I was raised way out in the country on a spot Daddy called “Pea Ridge.”
When I questioned the name, he would say “you can grow a good pea patch here.” He did that; he grew lots of peas.
Yes, I was a teenager at one time. I had the long, shiny hair, the tan, the tons of eye makeup, the cute clothes Momma usually made me change to something not so cute.
Our graduating class was so small you had to get a magnifying glass to see it. I think we had twenty nine people accepting their diplomas in 1970.
We didn’t seem to realize we were pioneers. We didn’t think that years later, kids would look at our picture in the hallways and see us as history, as the kids that started it all.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand……city versus country and teenage rivalry…..and Karma…….
There were two city schools…we looked at them as something we would never be, but also as stuck up and citified.
We doubted any of the guys could change a tire, cut tenderloin out of a deer, or plow a mule. We thought they were all sissies and had to have good hair when they were on the basketball court.
One day, my cousin, who was more like a sister, moved to north Florence. 
This was definitely the city!!! Upon investigation, we found she had a good looking neighbor!
The teenage rivalry was on!! One of us had to get him first, and it was absolutely going to be me.
I spent hours getting ready to go visit my cousin. Every hair on my head went through sheer torture to be perfect. I slept with a head full of empty orange juice cans. I slathered my face with creams. I shaved my legs three times, painted my much chewed nails, lined my eyes, and sprayed on anything that smelled good.
Oh, I was determined he would look.
Of COURSE he was looking….. At my cousin.
I suffered through this for a while. I told everyone he was a jerk, thought he knew everything, and the worst part, he went to a city school.
I said I wouldn’t date him even if he wanted to, because I would not sink low enough to date a townie.
But, time changes everything, and one day my cousin, who I admit had better hair than I, came home sobbing, crying and slinging snot.
She flung her bell bottom jeans onto the bed and screamed that “It is over!! He said he likes someone else.”
Oh, how I grieved with her!! I held her hand, opened her small Coke and watched her ex boyfriend mow the lawn at his house next door.
How sneaky teens can be!! How conniving!! I decided I would take a walk to check out the neighborhood.
I combed my already perfect- just-in- case hair, and headed out, leaving my weeping cousin to enjoy her Coke.
He looked at me, I looked at him.
I complimented his little sister, who was hanging upside down from the swing set while singing a Monkees song. She had on blue underwear.
He fell for it. We made a date. I couldn’t have cared less that my cousin was in the throes of despair on her pink bedspread.
Now, remember I was country. I went home and told my Momma I had a date to go to a basketball game IN TOWN.
She said she thought I was an idiot, but if I was going to A CITY SCHOOL, I was gonna look good while I did it.
She sewed all day. The dress was beautiful…a pink shift dress with white lace down the front. It fit perfectly, and I just knew I was looking better than Twiggy ever would. I painted on my little eyelashes, though, just in case.
I counted one hundred strokes as I brushed my hair. I checked to be sure I had the right purse and shoes. I bought new panty hose. I practiced my eye makeup till my eyes were sore.
He came to pick me up in his daddy’s big, green car. My heart pounded. For once, I had one-upped my beautiful cousin!! AND, I was going to a basketball game at a CITY SCHOOL!!
I tell you, I was so happy and scared, I thought I was going to experience spontaneous combustion.
I didn’t know that thing called Karma was waiting in the bleachers….just for me.
He looked me up and down as we walked to the car. I said, “Like my dress?” He nodded.
In the gym, hundreds of city students were screaming. I looked around at the girls. It seemed they all shopped at the Red Rooster or the Shelia Shoppe in downtown Florence. They all looked like models. They all had real leather boots and shoes. They were perfect.
I did not, however, let that deter me. I had made it into a city gym with a city boy. I had topped my cousin, who always seemed to have everything I couldn’t have.
Oh, how teenagers can hurt and be hurt.
I am as guilty as anyone else. I added some teenage angst of my own. I 
reckon I deserved what I got…….
As we sat down, we drew stares and grimaces. We heard whispers from every direction.
I started to feel uneasy. I held onto his arm tightly.
He went to get a drink, and I sat alone in the bleachers, getting looks from the city girls.
One of them finally got up and came over to me. Relief washed over me; I was about to talk to a city girl and start fitting in. I was about to gain some class!!!
“Where in God’s name did you get that dress?” she asked.
Thinking I was about to be complimented, I said, with pride…..”My Momma made it.”
“We thought so….” The city girl said, slinging her pretty hair. “You can tell from a mile away that dress didn’t come from town. Gaaaah!! I can’t believe anyone would WEAR that.”
She flounced back over to her group of friends, who all burst into laughter.
I got up and met my date in the school hallway. I told him I felt sick and needed to go home.
I never tried to steal anyone else’s boyfriend!!
Now, this story is not to knock city schools or city people or city students.
This little story is meant to be a lesson in kindness and mercy. This is meant to show how young people can be cruel, and how the small group I graduated with was more like family than schoolmates.
Now, I appreciate that little, hokey, country school and all the teachers and administrators who went through so much to see us be the first class to graduate.
I think often of the time we were gathered together and told we would not be able to get real diplomas. Most of us were in tears, because we had to have more books in the library and a real math teacher in order to be accredited.
Once in a while, I go back to that hallway at school and look at our picture on the wall. We were a tight group. I’m sure at times we must have hurt each other, as teenagers will do. But, we all knew each other, each other’s parents, even each other’s grandparents. Most of us went to church together.
Our parents stood around the local stores talking about the weather and who is sick, who had a baby, who needs some firewood.
We all went home to gardens, cows, horses, fields, barns, chickens, and country music.
We all had pretty much the same parents who didn’t mind standing in the yard and yelling at us to “Get in here and eat supper!!” If one of us got out of line, the phone calls would fly through the neighborhood.
We all fit in there. We had no separation due to what we had, who we were, or how our parents made the living. We all had the homemade dresses. Even some of the boys had homemade shirts.
I don’t think any of us realized we would one day be adults and look back on that time as a blessing.
Some of us just wanted to get out of there, to get somewhere bigger and better.
Some of us just wanted to go to school forever and never face the problems adulthood brings.
Some of the boys were headed to war, to Vietnam, to be able to put th
eir tough country ways to use in unimaginable ways.
I know city people are no different from us country folk. I know they can change a tire, fire a weapon, sharpen a chainsaw, and drive a tractor. It’s just that we did it with such finesse!!!!
Even now, all these years later, when I am around a classmate, we talk about
those years with a kind of wistfulness. Tough times made us even tougher.
I am happy when I see any of them, and we can spend a few minutes talking about how we are the pioneers, how we miss those days, how we didn’t know how much fun we were having.
School is a lot different now. I can’t even do the homework a ten year old brings home. The kids …one outfit costs more than my whole closet did back then.
Things are much more superficial. In some ways, it has to be harder. The competition is raw and painful. Who has the most expensive car or phone? Who uses the most expensive hairdresser or nail salon? Bullying is so prevalent it makes the news every day.
I can see it’s not all about grades or the future anymore. It is all painted on, and fake. I realize this is not an “across the board” thing, but it worries me for the kids who will soon be adults.
The way they change a flat tire is to call Mommy on the cell.
I changed a tire in the school parking lot in 1970….. With three cheerleaders helping me. I was sixteen…… It was a Ford Falcon, with the back door wired shut with a coat hanger……
