The Beginning of High School

It was still another month until school started after the incident with the neighbor boy. My Uncle Eugene and his family paid us a visit from Detroit. My Grandma Lay who was his mother, was in her eighties and she didn’t feel like traveling to Detroit. For that reason, he was visiting more often. While in Newton this time, he decided he wanted to make a trip to New Orleans since he had never been there. From Newton, it was less than three hours away. No one in my family had ever been there either, so he persuaded Dad to go and said that I and his son, Dick, who was two years older than me, could go with them. That was music to my ear. I didn’t have to be persuaded. I was always ready to go. Going anywhere was a rare treat.

New Orleans was the biggest city I’d ever visited, and I was fascinated. On this trip I saw my very first television set in the restaurant where we stopped for lunch. Did I mention, I’d never been in a restaurant before either. I’d been in my aunt and uncle's short-order café, but never in a real restaurant. Eating out was something my family never did. I was amazed as we neared New Orleans, because almost every rooftop had a TV antenna on top. Since we had no tour guide in New Orleans, we just drove around and marveled at everything we saw. The French Quarter was very old and historic. To me, it seemed like visiting a foreign country. We spent the night in a motel, which was another first for me. It didn’t take much to make me happy.

Once we were back home in Newton, I couldn’t wait for the fall semester to start. This time, I would officially be a high school freshman. I could finally choose a few of the courses that weren’t on the required list. We all had to take math, English grammar, literature, social studies and P.E. Now we could choose two others. Most of the girls signed up to continue taking advanced home economic courses as an elective, but not me. At that time, I wasn’t motivated to become a housewife. I would have loved taking art, but unfortunately, Newton high school didn’t have an art program. I chose typing and a science course for my two electives.

There was another new girl in school this year. Elaine Dean had just moved here from Detroit. Her parents were raised in Newton, and they were coming back home to live. For Elaine, a small town was something quite different for her. Being a city girl, I assumed she would be more sophisticated than the rest of us.

Since Mom and Dad knew her parents, they were all invited over for a meal. Elaine and I got acquainted, but she was already boy crazy, and I didn’t feel we had much in common. Still, she managed to become a thorn in my side. Mom insisted that I befriend her. I was constantly hearing things like, “You need to be more outgoing like Elaine.” And “Elaine is really talented on the piano. She plays for her church. You’ve started taking piano lesson several times, but you’ve never seemed interested in learned to play well." She also told me, “Elaine’s mother says she has already taught herself how to type.”  

“Well, Elaine is just wonderful, isn’t she,” I said. “But you know it is kind of hard to teach yourself to type, when we have no typewriter.” I guess that was the reason mom gave me a surprise birthday party with a portable typewriter as a gift. When I’d moved on, Mom taught herself to type, so it can be done. 

The Dean family had relatives in the country, and Elaine decided she liked the country. The country church her family attended was full of young people of all ages. Elaine began having church parties at her house, and I always got an invitation. The young people attending were both boys and girls, from 14 to 20. I didn’t know any of them, because they were in another school district. Mom and I had some discussions about the parties which weren’t all that pleasant.

“Mama, I don’t know those kids. I don’t want to go to Elaine’s party."

“Honey, she’s invited you for a reason. She must like you. You’ll soon get to know those kids. I wouldn’t want you to hurt her mother’s feelings by not doing things with Elaine. They’re our neighbors.”

Actually, they had moved within a quarter of a mile from us, so once again, it was all about not insulting our neighbors. I reluctantly went to the parties and pretended to be sociable. Not only were there parties, but on Sunday afternoons, she and her church friends were always planning road trips to Meridian, which was a small city, much larger than Newton. Mom pushed me to go along. I remember sitting in the back seat and fighting with a guy, who had to be in his mid-twenties, but who was determined to try to kiss me. I made excuses to keep from having to go with them again.

We hadn’t been back in school long, when our class did a day trip to the military park in Vicksburg as a field trip for our Mississippi History class. We went by school bus. Several of the girls and boys paired up and there was a lot of overly friendly socializing going on. Our chaperone ignored it.

On the return trip, I was sitting with my friend, Helen, who, like me, had not started dating. In the seat in front of us there were a couple of boys. One of them was a new boy named Jimmy, who had moved into the rental house across from Elaine. He started joking around with me, and we were soon laughing and getting acquainted. After a while, he asked if Helen would switch seats with him. She went back and sat by another girl who was sitting alone.

By that time, we were traveling in the dark, and Jimmy decided to hold my hand. Since I didn’t have a problem with that, in a little while, he sneaked a kiss. I guess I enjoyed it, because I didn’t protest and we kissed a few more times. In spite of the bus being dark, the fact we were kissing didn’t go unnoticed.

The next day at school the teasing started. I was humiliated, although I certainly wasn’t the only girl who was kissing on the bus. Because I’d never shown any interest in guys before, I was the one who was being teased. I refused to look at poor Jimmy, who had assumed he’d acquired a girlfriend. I totally avoided him, and he got the message that I wanted to be left alone.

Elaine was the loudest one, who managed to embarrass me the most. “Aww, Beth, shame on you. Poor Jimmy! Why are you treating him like that? He is so cute. You two look like the perfect couple. You seemed to like him just fine last night.”

I just hadn’t quite gotten there yet. My time was coming. I was just growing up a little slower than some of the wilder country girls. This was an age when people dated early and married young.  

I never had any further interest in Jimmy. Four years later, right after high school graduation, I would stand with Jimmy and another friend in front of the Justice of the Peace, as they said their wedding vows.