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Jaime Fradera
Senior Member
since 2000-11-25
Posts 843
Where no tyranny is tolerable

0 posted 2007-05-06 04:01 PM



Hi there.
I know this doc still needs modification to look good in print, but hopefully it may make sense to you


Jaime Fradera
Class assignment


Descriptive Narrative


Time Tripping; The Summer of Seventy-two (should be centered)
I did this write originally for senior high school English, because we were supposed to write something, and I couldn't think of anything else to write
about.  But I knew I could always throw it away.  And no one but Mr. Miles would even read it, and then nobody would know.  Unfortunately, Mr. Miles wanted
each of us to read our "stories," the better to grade them. Well, we started.  Then they finally got to me.   I tried to get out of reading my pitiful
piece of mindless, tedious twaddle, but then everybody started jeering and teasing me, so finally I just ... did it ... and I guess the teacher graded
it, and it was presumably thrown away.  But I would never forget it.  It was the most extraordinary summer of my teenage life ... the way it was ... and here also
are the audio tracks running in the background to so many of the first times in my life.

I've got a pair of roller skates;
You've got a brand new key ...


Christmas, 1971.  It was cold


TSB, the Texas School for the Blind, was a boarding school for blind students from across the state, and we were all going home for vacation.  As on every other year since
1967, I took the long twelve-hour bus ride home to Monterey.  I would spend Christmas in Mexico.  But I was deeply unhappy.  It was my face, itching and
pop-marked with horrible acne; it was my scalp, burning and flaking away with dandruff that was even worse.  I felt dizzy and at times I couldn't hear.
But what upset me so deeply that Christmas was not having a girlfriend.  I wanted a girlfriend.  I wanted a girlfriend so badly, more deeply than I ever
wanted anything else.  Day and night I dreamt how it would be to have a girlfriend.  I must have looked sad to my family ...


My parents arranged a diversion, a trip to Mexico City to visit Father.
I think it was part of the custody arrangement.  It had always been fun to see Dad in Mexico City.  He and his wife and friends were always going out
sight-seeing or to restaurants.  There my reverie continued.  What could I do to have a girlfriend? ... anything? ... Why did many of my friends have girlfriends
and I didn't?  All I knew would happen is I would go back to the school next year, and the next year, and the next ...
One day my father took me to a certain Dr. Dugol for treatment of the acne and dandruff.  I guess maybe he was a skinologist and scalpologist?  (Just being silly)  His enchanting
daughter fluttered around me, reminded me again of what I wanted, and it made me cry.  The doctor was gentle.  He said that emotional turmoil
can cause skin outbreaks like mine.  Could he know ... my secret? ... It was almost unbearable.  What if he knew?  He prescribed a cream for my face, vitamins,
a special shampoo and cap to protect my scalp, and a special soap to bathe with.

In January I was back at the school, and it was as it had always been.  All the teachers were making fun of me.  The house so-called "parents" were old
hags and they seemed always to be yelling at me.  Worst of all, I was finally mastering the art of beating up on myself..  Life was bleak and uneventful,
and January became February, and February became March.

(Bang a gong; get it on) eeT-rex
And then one day in April I got a long distance call from father, and the news there had been trouble at home.  Mother had fallen ill and had been brought back to Texas.  The student boarding business had to be abandoned.  He had taken my two sisters with him to Mexico City.
There was no home to go to for the summer.  He had spoken to the school administration.  Would I like to stay in Texas and go to summer school?  I agreed.
And as the school year drew to a close, I began to feel an aliveness and quickening I had never known before and that I could not explain.
(Rocket Man) Elton John.
Bill Withers;
Some time in our lives
We all have pain,
We all have sorrow ...

Monday, June 12, 1972 was the first day of summer school.  
There was glimmering magic in the air, the feeling that something momentous was about to happen, that it might happen any minute, was stronger and more powerful than
ever.  The crop of summer schools students were almost all new, and even some teachers.  It was the same old place, but somehow it seemed that everything
was different.  We were housed in a building called the "complex" because the old school buildings were being cleared of furniture prior to their demolition

The routine we followed in summer school was simple and the atmosphere almost casual.
There were two classes, one for morning and the other in the afternoon.  I had English all morning and then elected "group discussion."  I took group discussion for the afternoon
to avoid having to take PE.  You know how awful having to take PE is, and having to run laps in 90 degree heat was something I didn't even want to think
about.  And if I had told them that, I knew they would have made me do it.   It was in the afternoon class that I met the crazies: Randall, Donna, Lisa, Paula, Lenelle
and Bob.  I hold them strictly responsible for teaching me that there is humor in everything  and how to really laugh.  When we all got going, they had
to open all the windows just to let the sound waves out and keep the panes from shattering.  We decided we were inmates in a special concentration camp.
Given a bunch of teenagers with nothing to do, the school officials couldn't resist the temptation to exploit us as cheap slave labor.  (Cheap, Why, they never paid us anything for it.) Without warning they
could impress us out of class and make us carry furniture, couches, chairs, tables, anything, from one building to another in the hot Texas sun.  Every
day we got our thin prison gruel, so it wasn't too bad.  If interviewed by the "red cross" or some reporter, we were instructed to say how happy we were
and that the food was wonderful and give them signed statements (previously extracted from us under torture by the political police) saying we were not
being mistreated.  If anyone complained about this, the student seemed to "disappear" for a while and then come back cheerfully parroting the Party line,
and how they loved big brother, etc.  Although we never heard if there had been any successful escape attempts, neither did we hear of any unsuccessful ones, so maybe there was still hope.  Just two days after the Wattergate break-in, Bob and I created anew shadow government which was to be even more Nixonian
than Nixon's.  With others joining we made up cabinet posts and tried to fill them.  Some went unfilled, so I volunteered to be the minister for human
lefts, for civil wrongs, the functionary for fundamental functions, the procurator general for general procurement, the dius ex machina, official beholder of the divine
digits, minister for nocturnal affairs, and High Priest during the festivals of Wester and Passunder ... and sometimes we would institute a command economy
and five-year plans like the Communist countries----all of which, of course, had to be kept secret from the happy camp authorities, some of whom we could
also bribe to get enough prison soup to survive for another day.

I'm yours.
You're mine.
Automatically sunshine ...
Diana Ross

Back in English class we had principally two activities.  Besides written assignments, we would listen to cassette books and make plans to put on a school
play.  In this regard, we decided that, since they were going to laugh at us anyway, we might just as well perform a comedy.  After going through one by
Thornton Wielder called Healthy, Wealthy and Wild, we either chose or were assigned parts.  The last parts, by default, went to me.  It was supposed to
be the lead.  My last act had been playing lion tamer back in second grade.  I thought this would be easy, just memorizing lines, but I was wrong, and
by the time I decided this had been a mistake and I shouldn't have gotten into it, I couldn't get out.  my cracked voice was still changing.  I didn't
know how it would sound from one week to the next.  And as if that were not enough, I was about to fall hopelessly in teenage love.

It happened at a dance on the 4th of July.

It was a Tuesday and, for us, a school day like any other.  That morning in English class, we listened to another installment of The Clockwork Orange.  Set in the future, the novel might have been either an inspiration for or a takeoff on Huxley's Brave New World.  In this installment, the functionaries who run the clockwork society apprehend and jail the criminal.  As part of his rehabilitation, the prisoner, who's cereal number is 6655321, is forced to watch continuous video of violence such as he had perpetrated.  At 10-00, as dark, mountainous clouds were filling the sky, we took our usual coffee break.  After lunch, for the few minutes I listened to music, the AM band was alive with sharp, angry bursts of crackling static.


After lunch the shop teacher impressed us to carry furniture from or to one place or another.  Just as we got an enormous load out the door, with the usual grumbling and complaining, there was a sudden, violent gust of cold wind.  This was followed, seconds later by a series of ear-splitting thunderclaps.  As we dropped our load and ran for or lives, the rain came down in curtains, in sheets.  I finally got inside just as the rain was changing to hail.  After about ten minutes the rain had stopped, and when I stepped outside the air was cold and the ground was covered with hailstones.  I picked them up to examine them.  They felt like little marbles.  They were smooth, as if they had been machined or polished.  Each of them had fine grooves or lines on it, and each had a tiny flat circle, which I supposed marked the point of impact with the ground.


After supper, it being the 4th, the staff planned a dance for us.  It was still thundering, so the dance was held inside.  It was a dance like any other and there seemed little else to do.  I was just sitting there listening to the music when an insistent voice jolted me out of some reverie.


"Hey, you owe me a dance."


It was Lenelle, that little fat girl with those thick glasses.   It was true.  It was at some other danced where she had approached me.


"Hey."


I couldn't really argue with her.  She wasn't leaving me alone.  I thought it might be worth a bit of trouble to be rid of her, so I mumbled "Okay." and waddled off with Fatso on to the improvised "dance floor."


Such a dance I never went to ... We didn't do anything, just shuffled round in circles on the floor.  And as we "danced" we started to talk.


Lenelle was fifteen and partially sighted.  That's why she wore those glasses.  We talked about our parents, about her school in Houston, about our worst and favorite subjects.  We talked about our favorite music, about religion, even about our illnesses.  The talking flowed on and on, and I felt that something wondrous was happening.  I also "danced" for a time with Paula.  Paula was twelve and incredibly articulate.  Everything that came out of her mouth was grammatical, quotable and printable.  We talked about our schools, about her parents, etc.  The talk flowed on and on, and I felt that something wondrous was happening.


Next day the buzz on campus had it that I was going with Lenelle.  I thought this a bit premature, but I could not forget the wonderful experience of the night before.  At every break and meal time , Lenelle would seek me out to say hello or stop to talk.  In group discussion that afternoon, somebody passed me a note from Paula.  She said she had a crush on me, that she knew I liked Lennele and it was okay.  On Thursday in English class, The Clockwork Orange droned on and on somewhere, but I floated with Lenelle among the stars.  Lenelle was five-feet two and already weighed 154 pounds, and in a teenage way I loved her.


By Friday it was obvious that Lenelle was as preoccupied  with me as I was with her, and she was constantly following me around.  After supper we went for a walk around campus.  What we did away from lights and watchful eyes that summer night is unprintable, and in any case would have got us both put on restriction had we been caught.  But it was not until we went back to the "dance" that I could work up the courage to propose to her, and actually the dance was almost over when I finally popped the question:  Would she "go with me" for the rest of summer school?  And so it came to pass that on Friday, July 7, 1972 ... at 9-40 PM Central Daylight Time, Lenelle, my new girlfriend said that, yes, she would "go with me."  What "going with her" meant wasn't really clear, and there were only three weeks left of summer school. but the particulars didn't seem to matter.  All that mattered was that the impossible, the improbable had happened.  I had a girlfriend!  I had a girlfriend!  For the first time in my life I really, really had a girlfriend.  I can't begin to tell you how glorious, how confirming this was for me; to know that a girl cared deeply about me!  On this first evening of my first relationship, I slept little, and listened to music far into the night.


The next morning was a Saturday, and that day we were all to have a novel experience.  We were going to Dallas to participate in an annual competition called the sports car rally.  In this event, each blind student would be paired off with a sighted driver.  We would each be given large print or Braille instructions to read to our drivers requiring us to complete a complicated course to specific locations all over the Metroplex, a bewildering labyrinthine maze of streets, toll ways and suburbs, before returning to the contest site.  We would have to complete the course and return by a certain time, and we had to provide evidence that we had been to the specified places.  The first, second and third teams to return would be awarded prizes.


Picture here a gang of raucous, hormone-driven, confined teenagers with nothing to do.  During the five-hour bus ride, we made so much noise that our state-appointed chaperones and care-takers had to use hot mustard gas (those were hot dogs) on us to keep us quiet and restore tranquility.  In Dallas, over pizza and soda, I met Mark Taylor, who was covering the event for WOAI, and teased him it must have been a long drive for him from San Antonio.   We talked shop until everybody was ready to start.  Whomever I talked with that afternoon, I made sure to talk about my girlfriend; It felt so good, so wonderful to say that.  My girlfriend.  The race was lots of fun, and both the Morning News and the Star telegram came out  to interview us.  It was the happiest, most wonderful day of my teenage life.


Back in English class, we continued making preparations for the play we had selected.  We did this by first reading the script out loud and speaking our parts in class.  After more or less memorizing our lines, we began acting our parts at night in the auditorium without the script, and with all the props we would use on the 26th.  Night after night, again and yet again, we practiced parts and scenes under our teacher's guidance until we got them right.  Throughout I felt that something wonderful was happening.  For the first time in my life I was part of a collective project in which my role was vital, and the knowledge I was needed by the group was deeply confirming.


Playing a role also gave me a unique opportunity.  My life at the school had always been bleak and frightening.  I was terrified of speaking up for any reason, afraid of talking to teachers or asking questions, convinced they would make fun of me; but here, in summer school, my tormentors were gone!  My character was a raucous, yelling, bombastic, bullying, fist-swinging foul-mouth, and night after night I was finally dumping a tremendous amount of energy, the accumulated rage, anger and frustrations of the past.  After each night of yelling, berating, stamping, screaming, cursing and saying I was going to punch everybody out, it felt so wonderful to finally let go of all that tension, all that pain.  Had anyone made fun of my acting out, I could just say it was somebody else, that character I was playing, and not me; and that I was just following the script.  But no one did.  As the project came closer and closer to fruition, I felt a mounting anticipation and excitement I had never known before.  Working on the play, and running around with Lenelle, bob and the gang made the lasts weeks of summer school a magical and dream-like experience.


On Tuesday, the 25th, we did a full dress rehearsal, and a girl backstage was detailed to smear makeup on us.  That gloopy, stinking, itchy stuff! ... in your eyes, in your hair ...  The rehearsal and performance the next night went off flawlessly.  It was a tremendously exhilarating experience, and more fun than I can ever describe.


Friday, July 28 1972 was the last day of summer school, and our augmented and expanded gang met for the last time.  It was time to say goodbye.  It was all so sad, so poignant and so beautiful.  Lisa and Lenelle had struck up a friendship, and both of them were crying.  We all exchanged addresses and promised each other than, yes, we would write.  Lenelle's Southern Baptist parents showed up to take her home, and in their presence Lenelle removed my ring and gave it back to me.  Her father said now just what exactly was this business with her wearing my ring?  I explained that this was just a teenage ritual, and as summer school was over, she would not be wearing it anymore.  I had the vague feeling that her parents were not pleased.  Then Amelia, a family friend, came to take me back to San Antonio:

...And you listen to the music
And you want to sing along.
You want to get the meaning
Out of each and every song.
And you find yourself a message
And some words to call your own ...
David Gates ...


Mother had recovered but we didn't really have a place to live, so we stayed at Amelia's and I hung out with her teenage daughter.  As the weeks of August passed, there seemed little to do, and I mostly listened to music.  I got a tape from Paula, and it was wonderful to hear her voice again.  Lenelle and I remained friends, but over time I lost touch with all of them, never having been very good at corresponding, at least not until electronic mail was invented.  I stayed in touch with Bob the longest.  And then there were those songs, the songs of 1972.


In September care-takers took me back to the Texas school.  My life at the school returned to what it had always been, gray and intimidating.  The house parents were old hags and were always yelling at me.  I felt intimidated by the home-ec teacher.  I wouldn't talk to her and she gave me f's because I wasn't doing any work.  I had more bouts of dizziness and at times I couldn't hear in class.  The old tormentors were back, or at least I thought they might be.  The other kids were always laughing at me.  What was worse, I had refined the art of beating up on myself.  And as September became October and then November, I felt sad and very, very lonely.


And it was cold:

In the streets the children screamed,
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed.
Not a word was spoken.
The churchbells all were broken.
And the three men I admire most,
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast,
The day the music died ...
Don Mc-clean


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