon, or some trip she’d taken last summer with Miss Stamingo and Miss Gagliano.) I didn’t hear a word. I was glowing. Laughing dreidels spun in my head.
It felt great. It still feels great 43 years later. Even after, about 30 years ago, I realized that the really nice guy, Mr. Mecklin, who I went and talked to every Tuesday, was probably a psychologist.
(once I get this all caught up, Richard will be able to make sense of it. Sorting our emails in the right order is borking up the process, but I’ll get back to it when I get the posting perms all sorted out)
======================================================================
Their names sounded like the mob muscle spawned in Hell’s Kitchen and Five Points. But they were tougher than those thugs. And they wore makeup. They were my elementary school teachers. It was 1959.
Ah, O’Mera. Her rimless glasses and squat, angry potato body hovered over me on a daily basis in anticipation of my next screw up. She was almost never disappointed.
By third grade Miss Stamingo would send me to Principal Whitman’s office without even the benefit of a trial. I understood. I had already been tried and found guilty of everything for eternity in Miss Gagliano’s lower court of second grade. Since my criminal record had proceded me, there was no need to cover old ground. I was resigned to the fact that any disturbance occurring within 15 yards of my Sears-and-Roebuck-Kid’s-Mix-n’
I spent so much time sitting in Principal Whitman’s office that I like to think there’s a velvet rope across that hard wooden chair on which I squirmed almost daily. Maybe even a small plaque with my name on it honoring my many years of service.
Related Article: A Jewish Child on Christmas
The second most heinous crime I ever committed was when I told Miss Stamingo (who played the piano for all the music classes) that my rabbi ordered us to refuse to sing Christmas carols.
I figured not singing carols because I was Jewish must be a whole different way of being wrong.Rabbi Gartner had assured us that our teachers would understand. Miss Stamingo did not understand. Her face became a frigid sheet of stone. Bristling, little powdered mustache hairs in the corners of her mouth sprang to life. Her usually bored, sing-song tone became hard, clipped. “That’s too bad,” she said. “You have such a nice singing voice.”
As I trudged to Mr. Whitman’s office, I figured not singing carols because I was Jewish must be a whole different way of being wrong.
I secretly felt that my religious boycott was a very courageous act on my part. Not because I was a nine-year-old who was inflaming the wrath of a woman whose Catholic indoctrination (and anti-Semitism) began in the less enlightened 1880′s. It was an act of kid bravery and sacrifice because I liked Christmas carols. I liked to sing. And I did have a nice voice. In fact, except for the Jesus part, I liked Christmas. I mean, what did Jewish kids have back then? Chanukah? Forget it.
These days it’s been super sized. But back then Chanukah was a minor, vaguely understood celebration. Every Jewish kid knew that you could get a lot more presents under that tree than you could ever shove under a menorah.
Jewish parent/child negotiations had stalled at the “Eight nights = eight presents” rule. We were the “Chosen People” except when it came to how much kids could choose from the FAO Schwartz Christmas catalogue. Another irony; a guy named “Schwartz” puts out a Christmas catalogue?
Chanukah didn’t have even one remotely catchy or inspirational tune. Nobody was dreaming of a white Chanukah. “I Had A Little Dreidel”? Seriously?
I suppose I was getting mixed messages about a lot of things. Which was why the next year, when O’Mera broke out the lyric sheets for “Silent Night” and “Oh Christmas Tree,” I, who marched to the beat of a different drummer boy, went to Principal Whitman’s office without even being asked.
With O’Mera and me, it became personal.For Stamingo and Gagliano, meting out punishment was merely part of the job description. They executed their obligations with a detached, governmental efficiency. But to us it felt like O’Mera enjoyed not only punishing us, she loved the hunt, taking pride in breaking our morale and running us to ground. It’s one thing to feel like you’ve broken every elementary school law on the books. It’s another when a teacher makes it personal. With O’Mera and me, it became personal.
Every morning when I walked into her class, I fought the feeling that just by showing up I’d spoiled her day. I realize, now, that it took grit for a little kid to enter a room knowing he was in the cross hairs of a dangerous mind.
It was the day after I had refused to sing the carols in O’Mera’s class when it happened. My name was called. (In a cartoon it would have been drawn “frozen,” with icicles hanging from it.)
I knew the drill: Up to her desk, head down, get chewed out, then listening to the desolate echo of my footsteps as I trudged down the empty, well waxed hallway to the chair.
She mumbled through my career of past felonies. But then her voice got this weird sound in it. I heard her say that I was a trouble maker and always would be a trouble maker. Okay. We know this. Just stamp my file with whatever violation I committed and let me go do my time.
But O’Mera shook me from my daydream by turning to the class and announcing that I was “insane and went to a doctor for crazy people.” Then she looked at me as if she was waiting for me to, I don’t know, explode? Melt? Admit I was a nut case? I was fascinated. Not only because I felt the announcement of such a thing was a new level of cruelty and shame – she was always raising the bar on that score – but because she was wrong.
Those monsters in a flower print dresses were a lot of things – mean, hard, unforgiving, but to a kid in the 1950’s they were never, ever wrong.
Except on that day. Wouldn’t I know if I was going to a doctor for crazy people? I didn’t go to any doctor except for Dr. Hirsch. And every kid in town went to Dr. Hirsch. Miss O’Mera was wrong. And this thing she was saying – it didn’t make sense. Then it sunk in. She was using a lie to embarrass me in front of the whole class. She was trying to ruin my whole life. She was about to make every future recess and lunch and kick ball games – previously off limits to teacher’s opinions and criminal records – a living hell.
I did something no kid had ever done. I yelled back. “You’re wrong!In the general prison population a troublemaker’s rep bought you a bit of positive notoriety. But really wacko? Dangerous crazy kid, chase somebody with scissors, psycho maniac?! Whoa. I’d known a few. You were shunned. Invisible. Permanent cooties. I realized I was fighting for my life up there. And she was wrong. I had to think of something. What?!
I did something no kid had ever done. What did I have to lose? I was dead either way. I yelled back.
“You’re wrong! I don’t see any doctor!”
It was a toss up as to who was more surprised.
Miss O’Mera’s usually florid countenance dropped several shades into a thunderhead of raging purple. I immediately flashed on Miss Stamingo’s quiet, frigid mustache hairs. I would have welcomed them.
O’Mera squawked that my being crazy was in a place called my “records” (It was on an album?). Then she said I was seeing someone called a “psychologist.” Ah ha! I knew she was lying. There was no grownup in my life with any name like “psychologist.” Dr. Hirsch was a “pediatrician.” My dad’s company had a “Superintendent” named “George,” and my mom’s friend, Sandy, was a “Dance Therapist.” Those were the most complicated grown up names in my life. I felt an even stronger sense of purpose.
“You’re wrong! I don’t see anybody called a psychologist!” I yelled with all the fervor and truth my stout little body could marshal. (I was also quite impressed that I pronounced “psychologist” correctly). Sure, I was crying. I was terrified. I was taking on “The Man.” “The System.” Nurse Ratched.
Then I had a sense of another force at work: The class.
They were hanging on every word. They weren’t actually rooting for me. (Mobs hedge their bets till they see who’s winning). I couldn’t blame them. They were as scared as I was. And yet…
Miss O’Mera became more livid and insistent that I was a horrible, evil psychotic troll (not her words exactly). I kept shouting my passionate denials. “Wrong! You are wrong!!”
I could see the fascination on my classmates’ faces. Nobody knew how this was going to turn out. A kid, a Jewish kid no less, was standing up to one of them and to the injustice that was heaped upon little kids all day long. I yelled one more time, although not quite as loud. Dr. Hirsch was my doctor and she could call him if she wanted and he’d tell her.
I caught O’Mera’s look. There was a flicker in her eyes and a pinched lipped grimace of frustration. I stood my ground. Mostly because I knew I was right but also because there was nowhere for me to go. She studied me hard for several moments. Perhaps the calling-Dr.-Hirsch gambit was a really good threat. Then she straightened up. She let out the tiniest pfft of air. I knew what was coming next. I wondered if Whitman would even bother to come out and talk to me or would I just sit in the chair till I was 65 years old.
“Go back to your seat,” she said.
I was stunned. For a moment I didn’t understand English. My “seat?” In the class?
The class was dead silent as I went back to my seat. But I could tell they were in awe.I didn’t know why I knew it, but I knew. I’d won. She had nothing on me. A teacher had made a mistake of gigantic proportions. I’d stood my ground for truth and justice and the American way! No. Make that in the American Jewish way. The class was dead silent as I went back to my seat. But I could tell they were in awe.
None of us knew what would happen next. The world was a very different place if things like this could happen.
Miss O’Mera went back to whatever it was the class had been doing. (Her slides of The Grand Canyon, or some trip she’d taken last summer with Miss Stamingo and Miss Gagliano.) I didn’t hear a word. I was glowing. Laughing dreidels spun in my head.
It felt great. It still feels great 43 years later. Even after, about 30 years ago, I realized that the really nice guy, Mr. Mecklin, who I went and talked to every Tuesday, was probably a psychologist.
(once I get this all caught up, Richard will be able to make sense of it. Sorting our emails in the right order is borking up the process, but I’ll get back to it when I get the posting perms all sorted out)
======================================================================
<email to Richard after reading, "Chosen">
So, Richard, I see you’ve met the stepmonster….
No wonder you thought I’d read it already!
This had me slapping my desk so I didn’t have to stop reading!
“No…wait..don’t laugh now!”
That as new and wonderful sensation!
Ohhhh, my desk is in the way of my knee, so I couldn’t slap THAT.
Good GRIEF!
At the beginning, it took me so long to stop laughing, I had to stop it somehow.
And now I have to know…
How in the HELL did you manage to stand your ground wearing those LAME-ASSED, fugly, Sears and Roebuck mixables?
I HATED those things with a PURPLE PASSION! (except for the ones with Winnie the Pooh on them)
If I HAD to wear that crap, it might as well have Pooh on it.
Oh, the chagrin!
And I was NOT alone!
When I saw another mixable kid, we compared notes.
Me: “Pooh, huh?”
Kid: “pfft…yeah…”
Me: “So, where does your dad work?
Kid: “NASA”
Me: “Yeah!? My dad works at Ft. Meade. What’s your Dad do?”
Kid: (the coolest thing on the planet) “Yours?”
Me: “tsk, dot dot dit dit dot dot dash!”
Kid: “Dayamn No clue?
Me: Whatever a systems analyst is, he does it with computers.
Both – “MM hmm”, (stinkeye) followed by the standard “Why do we have to look like freaks?” rant
“Did they get you in TAG?”
“Oh, Hell no!”
“Me neither but damn it was close! I missed it by TWO points!”
“Are you crazy?”
“Apparently, but I dodged that bullet!”
“I felt really bad for Good ol’ Quick Draw McGraw, he really looked disappointed.
Mr. McGraw was a REALLY great Vice-Principal, but Aaron McGruder later called this kind of teacher him a well-intentioned, “irresponsible white person”.
I wonder if he too, went on to teach white kids how to say, “Harambe” in a MD University Black studies class. I LOVE “The Boondocks”, but that was the nickname of my hometown, Bowie, MD up until the 80s when I left the east coast.
Me: “So, didja get your big brother’s “Mad Magazine”?”
Kid: “SHAZAM!”
Me:”NEAT-O! Let’s Batman over under that jungle gym so we won’t get mobbed, it’s not like those idiots can read or anything. “Colonel Klink is over kicking 2nd graders, so let’s go THAT way just in case. They’ll just take it away, look at the pictures and tear it up. Then, your brother will knock your block off! So let’s (football huddle strategy), OK?”
Kid: “Good idea! Ready, set go!”
Both: “dan na nana-nana-nana…BAT MAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaan!!!”
They thought we didn’t notice the kids bused in not only had their clothes together, but knew what to do with their HAIR!
The stink-eyes abound.
Real clothes were too good for me.
Did I tell you she was from Hackensack and got her masters at Pitt?
And get this, Black and DUTCH and possibly native! Or that might be her stepdad’s side. I can’t be bothered, she knew better. I will bother for little while longer, however. It’s a story she wrote herself and told me to share….so, here’s me sharing, already.
I forgot that little tidbit of information, but we’ll get there, believe you me!
I started purge-writing JUST before we met at the grocery store.
You could do THAT math on your fingers.
Oooh, how UP, she married…
And she got her master’s at Pitt..at the drive thru or a blue light special, one presumes…..driving a hard-top Austin Healey and I’m supposed to believe…..(rant)
But seriously, how were we expected to grow up with any kind of self esteem while dressed like a fucking FREAK of nature? Not when I know the feel of REAL silk, cotton, linen and wool from HER closet.
Yeah, let me guess where my savings bonds went.
/me flips off Macy’s
And for Yoda knows why, she played Janis Ian’s album ALL THE TIME! I love Janis, but “At Seventeen” NOT for ME!
I couldn’t understand why she tried to drill that at me while doing my chores, cleaning MOTHER’s house, (not hers). After the bitchwork, I retreated to my prison cell/ bedroom to undo the bad programming…in case I hadn’t done so myself.
My teen angst album was Styx, the Grand Illusion.
Pink Floyd’s The Wall,
The Beatles everything….especially Revolver.
Her bird was most definitely green.
People were oppressively “mature” around me.
In elementary school it was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Burl Ives’ “Mares eat Oats” song as a big hit, for me.
I once terrorized the family with “How Much is the Doggy in the Window?”
It didn’t work.
All it got me was a hamster, and the useless little poop dispenser bit me!
I was thoroughly disgusted.
“Just like a Tribble, my Aunt Tushie!”
(Seriously, we joked like that, ISUN)
So, Richard, I see you’ve met the stepmonster….
No wonder you thought I’d read it already!
This had me slapping my desk so I didn’t have to stop reading!
“No…wait..don’t laugh now!”
That as new and wonderful sensation!
Ohhhh, my desk is in the way of my knee, so I couldn’t slap THAT.
Good GRIEF!
At the beginning, it took me so long to stop laughing, I had to stop it somehow.
And now I have to know…
How in the HELL did you manage to stand your ground wearing those LAME-ASSED, fugly, Sears and Roebuck mixables?
I HATED those things with a PURPLE PASSION! (except for the ones with Winnie the Pooh on them)
If I HAD to wear that crap, it might as well have Pooh on it.
Oh, the chagrin!
And I was NOT alone!
When I saw another mixable kid, we compared notes.
Me: “Pooh, huh?”
Kid: “pfft…yeah…”
Me: “So, where does your dad work?
Kid: “NASA”
Me: “Yeah!? My dad works at Ft. Meade. What’s your Dad do?”
Kid: (the coolest thing on the planet) “Yours?”
Me: “tsk, dot dot dit dit dot dot dash!”
Kid: “Dayamn No clue?
Me: Whatever a systems analyst is, he does it with computers.
Both – “MM hmm”, (stinkeye) followed by the standard “Why do we have to look like freaks?” rant
“Did they get you in TAG?”
“Oh, Hell no!”
“Me neither but damn it was close! I missed it by TWO points!”
“Are you crazy?”
“Apparently, but I dodged that bullet!”
“I felt really bad for Good ol’ Quick Draw McGraw, he really looked disappointed.
Mr. McGraw was a REALLY great Vice-Principal, but Aaron McGruder later called this kind of teacher him a well-intentioned, “irresponsible white person”.
I wonder if he too, went on to teach white kids how to say, “Harambe” in a MD University Black studies class. I LOVE “The Boondocks”, but that was the nickname of my hometown, Bowie, MD up until the 80s when I left the east coast.
Me: “So, didja get your big brother’s “Mad Magazine”?”
Kid: “SHAZAM!”
Me:”NEAT-O! Let’s Batman over under that jungle gym so we won’t get mobbed, it’s not like those idiots can read or anything. “Colonel Klink is over kicking 2nd graders, so let’s go THAT way just in case. They’ll just take it away, look at the pictures and tear it up. Then, your brother will knock your block off! So let’s (football huddle strategy), OK?”
Kid: “Good idea! Ready, set go!”
Both: “dan na nana-nana-nana…BAT MAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaan!!!”
They thought we didn’t notice the kids bused in not only had their clothes together, but knew what to do with their HAIR!
The stink-eyes abound.
Real clothes were too good for me.
Did I tell you she was from Hackensack and got her masters at Pitt?
And get this, Black and DUTCH and possibly native! Or that might be her stepdad’s side. I can’t be bothered, she knew better. I will bother for little while longer, however. It’s a story she wrote herself and told me to share….so, here’s me sharing, already.
I forgot that little tidbit of information, but we’ll get there, believe you me!
I started purge-writing JUST before we met at the grocery store.
You could do THAT math on your fingers.
Oooh, how UP, she married…
And she got her master’s at Pitt..at the drive thru or a blue light special, one presumes…..driving a hard-top Austin Healey and I’m supposed to believe…..(rant)
But seriously, how were we expected to grow up with any kind of self esteem while dressed like a fucking FREAK of nature? Not when I know the feel of REAL silk, cotton, linen and wool from HER closet.
Yeah, let me guess where my savings bonds went.
/me flips off Macy’s
And for Yoda knows why, she played Janis Ian’s album ALL THE TIME! I love Janis, but “At Seventeen” NOT for ME!
I couldn’t understand why she tried to drill that at me while doing my chores, cleaning MOTHER’s house, (not hers). After the bitchwork, I retreated to my prison cell/ bedroom to undo the bad programming…in case I hadn’t done so myself.
My teen angst album was Styx, the Grand Illusion.
Pink Floyd’s The Wall,
The Beatles everything….especially Revolver.
Her bird was most definitely green.
People were oppressively “mature” around me.
In elementary school it was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Burl Ives’ “Mares eat Oats” song as a big hit, for me.
I once terrorized the family with “How Much is the Doggy in the Window?”
It didn’t work.
All it got me was a hamster, and the useless little poop dispenser bit me!
I was thoroughly disgusted.
“Just like a Tribble, my Aunt Tushie!”
(Seriously, we joked like that, ISUN)
I started out in Levittown, “Destined for Greatness, genius, musician, not-black, not-white, NOT a Loyola college student, flashing target worth 5x bonus if you get it stuck in her fro, International lover and Gay friendly.”
In the Navy – AX3 – unimpressed, black, female, aviation antisubmarine warfare technician, pregnant discharge, had no interest in West Point, unretainable, go fuck up FAA before she helps her best friend fix things not to be fucked with because her uncle is the base’s Legal Masterchief and we failed her dad’s inspection in every possible way. She knows and hates us for being THAT ignorant and for the miscarriage we caused, we know it, but she can’t prove it so it didn’t happen.
By the time I was in ATL, I was back on the corporate plantation, they said, “sleep apnea”, “depression”, “outsourced”, “overqualified”.
I wasn’t ‘bipolar’ until I tried to talk my way out of something after a Walmart manager forgot to wear her sign and didn’t tell me I was talking WAY over her head!
And she was BLACK! Add “wasichu, and a whole list of other shit I’m not in the mood to list that basically equates to “block her at every opportunity before some idiot gives her a real job and fucks up my world view”
NEVER hug your NDN-way, Kiowa sister at the Anadarko Walmart.
I think the label in Fargo read, “uppity”, because they wouldn’t buy a work ethic even if you gave them a scholarship to “Get a Fucking Clue Academy”.
Hopelessly unmainstreamable = 100% disability.
Thank you President Obama, for confiscating those VA Admin paper shredders which I will be referencing at length because HELL YES, my life is a helluva lot better, thank you, bravo, may the Force be With You.
I’m safe in a BLUE STATE now and finally feeling safe for once.
======================================================================
NOOOooooooo!
Not a BLOG!!!!
*cough* *wheeze*
For a UNIX Networking geekgoddess, the dimensional downshift is excruciating, but I might as well see what they’re padding resumes with these days.
When Richard started reading my work, he said it was kind of scattered, but he said he liked what I was up to. As I tried to explain the skillsets involved, I said, “Dammit, I need a STAFF!”
He fell out laughing and I’m like, “What, it’s TRUE?”
He said, “That’s a white man’s problem”.
“HA! Not-EVEN! That’s a high-effort thinker’s problem because you haven’t seen STOOPID until you’ve interviewed with a CEO!”
And that’s why I’m currently in love with the word, “BLOVIATING”….
It’s a lovely word and we’ve been good friends so far.
I forgot who used it to describe some wingnut on a mission, but it’s frilliant!
Take a deep breath and let her rip…. bloooooooow-viating…..
Bloviation is a style of empty, pompous, political speech particularly associated with Ohio due to the term’s popularization by United States President Warren G.
By age 12, they’d threw me in a kilt and the standardized tests pinged me about a second year college level in language arts. meh I’ll bet Oprah came to the school because they bragged how high I scored on it. Oh please. Most of those kids weren’t even reading worth a crap by 2nd grade. They just wanted to pimp the school voucher agenda. Oprah was lovely, but a kid threw and n-bomb at her and I think that’s where I really started using the English language like a blunt instrument.
Black folks were welcome when the country was building things, but wow…as soon as they got greedy and inflation started squeezing out the middle, we weren’t all that welcome and Boogeyman Inc was starting to shut that whole thing down. Kids were getting too smart, too fast. Well, some kids. Others were told their skintones would save them and started sending their little minions out to protect their interests. NIMBY was what they called it and that’s what they created, MD’s 4th district in their very own back yard.
1969? – age 4 That book was my favorite for years.
1969? – age 4 That book was my favorite for years.
For the record, as if they didn’t hear me back then, I absolutely positively HATED my hair locked up in braids. Olga, who took care of me after Mother passed, was right all along. My hair should have been styled WET! But the stepmonster insisted on the morning torture session forcing my hair to look THAT stupid!
As it turns out, the solution was water and extra-virgin olive oil and something that covered the smell. Thank you my sistahs far and wide who gave me back my lovely curls.
My 5th birthday.
My 5th birthday.
I HATED that head donut!
Oddly, ten years later, the Jewish girl next to me revealed she adored it. Her mother wouldn’t give her a donut, and I wasn’t allowed to have my “Hair blow in the breeze, like hers!”
Richard is helping me write a book from stories my betters have found amusing over the years. The title is, “The Autobiography of Nobody N. Particular”….and has been for a few years now…..sigh.
Not long ago, when I re-started my genealogy research, I found an article about my great great grandmother. And started laying it out on Tumblr.
http://thygeekgoddess.tumblr.com/post/50042879678/nobodyinparticular
I’ll do the roll call on this photo later, but will link our facebook reunion here.
when I find it. or whatever… because I’m getting squirreled away.
biab
crap. Almost 800 words on that brainfart.
Uh, Richard…how long are these things supposed to be?
drag..
Taking a Bones break. It took awhile for me to break up with “Angel”.
Men spend entirely too much time telling each other what women find ‘sexy’.
Oddly, they never ask a “satisfied” woman why those walking paychecks are so revolting.
They can look like David Borneaz, Billie Dee, BARACK OBAMA (Yeah, he said, “take notes, fellahs” wanna give it a try?) Sean Connery, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Sam and Dean all day long, but that kinda pretty comes from the INSIDE.
I’ll take a Leonard any day of the week over some asshole pining over his varsity days. Sheldon, however, is on his own.
Get out of the gym and lift a few books, maybe?
Whatever it takes, cuz..
Dayamn!
OK, got it on the main page kinda right now.
http://www.onebigsoup.com/thekibitz/
Richard Marcus
4:43 PM (20 hours ago)
to me
Thy spiffiness is only exceeded by thy neato-keeno.
=============================================
to me
Thy spiffiness is only exceeded by thy neato-keeno.
======================================
Answering here so he can get started here
======================================
Get out!
“keen-o” too?
yay!
It should be open so you can create an account.
**good grief…forgot to send this yesterday.**
I’m collecting and uploading content to the server, so you wont see much change
for a minute.
I also have to tend to my breedables so I can leave them alone for days at a time.
I’m getting into ultra-rare class which can bring $$ just sitting around because they don’t need to be fed.
At auction, they go NUTZ!
The purebreds are adorable, but when you mix them up, it gets really fun.
Instead of a wimpy sceptor,
I’ve got Queen BF Hammer!
Damned Skippy.
(a shameless tribute to Wolfenstein, but naming them is half the fun)
Then I’m going to put a royal crown on a Jester.
When I synch them all, I only have to tend to them every 3 days when they make rocks.
I’ll be happy when I get them on a schedule.
I’m working lines from legendary breeders, and some have moved on to other things.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/71155940@N00/
If you know horses at all, my great grandad trained Man ‘O War’s progeny in British Columbia.
Those stories are REALLY fun, but I haven’t written them down yet.
That would have been nice to know, growing up near the Bowie Racetrack, but I didn’t know until about 6 years ago.
Soooo? What’s Thayer doing these days?
Can I have a peek?