Exceptional Highlight at age nine. At Home in Mississippi : Beginning of the Post War Years by BethShelby

The summer before fourth grade started, Dad told me he knew the lady who would be my teacher. “You’ll like Mildred.,” he said, I’ve known her a long time. She buys all of her groceries in our store. I told her you’d be in her grade this year. She is anxious to meet you.” That sounded promising, and I thought maybe I’d have an inside track since she was friends with my dad. The problem was she might have been okay with adults, but she wasn’t my daddy’s teacher. Miss Nicholson was a bit of an odd ball. She was older than the teachers I’d had so far. She had never been married, and she lived with her mother, who was bedridden and had a caregiver. She drove an old Model T Ford that looked really weird parked among the newer models. She never acted as if I was someone she cared to get to know. After a day or two in her class, I tried my best to steer clear of her. She had a horrible temper, and I’m not sure she liked kids at all. If she left the room and returned to find people talking, she would go into a temper fit and start yelling. Her facial expressions reminded me of a witch, precisely the witch in the gingerbread house that planned to cook the children and eat them. Her favorite expression was, “If you don’t behave, I’m going to peel you and pepper you and slide you down a razor blade.” With threats like that is it any wonder I tried to make myself invisible? I made passing marks, but I can’t remember anything special I learned the entire year. It seems to me that was the year we did a lot of diagramming sentences. Is that still taught? I don’t remember my children doing that. By the first of November, the private speech teacher and program director for the elementary school gave all the teachers a break by claiming hours of time directing the annual Christmas pageant. Since Mom had me taking private speech lessons, Mrs. Turnage decided I was to memorize and present a long dramatic reading. I was to narrate in first person the story of the Virgin Mary who has just been told she was pregnant with the baby, Jesus. It was two typewritten pages long. Not only did I have to practice it over and over in her private room, but also in the huge auditorium, where she would stand in the back and make sure my voice carried to every portion of the room. We didn’t have sound equipment. While I was good at memorization, and I didn’t totally hate being in the spotlight, it would be many years before I learned how badly my classmate and rival, Jo Anne, had wanted to be the one to have that role. She had begged her father to let her take private speech lessons. The lessons were only six dollars a month, and he was likely one of the wealthiest people in town, but he told her, “If you think I’m going to spend good money to have someone teach my daughter how to talk, you’re out of your mind. You talk too much already. I need to pay someone to teach you when to shut up.” The music department was involved in the program, and I was chosen to be in the musical chorus. There were 12 Christmas Carols we had to learn. There was a speech chorus for children selected to repeat parts of the Christmas story in unison. In addition, there were the characters in costume, like Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the wisemen. This two-hour program required long daily practice sessions, where we stood on bleachers until our legs felt ready to collapse. The program was presented just before our two-week Christmas break. The Auditorium was packed with people on both of the two nights we performed. I couldn’t wait to get this behind me. Since my part was so long and dramatic, it received a lot of praise, and the wife of the Methodist church pastor insisted that I come and do it again for their Christmas program. The New year brought in the year 1947. Truman was serving the third year of his term and planned to run again although he'd finished Roosevelt's term at his death. Now that the war was over, people seemed more hopeful. There were a lot of building projects going on. Men returning from the war were getting help with veteran loans. New neighborhoods with government housing were cropping up everywhere. The problem was now that WWII was over, the country soon found itself in the middle of a cold war with the USSR. Communism was the next threat. J. Edgar Hoover was an interesting character who was head of the FBI. He served 48 years in that position under eight different presidents. There were many scandals with the agency during that time, which proves power corrupts. It isn’t wise to have people in positions of power for so long. Much of what went on wasn’t discovered until much later. I had started becoming more interested in what was going on outside of my own little corner of the world. Not only did I love reading novels and biographies, but one of my aunts had an old set of encyclopedias. I was fascinated and wanted to know all about everything. One day a World Book Encyclopedia salesman showed up at our house. I wanted those books so much, I didn’t want to see him leave. Mom wanted me to have them, but she had no money. My Grandmother Lay, who lived with us part of the time, was there. Although she didn’t get to attend school past 5th grade, she was a strong believer in education. She always felt like if she’d had a better education, she be able to support herself, and wouldn’t be forced to live with her children. The government gave her a thirty-dollar welfare check each month. It was for those who had never worked for wages and couldn’t draw social security. She told Mom if she could come up with a down payment, she would pay monthly, so I could have those books. Mom did a very foolish thing, which got her in serious trouble with my dad when he found out. She got the salesman to take an old shotgun, which dad never used, for the down payment. Dad ranted and raved for a while over that, but six weeks later my books came. I vowed to read them from cover to cover and I pretty much did. I got the value from those books many times over. They took me through high school. I wrote many papers, and won several essay contests using those books for research. I even learned a lot about art and painting from them. which was another of my passions. Today, with the world at our fingertips with computers, no one would understand why I was so thrilled. At the time, it was the best gift I’d ever been given. I guess I was a nerd and didn’t realize it. Now in thinking back, I realize I must have been in fifth grade when I got those books, because they weren’t destroyed in the tornado, which occurred the following year in February of 1948. Recognized Author Notes This will be a chapter in the book "Growing Up In Mississippi. It is 1948 and I'm in fourth grade.

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