More Memories of Freshman Year

Many of the girls brought notes from their moms or their doctors, asking that they not be required to participate in strenuous physical activity due to delicate female problems. Coach Beatty expressed disgust and made fun of them for sitting on the sidelines. He forced the rest of us to run laps around the ballfield, jump hurdles and do other difficult exercises. He was particularly hard on girls who were overweight. I didn’t have a weight problem, but there were times I was so winded I thought for sure I would faint.

I had another male teacher who was also a coach who taught the history class. At least, he seemed to like teaching history and tried to make, what I considered a dull subject, interesting. I found the race for our president something worthy of my time for a change. Eisenhower was running against Adlai Stevenson. For the first time, but certainly not the last, I went against my state and my family. Mississippi always voted for Democrats. I was for Eisenhower who was a Republican. When the newspapers came out, the headlines proclaimed Stevenson the winner, but they had to print an apology because the final count showed Eisenhower had won. Nixon was his running mate.

Math wasn’t a subject I liked to begin with. Coach Beatty didn’t seem to care if we understood algebra or not. He preferred getting in a discussion with the guys in class over football rather than helping those who were struggling. I limped along, learning what I could from the instruction in the textbook, and I managed to make an A in the class, in spite of my doubt, that I’d learned anything. A few years later, I would blame my high school teacher for the ‘D’ I made in college algebra, and for the fact I had no real foundation in the subject. I don’t recall ever needing it once I was no longer a student.

My favorite subjects were literature, writing book reports and science. Those were the classes I found fascinating. In science class, we were required to keep a notebook. We had to draw diagrams of various objects, internal organs and close ups of bones or cell structures. Then we labeled the various parts. Since I enjoyed doing art, the science notebook was a fun project. I wrote my reports and did my drawings with pen and ink. The pen sometimes leaked globs of ink, making me have to start over. Ballpoint pens had been produced since 1945, but I’d never had one at that point.

Since there was more homework in high school, I often rode the school bus home instead of walking into town to wait for Dad to get off work. Our school bus driver was an awkward guy who wore thick glasses and was very unattractive. My friend, Helen, enjoyed teasing me about him and calling him my boyfriend. Sometimes Helen and I passed notes in class joking around with each other about various unpopular guys. My grandmother, who lived with us part time, got a bit nosey and decided to snoop around in my notebook. She found one of the notes which Helen and I had passed back and forth.

The note read, ‘Beth, have you and Ed decided on when you plan to run away and get married?’ I’d written back, ‘Yes, we are planning to do that next week. Why don’t you and Charlie get married at the same time, and we can all run away together?’ Grandma got all excited thinking I was planning to elope at fourteen. I got questioned, but Mom hadn’t believed it. I hardly ever mentioned any guy except to say someone was horrible and I couldn’t stand him. Actually, the ones I claimed to dislike were the ones I had crushes on. It was my excuse to talk about them without admitting liking them.

In my science class, there was a senior boy who sat across from me. He was a star football player, and I thought he was the cutest guy in the whole school. He was really nice, and I badly wanted to sound intelligent when I could find an occasion to talk to him. I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on in class. The teacher was talking about the reproductive system of mammals. As I was trying to think of something to say to Marvin, I heard the teacher mention the eggs of the rabbit.  What came out of my mouth was ridiculous. “Oh, I didn’t realize that rabbits laid eggs.”

Marvin gave me an amused look, likely wondering how such a dumb girl had managed to make it to ninth grade. “Oh, come on,” he said, “surely you must have heard of the Easter bunny.”

I suddenly realized the teacher wasn’t talking about external eggs. I wished I hadn’t picked this moment to make conversation. If I’d been more mature and less awkward around guys, I would have laughed it off, instead of blushing. I decided senior classmates were out of my league. I was going to have to practice on someone I didn’t find so attractive.

The Christmas season, once again, found me painting outdoor displays for a local businessman. Some of my friends applied for extra Christmas help at the variety stores around town. I decided I would start early the following Christmas season and see if I could get some experience in sales. Since I wasn’t planning to ever get married, I would have to get a job. I thought I might need something other than painting Santa and his reindeer for a future resume.

The year 1953 would see some interesting changes. It was the year which saw the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. It would also see an end to the Korean war. In the USSR, Stalin suffered a stroke and died. Khrushchev began his rise to power in the Communist Party. The Rosenberg couple were both tried and executed for espionage for giving atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during WWII. Jonas Salk announced the creation of the polio vaccine. The War of the Worlds was aired on the radio, causing many to believe we were under attack by aliens from Mars.

In lighter news, the first Corvette rolled off the assembly line. The first James Bond novel was published. Lucille Ball gave birth on TV in real life. The chemical structure of DNA was discovered. The first color TV set went on sale. Burger King opened it's first restaurant, Walt Disney started building Disneyland. Swanson put out the first TV dinner, and the first Playboy magazine was published.

During the summer following my freshman year, I would make my first and only trip to a youth camp. For me, it wouldn’t be the best time of my life, but it was sure to be a time I would always remember.