stella returns to the boarding school of her youth
Took a road trip last week to the north woods of Wisconsin to drop Osa off at her summer camp job. On the return trip back to the suburbs of Chicago my mother and I make a side trip to the boarding school where I spent two of my highschool years, Wayland Academy. Finding our way to Beaver Dam was no issue but once we got into the town, locating the school proved to be the challenge. This, I realized, was because they seldom permitted us to leave the school grounds and the sanctioned bi-weekly trip into the town took place on a well established route. Any modification to this route meant town priviledges were revoked for the following week. Consequently, any side streets or outlaying areas were as totally foreign to me on this trip as they were the years I resided there.
Following the directions provided by a 'towny' we drove up to the school. With the exception of an extensive athletic field house and a new face on the gymnasium, the place had not changed in forty years. Glancing at the expansive football field, Coonie and I flashed a knowing look at one another, recalling the day Headmaster Patterson had not-so-tactfully suggested one way to keep me in the school would be a substantial contribution to this athletic dream they were spinning....thankfully, my parents didn't bite and true to their word, I was "not invited" back the following year. It spared me additional trauma.
There was the drab, looming boys dorm with the stoic pillars upholding the false facade of education. The three story dilapidated girls dorm with rusted fire escapes that scream rat hole fire trap to the weary students and oblivious parents. I noticed new trees, now twenty years old, in the quadrangle where we could go for ten minutes on Friday and Saturday nights to make out with the current boy of choice. Because our activities were strictly limited and the main ingredients in our diet consisted of potatoes and white bread, three meals a day, I weighed in at about 155 pounds. This could explain why I rarely dated. Once I hauled a guy out to the quadrangle on the pretense of showing him my bedroom window but really in the hopes that he would try and kiss me.
They insisted I take Latin. For a girl who could barely concentrate on the English language, Latin was as alien to me as Martian is to a Malaysian stowaway. Due to the weight problem I didn't make the cheerleading team... was the only girl cut... dispite a summer of practice where I demanded my brother assist me with the lifts... which really required a small hoist. "Up in the air (lift), over the rim (leg kick), come on Wayland sink it in" only succeeded in giving Dick a hernia.
I was doomed to fail... blond, straight hair was the vogue and I was possessed by an unruly curly mop that turned FedEx orange when the dye job, SunIn, went terribly awry. Forever attempting to straignten it, ironing was a morning ritual which turned my hair into the consistency of uncooked spaghetti. Not my best look. I was required to take a sport and the coach wanted to change the rules to allow me to be on the wrestling team. The only time I had the support of the other students was when I was the chief contender in the pie eating contest.... blueberry, no less. Alienation became the norm and as is typical in such scenarios, I became louder and uncontrollable. Packages of Jello poured down the hallways, in the toilets, even the swimming pool but I seriously lacked the amount needed to create the ultimate effect of frozen swimmers, stuck motionless during morning practice.
Compared to today's antics of girls snorting cocaine in the back stairwell, my pranks seem docile, almost funny, but they caged me as "a girl of trouble in serious need of psychiatric treatment who is definitely not suitable to the Wayland Academy standards". As I wandered through the dorm, seeing the rooms where I bounced off the walls and watched the old movie replay itself in my mind.... I whispered to the ghosts of Mr. Patterson and Mr. Kramer.... yooooohoooo warped bastards it's psycho girl morphed into hormonally deranged mad mama... therapy didn't work so well with me ....in fact ... it fueled a love of fire ... I have a new concept of the hot flash and you got all these mattresses here....then in the distance I hear Coonie calling, return the imaginary matches to my pocket and with a final fuck you, march out to the car and speed away from the hellhole memory knowing I never never never need to go back there, ever.
Following the directions provided by a 'towny' we drove up to the school. With the exception of an extensive athletic field house and a new face on the gymnasium, the place had not changed in forty years. Glancing at the expansive football field, Coonie and I flashed a knowing look at one another, recalling the day Headmaster Patterson had not-so-tactfully suggested one way to keep me in the school would be a substantial contribution to this athletic dream they were spinning....thankfully, my parents didn't bite and true to their word, I was "not invited" back the following year. It spared me additional trauma.
There was the drab, looming boys dorm with the stoic pillars upholding the false facade of education. The three story dilapidated girls dorm with rusted fire escapes that scream rat hole fire trap to the weary students and oblivious parents. I noticed new trees, now twenty years old, in the quadrangle where we could go for ten minutes on Friday and Saturday nights to make out with the current boy of choice. Because our activities were strictly limited and the main ingredients in our diet consisted of potatoes and white bread, three meals a day, I weighed in at about 155 pounds. This could explain why I rarely dated. Once I hauled a guy out to the quadrangle on the pretense of showing him my bedroom window but really in the hopes that he would try and kiss me.
They insisted I take Latin. For a girl who could barely concentrate on the English language, Latin was as alien to me as Martian is to a Malaysian stowaway. Due to the weight problem I didn't make the cheerleading team... was the only girl cut... dispite a summer of practice where I demanded my brother assist me with the lifts... which really required a small hoist. "Up in the air (lift), over the rim (leg kick), come on Wayland sink it in" only succeeded in giving Dick a hernia.
I was doomed to fail... blond, straight hair was the vogue and I was possessed by an unruly curly mop that turned FedEx orange when the dye job, SunIn, went terribly awry. Forever attempting to straignten it, ironing was a morning ritual which turned my hair into the consistency of uncooked spaghetti. Not my best look. I was required to take a sport and the coach wanted to change the rules to allow me to be on the wrestling team. The only time I had the support of the other students was when I was the chief contender in the pie eating contest.... blueberry, no less. Alienation became the norm and as is typical in such scenarios, I became louder and uncontrollable. Packages of Jello poured down the hallways, in the toilets, even the swimming pool but I seriously lacked the amount needed to create the ultimate effect of frozen swimmers, stuck motionless during morning practice.
Compared to today's antics of girls snorting cocaine in the back stairwell, my pranks seem docile, almost funny, but they caged me as "a girl of trouble in serious need of psychiatric treatment who is definitely not suitable to the Wayland Academy standards". As I wandered through the dorm, seeing the rooms where I bounced off the walls and watched the old movie replay itself in my mind.... I whispered to the ghosts of Mr. Patterson and Mr. Kramer.... yooooohoooo warped bastards it's psycho girl morphed into hormonally deranged mad mama... therapy didn't work so well with me ....in fact ... it fueled a love of fire ... I have a new concept of the hot flash and you got all these mattresses here....then in the distance I hear Coonie calling, return the imaginary matches to my pocket and with a final fuck you, march out to the car and speed away from the hellhole memory knowing I never never never need to go back there, ever.
posted by chapter three at 4:37 PM
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