So anyway, I'm working on something, and looking for Mr. Racine, a Bowie High shop teacher for class of '83.  When I was in Mr. Reck's DPR class, there was a running joke....
Mr. Reck: "Class!  What's a Harley?"
Class: "What Mr. Racine's Honda wants to be when it grows up!"
And we got an A for the day....or a cookie from the bookstore....
maybe a Jolly Rancher.
============
Apparently he saw the whole thing and nobody has EVER given me the play by play.  I hear stuff, look back and go...  "Hang on...what did I do again?"
I was always awed by my talented friends, but I never saw myself do anything particularly impressive and the baby boomers used up all the film, apparently.
I read a lot of Erma Bombeck growing up.
The B-section moderates thought Ayn Rand was a wimp.
If TV broke up the shriners, soap operas done in our Stay at Home Moms.
On many occasions I escaped Stalag Beechtree Lane,
WAY the hell over by the highway to hell, (Ft. Meade to the left, Andrews to the right), with the prison chaplain right around the corner...
I ended up in back yards playing with kids begging for a friend.
After awhile, we knew when the commercials brought a mother out with snacks for the kid, food for the dog.  We read Snoopy and made the weird connection. 
I absolutely love sharing stories and reconnecting but there's a few urban legend-grade stuff I've been sorting out for a long time.  What's common knowledge to us, is not quite being

That's Beautiful!

And it's why I really am dedicated to this work that was held up for so long in a church that wouldn't have us.  The oral traditions are matching the timelines with the census records.

The snag was in the courthouse in Dodge where outlaws burned records before they went off to terrorize another town.

I won't be party to what I call "pimping diversity".  White washing me brings out ALLA my colors,
some of them plaid. 
I believe I unknowingly picked out a red and black plaid lunchbox design that actually belonged to my true Celtic ancestry.  It was common in Irish homes to have a family coat of arms and Dad showed me a possible Blackwell coat that we couldn't verify.  I was not impressed because it looked like anything found on a pack of smokes.
But we're not the Blackwell-Bull Durham folks, they are our African American cousins, their crest has a greyhound.  They sell DNA kits to be associated and claim we have no crest. The butthurt is profound.  Dad had no luck finding our Blackwells, because he didn't have the right information.  His Osage ancestry could have jeopardized his position and worse, Grandma's adorable Victorian home.  One of his cousins got on my case for my interest in our NDN routes, but I asked him who I would be tribal with, if I found my African tribe?  He presumed I didn't love Africa....and couldn't have been more wrong.  That bit was obvious, I already had been rejected for my grammar, until I went full-on Fonzie like I did in high school.  I kept my mouth shut until I knew how to interact!  Where?  The smoking bathroom down the hall from the principal's office.  His wife worked at an elementary school with my stepmother and I could do NO WRONG!  They didn't understand why they were protecting their quotas so hard with me.  My gung-ho rival was quite jealous about pecking order.  She was literally Blackanese, but I was BORN there.  If I could rant openly, I would re-kick her ass.  Because of me breaking her collar bone in 3 places, we BOTH ended up in the freaking military! 

Some kid from my class posted his Bowie High ID card and said it was ugly.

Hell, if memory serves, I

And my high school ring flew off on the PGCC softball field!
There was a girl named Paulette who actually looked and sounded like me, so we were constantly being accused of changing our clothes and kissing the wrong boys!  When we finally figured it out and got into each others faces, we had to forgive our friends because, yeah..  and we joked about taking a test for the other and snickered about, "The Larch"...  it went there.
Oh, and no, I wasn't NOLA in Spike Lee's flick, I was dancing in Good To Go getting shoved around by Art Garfunkel.  My daughter was about 6 when we saw it on BET. 

And if ET talked mess to

If he ain't livin, Imma kick his spirit!

 

You do NOT want to see those colors out of this one, right here!  There is no, "I'm just white" when I talk to people about their cultural roots.  I remind them that if you're in a bar and say that an Irish man and a Scott are the same, you're looking for some trouble!  We were there before the split, I think, so the Griffin carries across the border on Mother's side.  My Canadian cousin said we were "Highlanders" and yeah, the series was one of my favorites.

As it happens, my folks were subject to some highly debated political arguments.

The Jourdon Anderson Letter was a hot debate for education.  I knew Mother had Anderson's all along, but nobody knew where they came from until now-ish.  The first time I read it, I laughed because the snark was a familiar brand of humor. 
Dixiecrats wanted to presume the letter was dictated and there was no way he spoke so proper without help....which offends those of us who know better. Oddly they forgot how many ownders illegally left the RRR's as grunt work for slaves to worry about, being too lazy to educate themselves.  If you read it correctly, Jourdon Anderson hints at the fact he not only read for him, but did the math and writing as well.  Even funnier, he accuses his former master of that movie Clint Eastwood was in where the boarding school hid a wounded Union soldier.

Weird is where I'm probably blood related to the plantation owner and it would just be 'fittin' if the man who saved his live was a descendant of Jimmy Carter! 

I spoke as my parents did in the house.  "The Help" always has two sides, one they show on the job and one for family.  We call it "signifying" and after awhile, we do it without knowing.