Memoir: My Great Aunt Pansy

Every time I dye my hair red (which I began doing decades ago to spice up the mousy brown), I think of my paternal Great Aunt Pansy, who also dyed her hair red. And for all I know, hers, unlike mine, was perhaps naturally red earlier in her life. I do know that red hair suited her personality well, as it did her wise blue eyes.

As a child, in my eyes Great Aunt Pansy was the rich one in our family. Sometimes when we went to visit my dad's family on the farm in Bowman, South Carolina, we would drop by Aunt Pansy's for a couple hours. Living in the city of Anderson, SC, in a really nice neighborhood, she had a brick house painted white, usually with a new Cadillac parked in her driveway.

Once inside the house, there were luxurious furnishings with the softest carpets on the floors and velvety towels hanging in the bathroom. The house sounded like laughter and always smelled nice, as did my Aunt Pansy. She wore the loveliest clothes my eyes had ever seen: saucy hats atop her head and sumptuous furs across her shoulders. Pansy was a country girl who had grown comfortable in the city. The elegance she had learned never could disguise the real Pansy--funny and down-to-earth, genuine, sprung from humble roots.

Born in 1905 on a farm in Orangeburg County, SC, she was the second daughter of Carrie and Charlie Ayers. The first daughter, born 17 months earlier, was Flossie, my father's mother and my paternal grandmother. These two daughters were the only children of their parents. Flossie went on to live in that same farmhouse and to have nine living children. In contrast, Pansy moved to the city, married twice, had a career. No children.

This is me, about the same age as Pansy was below. I never realized how much we favored until I saw this picture of her recently. I guess I do look like the Ayers sisters after all.

Pansy's first husband was Earl Hammerly, a professor at a small private college in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in Rome, Northern Georgia. He was apparently older than she, a man of some means who had a chauffeur. After his untimely death, she married Harry Groce, a traveling salesman, who was gone during the week days. He adored Pansy and called her P.A., short for Pansy Ayers. Like his beloved, Harry didn't take things too seriously; he was full of laughter, jokes and pranks. Also like her, he was a sharp dresser. He smoked cigars, liked his bourbon, and drove a white Silverhawk Studebaker around Anderson, SC., where they lived together.

In the meantime, Pansy was named the manager of the Western Union office in Anderson. She invited two of her sister's grown children to live with her at various times. Once Flossie's first born graduated high school, CF (Charles Fulton) went to live with and work for Pansy, delivering Western Union telegrams. Later she sent him to Clemson College, then procured him a summer job at Carolina Beach, NC, where he met his future wife. His subsequent marriage and World War II changed his course, and he didn't return to college. A disappointment to her, I'm sure.

My Great Aunt Pansy in her younger days.

Flossie's third daughter Bonnie also lived with Pansy and attended Anderson College for a semester, where she met and married her husband. Pansy was said to be put off about her not continuing on in college. Still later, after CF had a son, my cousin Butch would visit Pansy for a fun-filled week during the summers, and she would buy him spiffy back-to-school clothes from the downtown J. C. Penney's. With Aunt Pansy's attention, Butch almost felt that he had two grandmothers on his father's side of the family. Butch remembers, "We always went to church on Sunday morning and then went to Clemson House in Clemson for a lunch of she-crab soup, roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy and real strawberry shortcake for dessert. We would joke around about how could they tell if it was a she-crab or a he-crab. We would laugh and talk; there was never a dull moment around Aunt Pansy." Butch also recalls his family going to lots of Clemson football games with Pansy through the years.

Later in life, Pansy opened her home to a feisty little fleet of Chihauhaus who would nip at the heels of her guests, particularly of children. She dearly loved them. To me, they always looked like puppies, and I could think of nothing I wanted more. Finally, my family got a Chihauhau/Toy Manchester mix from her. We named him Jose, and I considered him my dog.

Little Jose and little me in Madison, Tennessee, during my best childhood years. 

Pansy remained close to her sister Flossie and sent money to help out with all of the children. When Flossie's fourth girl Sandra was a junior in high school, Pansy and her mama went shopping in Orangeburg and came back with a surprise for her: a beautiful white evening gown with layers of lace and a striking blue cummerbund, which she wore to her junior-senior prom.

Some years after Harry and Flossie's husband (my father's father and my paternal grandfather) died, Pansy retired from Western Union and moved into a nice house in Orangeburg. Still later she moved into the farmhouse in Bowman with her sister Flossie and had the farmhouse beautifully remodeled. Then a stroke took her to the nursing home in Orangeburg, where Flossie joined her several years later. She would enjoy keeping up with her beloved Atlanta Braves on radio and TV. Pansy died there in 1993 and is buried beside Harry in Anderson. Her sister Flossie died a year later.

Most of us who remember Pansy remember her with a smile on her face and on our faces. "Her chin would quiver when she was tickled," Sandra recalls. She loved to have a glass of wine in the evenings and is said to have been the life of any party. I regret not knowing her better. As a matter of fact, I'm beginning to feel that same way about many people in my father's family. Independent, fun and funny, quick witted, with a twinkle in her eye, my Great Aunt Pansy is a lady whom I remember with great fondness.

Random thoughts on housework or house-care

Thank you for all of your perspectives about housework that I got on my Facebook status last week. Here was the status:  Have you ever gotten a hold of the housework? Where you felt that things were under control for once and always? I may be quoting some of you.

Almost all of the images that I found on the internet about housework are cartoons. It's as if housework is a big joke, but as any woman knows, most of the time, it's just not that funny.

I used to have two places of residence to clean and organize--one was my house and the other was my classroom. For the nearly forty years of my career, I never quite felt that my classroom was as in good shape as it should or could be. At last, I don't have to fret about cleaning my classroom anymore!

Parental voices inside our heads die hard. Even though my mother (and father) have been gone for over 25 years, I still remember their white glove tests when they would come to my house for periodic visits. If you read the blog on my mother, then you may recall some of her harsh remarks on my housekeeping when she would visit. And even though (of course) I would clean the house super well when my parents were expected for a visit, my rather tall father once or twice told me that I had dust on top of my refrigerator. Bu the way, my mother was a housewife all of her life and kept a clean, clutter-free house. My older sister keeps her house so clean (and organized) that you could literally eat off her floors. So those two have been my examples in my family.

I'm so glad that my daughter Ellen doesn't feel that she has to clean up her house for me! We focus on what is important when we visit each other--the people. I'm so pleased that she and I feel that we can leave our houses the messiest/dirtiest for each other as for anyone!

It bothers me that hardly any of us mention housework, It's taken for granted. Hardly worthy of mentioning. If someone asks you, What are you gonna do today? few of us say that we are going to clean out that refrigerator or scrub those toilets. It's just assumed that those chores will get done and that they hardly count.

One of my favorite responses to my FB status came from Susan King, one of the best housekeepers I know. She responded, "Once but not always." When I was much younger than I am now--say 25 years ago--every summer, I would give my house a thorough cleaning. I mean from top to bottom--like with a toothbrush! I organized inside every closet, cabinet, and drawer as well. But that craziness ended when I began kayaking and hiking and traveling in the summer months. In other words when I began to have fun! Well, there you go--that should tell me something.

Here recently after I began to fret once again about housework, it came to me that the solution to my housework quandary lies within me. I need a whole attitude adjustment! There is no "perfect" way to keep house. (And therein lies part of my problem--the dysfunction and futility of my thinking I'm supposed to do things perfectly. One of my mantras can be--Embrace imperfection!) Each of us must keep house to suit herself.

Besides embracing imperfection in my housekeeping, I also want to train myself to look for and see the good--to see what has been done and what's beautiful about my home--instead of seeing always what needs to be done. I also need to say to myself that something I've done to clean, organize, or improve my house is "good enough." And no damn guilt about what doesn't get done. Or about those drawers, closets, etc., that don't get cleaned out often enough. "Often enough," according to whose standards? Consciously lowering my standards about some aspects of housework is another really good idea!

I'll have to say that what bothers me most about housekeeping is that it seldom stays done. It's such a circular activity. From bed making to washing clothes to cooking and dish washing to dusting and vacuuming from window washing to mopping floors to bathroom cleaning and outdoor sweeping, it all so soon needs to be done again and again. Housework is a progressive activity that never stays done. I think that perhaps accepting that little truth and appreciating what does get done is half the housework battle.

On FB, I like how Linda Bush said, "Call it house-care instead of housework." Caring for my house is something I understand. I recall that she also had said that we need to be good stewards of our houses because they were given to us by God.

Bottom line is what I've already said on the Facebook status, I feel that I've wasted too much time, too much of my life, worrying/thinking about my housework or lack thereof and feeling guilty that I don't do better! Less time thinking about it and more time doing it might have helped, but oh well!

My other bottom line (and yes, I can have two bottom lines!) is that I'm just not disciplined enough to have a regular housekeeping schedule such as bathrooms on Monday, vacuuming on Tuesday, grocery shopping on Wednesday (grocery shopping could also be considered part of housekeeping), washing clothes on Thursday, etc.

I tend to do better when something bothers me so much that it needs to be done, or as I like to say, it calls to me. The glass storm doors or windows may say to me, "Wash me today. Let the sun shine in!" Or the over-flowing trash cans may call out, "Empty me. Or it's time to take a trip to the landfill today!" When I see no birds outside my windows, the empty bird feeders say to me, "Fill us please." Ad infinitum et ultra. Even so, sometimes I can choose to ignore their voices!

"A clean house may be a sure sign of a wasted life," but housework is a part of that life, so getting a good perspective or a handle on it is important to me. I want to remember how much I really do love my house as I blogged about over a year ago, and I want to remember Mindfulness, with a capital M. When I do choose to tackle a household chore, I want to do so mindfully and try to get all the fun and enjoyment out of it that I can. If it's some chore that I dread (like cleaning the stove), then I can set my phone alarm for an hour and work on it for an hour that day. It doesn't have to get all done in a day. I can work on it an hour again the next day or the next week.

Perhaps my Aunt Sandra  gave the recipe for true peace of mind about housekeeping: "Keep your house as clean as you want to live. Then have 2-3 friends who swear on their lives that the moment they hear you've passed on, they'll rush in and clean before the hordes start arriving!" Now that should do the trick!

Agreement No. 2 to make with yourself for the new year!

Way back in September, I wrote a blog about The Four Agreements. It was primarily about the agreements: Don't make assumptions. It was particularly about not assuming that someone got your text or email or other communication unless you have heard back from them.

Through the years, I imagine that there have been lots of hurt feelings and misunderstandings when someone did not receive another person's letter/communication. Recently, I heard of someone sending an apology letter that the other person never got. Sadly, the friendship ended permanently.

Another of the four agreements is one that I wish someone had taught me in my youth and explained to me what exactly it meant, for I have wasted a great deal of time with this one. It's don't take anything personally.

Wow, through the decades, I have taken so, so many things personally--when they have had nothing--absolutely nothing--to do with me! For example, my father was bi-polar, and I took this personally. What I mean by that is that I hid his illness from others (because my mother told me to) and because I thought that it would reflect badly on me (us). Also somehow I thought that it was my job to fix him.To figure out what would be the perfect treatment or medicine that would "cure" him. What a burden that was on a child and on a teen/young adult! I wish that someone had told me, "Your father is sick, it is not your fault, nor is it your responsibility to fix him (period)."

Also for most of my life, I took my older sister's behavior personally. From her years at home on through her three marriages, she kept me and my family turned upside down much of the time. In my 20s and early 30s, I stood ready to go at a moment's notice if  my parents should need me to help them with Lynda and her latest antics. She tried to control me (and everyone else), treated me poorly, and often made me feel bad about myself, even told a therapist that she "could destroy me." Finally in my 50s, I figured out that she was truly a narcissist, and then all of the pieces fell into place.

With my mother, I commiserated and thought that I could somehow help her with her sadness about my father and my sister and her own sadness from her early life.

Even my parents' not getting along, I took personally, felt somehow responsible for their misery, and thought that I could help them, so that they would be happy.

What illusions on my part! Or as one therapist asked me, "Who died and made you God?"

By the time I met and married my second husband, I thought that if only I were prettier (for by that time, everything for me had become boiled down to that issue), he would love me more and come home to me. Then after discovering that he was an addict, I thought that I could "fix" him.

After writing much of my memoir piece by piece here in my blog, I now understand myself and my family better than I ever have. I clearly see that I was so enmeshed in them and in their dramas that it would have taken a wiser person than I to extract myself from their lives sooner than I did. I'm just pleased to have now learned not to take their stuff personally--because it helps me not to take anything personally from anybody today, and that makes me a much happier person!

Of course, sadly all of this family stuff set me up to take things personally in the workplace too. That, along with my inability to communicate tactfully, caused some problems, dramas, and some unnecessary sadness for me among some of my co-workers, students, and their parents. But that's a story perhaps for another day.

Now with my daughter, my son-in-law, my friends--old and new--, my granddaughters, my neighbors, I try not to take anything personally. Of course, it still creeps in sometimes, but now I can say to myself, "It's not about you."

Because as Don Miguel Ruiz said in The Four Agreements, very little of what others "do is because of me. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering."

Boy, have I suffered needlessly. And played the victim way too many times! But I've learned and am still learning. I'm changing my mindset, looking at things differently. Rising above hurt and victimhood.

Ruiz further tells us, "Don't take anything personally, even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly. It has nothing to do with you. Their point of view and opinion come from the programming they received growing up. When you take things personally, you feel offended and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflict. You make something big out of something so little because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong."

Now when I find myself feeling offended and trying too hard to prove my "rightness," it's a sure sign that I'm taking something personally! So I simply take a deep breath in, and let it go, let it go, let it go with the out breath--as many times as necessary. Try it. Conscious breathing is a step into mindfulness, into the present moment, into sanity.

Are you a conservative or a liberal or like me, someone in-between those two labels??

The word conservative, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (fourth edition)  means "favoring traditional views or values, tending to oppose change, moderate, cautious." From the same source, conservatism is "the inclination to maintain the existing or traditional order, a political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions."

Besides in education, which I will write about in a moment, I know that I am a conservative (or a preservative) concerning Nature and our wildlife and natural resources. As our Native Americans teach us, we owe it to the Earth, our home, "Mother of us all," to protect her from injury, peril, harm, or loss. Like many people, I fear the harm that we have already done to Earth and her environs may have irreversible consequences. I pray that our harm to her will be abated, and I will work toward this end. As Tracy Chapman sings, "it is the deadliest of sins" to "rape" the Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WHrhWRsiC4.

Just as with images of liberalism in my last bog post, I also had trouble finding images of conservatism that were not negative. Once again some wordsmiths or spin doctors have been working hard to put a negative, evil spin on the words conservative and conservatism.

As a matter of fact, it occurs to me that the powers that be are working really hard to turn us against each other! And unfortunately in too many cases, they are succeeding in spades. Let us not be taken in by their desire to control us. Let us think for ourselves and try to understand each other and to recognize all sides of an issue. Let us not be haters but to love one another. Our love for one another will completely stump those who want to control us!    

Luckily for me, some of my best friends are conservatives, and some of my best friends are liberals, and we like to discuss the issues with one another. So I get to hear both sides on the issues that confront all of us Americans. In searching for images, I did notice that both conservatives and liberals seem to claim Lincoln as one of their main advocates!

Besides being a preservationist, I am also a conservative in education. I am an essentialist in education: I believe that there are certain basic/essential things that all educated people should know about or have been exposed to--such as proper grammar, certain writers, "true" American history (as in The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn), how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide (without using a calculator!), etc. 

Some things about learning and teaching just haven't changed. It still takes discipline in the classroom and in the individual student. I believe that students and parents need to respect and trust a teacher unless the teacher proves otherwise.

Teachers still set the atmosphere in a classroom, they still plan what to teach and when, they plan lessons and evaluate those lessons' effectiveness, and they evaluate students' responses to those lessons, etc. To learn, students still need to put forth effort, to want to learn, to listen to and follow directions, to listen to and comprehend lessons, to practice the material being taught, and to perform effectively on some type of evaluative instrument.

As educational author Larry Cuban says, "Things have changed in classrooms. Desktops and laptops are prevalent in schools; teachers use the Internet for videos in lessons; students give PowerPoint presentations; teachers take immediate polls of student answers to multiple choice questions with clickers; new textbooks, some of which are online.

"Yet amid those changes, there is a commonness in the unfolding of a lesson, the activities that teachers direct students to do, and Q & A that characterizes the back-and-forth between teacher and students. There is a familiar continuity in teaching.

"Change occurs all the time in schools and classrooms but not at the scope, pace, and schedule reform-driven policymakers lay out in their designs for reform. Sadly, such policymakers fail to understand the complex interaction between stability and change in nearly all organizations. In this failure of understanding lurks the many errors that decision-makers make in repeated efforts to transform schooling, teaching, and learning."

So I think that what Cuban is saying is that we need to respect the things in education that don't change: the way teachers teach and the way students learn. When it comes right down to it, let's conserve the good things about teaching and learning. And again let's quit disrespecting our teachers, and let's trust them to do what they have been trained to do or what they intuitively know how to do. Let's stop being haters. Oh, but I digress!

So wow, now I see more clearly how I am both a conservative and a liberal! After taking the time to do some researching and some thinking, I better understand both sides, and I see that we don't really have to choose a side. We can choose not to stereotype each other nor to assume things about one another, instead we can choose to understand and yes, to love one another. That's my Christmas message, or wait a minute, perhaps "love one another" is not original with me!

Part I: I am liberal; Part II: I am conservative

On my list of facebook friends, of course, are lots of my former students--quite a variety of now grown people. When one of them "went" on a rant about the issue of immigration the day Obama came to Nashville, I had to respond. Then when he began to demonize liberals, I had to respond again. As a matter of fact, here is my response.

The word liberal has been demonized, if words can be demonized, in the past decade or two by some group of people who don't quite know what they are talking about, but who definitely want to create "haters" in our country.

Just as with the words feminism and feminist back in the 70s and 80s, the word smiths have tried to make sure that the words liberal or liberalism connote all sorts of things that they do not connote!

According to the new updated edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the word liberal actually means "not limited to or by established, traditional, or authoritative views, attitudes, or dogma, free from bigotry, open to new ideas for progress, tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others, broad-minded, and generous." Further from the same source, liberalism is "a political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, and government by the law with the consent of the governed."

Guilty as charged, I am a liberal! About most things. I like to think that I am broad-minded and generous person who believes in the natural goodness of humans. Who doesn't want to think that of him/herself? I like to believe that I am tolerant of most everything (except of intolerance--I am definitely not tolerant of intolerance or of ignorance or of evil, to name a few things). Also I am definitely not a bigot and favor civil and political liberties!

What is really interesting to me is that when I went to find images of liberalism for this blog on the internet, most of the images were incredibly negative! The most common one was that "liberalism is a mental disease or disorder." As I've stated, someone is doing a really good job of demonizing the words liberal and liberalism. Some wordsmiths or spin doctors have been working hard to put a negative, evil spin on the words.

Some of my favorite people in life and in history have been liberals. They are people whom I admire and wish to emulate.  A former principal and supervisor of instruction of mine, Dr. Alvin Rose was one of these people, and he always said that he didn't see how a person could be a public school teacher and not be a democratic! Besides Alvin, I also admire Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Jesus, to name a few.

The above book is on my list of books that I want to read in 2015. Its preface was fascinating reading. Perhaps Santa will leave this book in my stocking!

Some of you may appreciate learning more about liberalism by watching the educational documentary Deflating the Elephant, available on Netflix and youtube. Another fascinating piece on the topic is Bill Moyers' interview with Johnathan Haidt, who wrote a book that I've recommended before entitled The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. 

Next week, I will write a blog post about conservatism. I look forward to doing some research on the subject and on seeing just what I am conservative about. See you later, dear reader.

The first of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

Did you get my text? Did you get my email? Did you get my phone call?

(Now I promised you gals and guys a post on mindfulness on the first week of each month, but actually these four agreements have to do with mindfulness.

And mindfulness has to do with this post on one of the agreements, and this post has to do with the electronic media or with electronic communication.)

You may have already guessed this, but it hit home with me earlier this week that just because I've pressed the send button on an electronic device--my telephone or computer--doesn't mean that the person immediately got my message or even that s/he got my message at all!

Unless/until I get a response back.

In this age of immediate gratification, how many electronic ways are there for us to send a message? (1) An answering machine or voice mail, (2) email, (3) text, (4) facebook--both privately and publicly, (5)  fax, and many others that I can't even name and/or don't use.

And in each of these ways of sending a message to someone, I "assume" that the receiver got my message, and most times I "assume" that s/he got it immediately. And sometimes I don't necessarily expect a response! Again, I just "assume" that they got my message.

Well, that's one of the agreements that would make this a better world that Don Miguel Ruiz writes about in his famous book The Four Agreements: Don't make assumptions.  

Think how much misunderstanding, sadness, and drama could be avoided if we do not assume that the person got our text or email or voice message. Or that s/he got it immediately.

I was with a friend this weekend that I had texted several weeks ago. I said to him, "Why didn't you answer by text about  . . . ?" To which he responded, " I did answer your text."

I had not gotten his reply. It wasn't any big deal. I had just thought that he was being rude not to answer and that thought had taken up space in my mind for a few minutes. So in a way, it was a big deal--my thinking less of him and that thought that he didn't respond taking up space in my mind.

Also this weekend another friend said to me, "Did you get my email about . . . ?" To which I responded, "Yes, I did, and I emailed you back." Then she said, "I didn't get your email."

So in being mindful and in assuming nothing, what I am now going to start doing when I message someone on any electronic device is (1) Ask for a response--such as say "Please let me know that you got this." and (2) Give a response as immediately as possible to someone's message to me--even if it's just one word, like "Okay" or "Later" (or to hit the "like" button on facebook. Because "like" doesn't necessarily mean that you actually do like it, but that you saw or even that you support that person's status.)

That way, I can avoid misunderstanding, sadness, and drama. I will be mindful, and I will not make assumptions. In this age of electronic messaging, I will take the time to respond.

Memoir: Part II of the college years

Since her freshman year had begun in September, the Christmas holiday was the first time that Kathryn had returned to her parents' home in Delaware. Most of the other students went home to nearby towns every weekend because Middle Tennessee State University was a suitcase college. Occasionally, Kathryn went home with a friend on the weekend and enjoyed a home-cooked meal, but more often she stayed on campus in a mostly empty dorm on a mostly empty campus.

(Her only sibling, an older sister Lynda had begun college at the University of Kentucky four years earlier in 1963. On the day that Kathryn and their parents had taken Lynda to her dorm on the Lexington campus, the fourteen-year-old Kathryn went to hug her sister good-bye, and Lynda pushed her roughly away. Stunned and deeply hurt, Kathryn had been confused by her action. Even though there was usually little affection between them, there had been nothing to signal such overt rejection.

After Kathryn had gone to college in 1967, Lynda moved back in with their parents in Delaware with her two-year-old daughter. Depressed, she was going through a divorce that she didn't want.

Though Kathryn didn't know why, she and Lynda had never been close sisters. They were almost four years apart in age and in school, but decades apart in knowing and loving one another. Perhaps that was part of the reason Kathryn had been so affected by the sorority sisters' rejecting her.)

But now back to the present, Christmas 1967. Living so far away from her home, Kathryn had not seen her parents since September. Because the MTSU dorms were closed for the holidays, Kathryn flew to Delaware for the Christmas break between semesters. Kathryn did not consider Delaware her home. Her parents had moved there with her father's job after Kathryn had graduated from high school in North Carolina.

In contrast to what one might expect during the Christmas holidays, the mood around her home was tense and gloomy. In one of his depressed bi-polar states, her father mostly sat in his Lazyboy chair, falling sleep in front of the TV. Her mother seemed unusually nervous and tired. The Christmas tree was up but not decorated, and Kathryn's mother asked her to decorate it. She discovered it was no fun to decorate a tree by herself. But still Kathryn kept trying to make things happy for the holidays by playing Christmas music and passing around the eggnog.

On Christmas afternoon, Kathryn, Lynda, their mother, and two-year-old Shelley were in the green and yellow kitchen, preparing a traditional Christmas dinner. Since early morning, the fragrance of roasting turkey wafted through the house from the avocado green oven. The voice of Johnny Mathis singing “Jingle Bells”and other Christmas carols floated into the kitchen from the stereo in the formal living room, where stood the decorated tree all lit up with opened presents still underneath.

In the adjacent dining room, the dark mahogany dining room table with the ladder back chairs around it was all set with her mother's best Desert Rose china, the highly polished Candlelight silverware, and cloth napkins. Excited by all of the unusual activities, little Shelley was dancing around the kitchen.

Kathryn sat at the maple kitchen table, peeling oranges for the ambrosia, wondering if she was getting enough of the white part off when suddenly out of nowhere, Lynda told her two-year-old daughter Shelley to tell Aunt Kathryn that she hated her. And of course, not even knowing what she was saying, the little girl began loudly to parrot her mother's voice, “I hate you, Aunt Kathryn! I hate you, Aunt Kathryn!”

Even then, Kathryn knew that these were Lynda's words, not the child's. Uncharacteristically, Kathryn physically lit into her sister and began to strike her, yelling, “Tell her to stop! Tell her to stop!” What she really wanted to say to Lynda was “Stop it—stop rejecting me. Stop hurting me. Stop hating me.”

Kathryn honestly didn't remember the rest of the holiday, but she was so affected by the incident that back at college for the spring semester, she suffered from extreme worry and severe insomnia. Night after ruthless night, she lay awake thinking about her family. But keeping the family rule about “always looking good in front of others,”she didn't confide in any of her friends.

Adding to her family troubles or perhaps because of them, she felt overwhelmed by her school work that semester. Her grades began to plummet. In a called-conference, her Western Civilization II professor, Dr. Crawford, known as one of the toughest professors on campus, questioned her in his rather condescending voice, “Why aren't you doing better on my tests?”Apparently, as he told her, English majors usually did well on his essay tests. Vowing to study harder, she cringed at his remarks and blamed herself.

Then things got worse. Her Modern Poetry class was taught by the wife of the English Department chairman, the formidable Dr. Virgina Peck. Besides undergraduates, the rather small class also included graduate students in English. Kathryn felt intimidated by the subject matter, the professor, and the other students. With little confidence in her own intellect, in desperation one late night while explicating a modern poem, she copied too many words from a library book without giving her source directly after each paragraph.

At the next class, Dr. Peck said to Kathryn, “See me in my office.” With her heart in her throat, she found her way to the office and entered into a world of academia: built in book shelves piled high to the ceiling with old and new leather books of all colors and a huge old oak desk with piles of student essays neatly stacked on top. Dr. Peck leaned back in her swivel chair and told Kathryn to have a seat.

Then she slowly pulled out a book from her desk drawer, one that Kathryn recognized immediately as the library book that she had used to explicate that poem. Kathryn's eyes opened wide, and she could feel the heat as her neck and face flushed.

Dr. Peck asked, “Do you know what plagiarism is?”

Kathryn stammered, “Not exactly. I'm sorry. I didn't know. It was late, and I was so tired. Did I not footnote enough to tell you where I had gotten the information?”

Ignoring her question, the professor threatened, “Plagiarism is stealing, and you have stolen someone else's words and ideas and passed them off as your own. For such an offense, I can have you expelled from the English program and possibly even from the college”

Humiliation and shame clung to her like a dense fog as Kathryn made her way to the nearest restroom to cry in a dark stall. She told no one about the incident.

There was one person whom Kathryn felt that she could trust enough to confide in about her home life—a kindly psychology professor, Mr. White. When she told him her story about the Christmas incident, he told her the most freeing thing, “You don't have to go home for the summer. It's not written in stone that you have to go back to that environment.”

So began her journey away from her family--to independence and self-reliance.

When Kathryn told her parents that she wasn't coming home that summer, they almost seemed relieved. They didn't try to convince her otherwise; they didn't say “Are you sure?” or “We are sorry,” or “We shall miss you.” Since they had some business to take care of in Cincinnati concerning Lynda's divorce, they drove down and helped Kathryn settle into Nashville's downtown YWCA.

And there they left her at eighteen years of age to completely fend for herself. A summer which she would recall in vivid detail—a summer of growing up.

to be continued . . .