My Family: Chapter 14

Poodie age 13

At school I wasn't always the model child, when I was in seventh grade and our class was filling a March of Dimes punch card with dimes, I stole it. Here's what happened: one boy was in charge of the money to make sure nothing happen to it. The whole class knew he left it in his school desk at night including my girlfriend and me. One day after school, we stayed behind and took the money. It added up to two dollars and fifty cents. When we left the school, I wouldn’t give my girlfriend her share of the money because I already regretted the theft. I figured if I gave her half, I couldn’t give it back. My girlfriend and I got into a big fight as we stood in the creek in front of my house. Shirley heard the argument and came to see what was the matter. All  my girlfriend would say was I owed her some money. I didn’t I told  Shirley,  I didn't owed her money, I just said I didn’t own her anything. Shirley took my side and my girlfriend left in a huff.

The next day we went to school and heard that the boy had reported the money missing. The teacher gave the class a big speech about stealing and gave whoever took the money the rest of the day to give it back. I waited until the class went to recess then I put it under his chair

Shirley age 16

 as if it had fallen out of his desk. The ploy worked and the class was happy to get the money back. My girlfriend never mentions the money again.

Another time I was a thorn in my teacher's side was at Christmas time when the school decided to take one child from each class and as a group they would sing on the radio in Logan. Our school had two rooms per class, and the school went to eighth grade, so it would be sixteen children in all. My teacher put each of our names in basket and drew out one. I never dreamed my name would be pulled but it was! However, the teacher tried to get me to let this other girl go in my place. It seems her mother was head of the PTA, always baked for our parties at school, and the local Girl Scout leader. That meant this girl got picked for everything. The teacher told me since I couldn’t carry a tune I wouldn’t miss singing on the radio and, of course, it would mean so much to this other girl who took tap dancing lessons. What a show-off, she was always dancing for the school on stage. In short, this girl cried when she wasn't picked to sing on the radio. Everyone knew I couldn’t sing, wasn’t everybody telling me so in church, but that didn’t stop me from singing in church and it wasn’t going to stop me from singing on the radio. Besides, this girl was snobby just because she was named after a movie star, and she never let me join any of the her games on the playground. You think I was going to give her my spot in the choir, I don’t think so. The day we went to Logan and sang on the radio, I was put in the back of everyone else but I still was there singing.