| The next step was ninth grade at junior high in town, four miles from home, a huge building full of cement floors and different levels and noise. Sometimes still I have a dream from these times about missing my way to the classroom and arriving too late. My classes were Algebra, Latin, Art, Music, Physical Education and English that first year, and I did well. By now, I had been taking piano lessons and would continue for 13 years in all. (Lately, I've been thinking that I would like to play again - just for myself, no recitals, no slippery fingers, no expectations, just a nocturne waiting to be heard once more.)
My parents engineered my transition to town society. In the summers, it was common for youngsters to work in the fields outside of town picking beans, strawberries and other crops. Most of these jobs required stooping labor and paid minimal wages. My father decided that he could hire some of the girls from town during the hot days of June, July and August and pay them higher wages than |
they could earn elsewhere. It became quite a coveted job and, working alongside them, I could in this way get to know better the handful of popular girls who might smooth my way in the halls of school the following years. My parents also arranged parties in our corn warehouse every Wednesday night where invited youngsters would come to do the bunny hop and play games. There in the dusty wooden rooms we circled and swept each other awkwardly round and round. How they must have loved me then, my parents, to plan and prepare and even mingle with this group of teenaged hormone factories. Their plan worked to some extent and eased my entry into the new school environment. The girls who were given the summer jobs on our farm were some of the most popular girls in school and probably because of this I was invited into certain clubs.