Life on Avalon Lane - V

The Conforte girls were Yankees from New York City.
They moved in across the street when I was 2 and my sister, Jen was 6. There were three of them; Elise was the oldest, then Celeste who was the same age as Jen, and then Jeaneen who was the same age as me. Not only were they Yankees, but they were Catholics as well.
They were all blond haired with green eyes. Elise had something wrong with half of her face, we never did know what is was, and we never did ask either.
Years later, I wondered if it was a bad burn scar or a birth defect. As the years went by, she stayed inside more and more.
Celeste 'had a mouth on her', or so said Mama.

Mr. Conforte was always nice; his first name was James, he was a mill worker and a Methodist, but Mrs. Conforte was absolutely cold. She weighed herself and her daughters everyday, threw away any toys that were left out by her daughters, and couldn't cook worth a lick. She didn't keep a garden, bought everything at the IGA, and never set foot in the yard except to layout in her bathing suit. Her first name was Audrey, but I never could find anything Hepburn about her.
Apparently, Mrs. Conforte had been in a convent to become a nun, and she met Mr. Conforte and ran off with him. It was such a scandal that they moved south in 1968. Only to find themselves in suburb hell, surrounded by Protestants!

When I was eight, Mrs. Conforte's parents moved down from New York too. They were retired, and bought a house one street over from Avalon Lane. The Byers were really nice, Mr. Byer could carve anything into a Madonna, Moses, or Jesus figurine. He carved something called balsa wood, I had never heard of that. But it was really soft and smooth. Mrs. Byer was nice enough, but quiet and she stayed inside a lot, especially in the summertime.

I always wondered how the Byers had raised such a mean daughter.

Anyway, Jen was not a fighter, but Celeste and Elise were. About once a week, Jen would come running into the house, crying that Celeste and Elise were being mean and pulling her hair.

One day, Mama had had enough. She saw Jen running across the front yard, crying. Mama locked the screen door before Jen got there. Jen pulled up short, sobbing that as usual, Celeste was making fun of her - Mama told Jen, "don't come home until you've snatched her head bald." Jen's eyes were big as saucers as she stood there on the porch.
She turned, swallowing the tears, and marched back across the yard to the Conforte's.
Celeste did not lose all of her hair. But Jen played more with Susie Denny down the road than Celeste from then on.


The rivalry continued between the Confortes and my sister and me. One morning, Jeaneen, our next door neighbor, Jimmy Helmick and I were playing in our back yard. Mom was shelling peas watching us. I was telling them about a dream I had the night before. "We were in the woods behind our house and it was early in the morning, a huge lion was chasing us through the woods, and suddenly my big brother Richard came out of the yard with my grandfather's rifle and shot the lion."
Jeaneen, wide-eyed, asked if there were anymore lions in the woods, I told her, straight-faced, that no, there weren't anymore lions and Jeaneen calmed down.
Mama just knew that I couldn't leave it well enough alone. I waited about a minute, then I told her that there weren't any more lions, but there were tigers and bears!
Jeaneen ran home crying. and Mama had a grin on her face.


The Helmicks lived next door. They were from West Virginia and had funny accents. Jimmy was a year older than me, and was the first boy I ever kissed, but that was only a dare.

Mr. Helmick worked at the Coca-Cola Bottling company in downtown Durham. Sometimes he would bring home Coca-Cola bottles that he had heated up and pulled into neat shapes. Mrs. Helmick wore her hair in a beehive hair-do. She stayed at home and made and decorated cakes for special parties. We used to sneak in the kitchen to look at the ones she made for bachelor parties!

For being from West Virginia, Mrs. Helmick surely was scared of bugs, mice, snakes, and frogs. She would scream if she saw a mouse, and I swear, her beehive would go up a whole inch!

I loved catching little green snakes and frogs from the creek. In the the summer about once a week, I would wait until the mailman had put the mail in the Helmick's mailbox, and then put the snake in the mailbox. Jimmy and I would hide in the bushes and wait for his mom to walk out to get the mail!
Mama made me apologize every time, and then sit on our front step for thirty minutes without talking.
My big brother, Richard, nicknamed me "Chatterbox" early on, so this punishment was exceptionally tough.

Economics

In the early 70's, Bill Cosby debuted on TV with Jello Pudding Cups; oh how I wanted some of those. Mama made plenty of desserts, all wonderful, but I sure did want those pudding cups. I was with Mama at the IGA getting groceries one day and I started pestering her about the pudding cups and went so far as to put them in cart without permission. Boy she did scold me -"Rebecca Lee, we can make pudding better and cheaper at home! Put those back!" I did, I wasn't happy but I knew she was right. We went down a few more aisles, and we were in the frozen food section and Mama picked some Ritz pie crusts and started to put them in the cart - " I piped right up, "Mama, you can make those better and cheaper at home!" And you know, it stopped her short, I don't know if was because she was considering spanking me right there, or if she was once again reminded of exactly who she had raised.



School, Sex, and Religion


When it came time to start Kindergarten, I was pretty excited. It was at the Methodist Church which was right through the woods behind our house. Richard surprised me by building a bridge over the creek and clearing the path so that I could walk there without having to go the long way on the street. We got to play, read, and make art stuff. Everything but the naps was fun, I couldn't lay still for that long during the day. Playing outside was fun too, they had a whole playground with a huge industrial swing set.


Everyday we had a contest to see who could swing the highest and I won a lot. As the year went on, we added to it by seeing who could jump off from the highest point, this was limited because the playground fence set a limit. Terry Dugan beat me by finally managing to jump the fence, except he broke his arm doing it. We stopped after that.

When it came time to start the 1st grade, I was not at all excited. Jen and Richard had been going to real school ever since I could remember and it didn't seem like a good idea to me. It took a lot of convincing on Mama's part, and a few weeks before school started Mom took me down to the school to show me around. Mr. Benton, the principal, greeted me by name which amazed me, "Hello Becca, are you looking forward to starting school?" to which I replied, "No, but Mama says there is a law that says I have to come, so I guess I'll be here."

Mr. Benton's eyes were little wide, then he laughed, and my Mom just shook her head, as if she expected me to say anything else.

My first grade teacher was Mrs. Best and she was pregnant. Because I was the youngest in our family, I had never been around a pregnant person much. She got permission to show us film about how babies are made and one is born. The real thing, not the animated stuff they use today! I thought it was really gross, and a little unbelievable, and while I couldn't spell it, when I found out what an episiotomy was, I decided right then and there that I was not going to give birth if I could avoid it!

Now what I did with this new found knowledge turned out to cause a little bit of consternation on my mother's part. The Hollemans were church friends, and the closest Presbyterian Church was in Durham, so that's where we went. Most of our church friends didn't live out where we did. We had refreshments after Church every Sunday, and we kids always got there first since we had separate lessons and didn't have to sit through the sermon. Anyway, Mama got there and I ran up to her in front of everyone, exclaiming "Dewey Holleman didn't know where babies came from, and he was in the 4th grade!" To which Mom calmly replied, "Since when are you an expert on sex?"
Puzzled, I asked, "Six what?"

My desire to educate started even before I received my formal sex education in the 1st grade. Our family cat, Tiki, was a blue point Siamese who also happened to be the easiest cat in the neighborhood. She had eleven litters of kittens in five years! I was very familiar with the process as she had two litters in my bed, under the sheets.
Jen took piano lessons from Mrs. McIver, who was friends with Mama, and who had a son my age, named Charlie. They lived about a block away from us. When she had her lessons I would play with Charlie. In a greater effort to impart my new found wisdom on life, one day I asked Charlie if he knew where babies came from, he said no, so I proceeded to use his cat to explain the anatomy of the situation; holding the poor cat down and pointing out all of the important parts. About that time, Mrs. McIver called us into the house because something was on TV she wanted to show us. Turns out, it was a man walking on the moon for the first time, which became slightly overshadowed by Charlie explaining to his mother that I had just told him where babies came from. I still relate "man's first step" and feline reproduction in an odd way.

In the 2nd Grade, I had Mrs. Rudisell. She wore a slip, a bra and a girdle - I couldn't figure out what all of those stripes were under her clothes and asked Mama to explain. That caused a big eye roll. When we were especially bad in class, Mrs. Rudisell made us stand, with our arms out straight on each side holding an encyclopedia balanced on each hand. When our arms started to drop or our elbows started to bend - she would rap them with a yard stick. None of our parents believed us when we told them she did this.
That was also the year that I spent most of my time sitting on the Principal's bench at the office because I couldn't be quiet.

In the 3rd grade I had Miss Jandy Mooney, she was so nice, and pretty too. She looked like that actress who played Wonder Woman on TV. At the time, I couldn't figure why so many Dads would show up with snacks for the class or forgotten lunches, usually it was Moms, but not that year.

Every year we had spirit week at school and dressed up in funny outfits. Jen was in the third grade the delegation from Japan visited the school. They came the day everyone dressed up as babies in diapers with pacifiers; even some of the teachers - I wonder what ideas about American schools they took back to Japan with them . . .

Aman Sandhu rode her bike into the street when we were in the 1st Grade and was hit a by a car. She was in a body cast for six months. We all visited her a lot, and brought lots of coloring to do with her.

When Jen broke her arm she only had to wear a cast for 4 weeks, so I asked Mama why Aman was in the cast for so long. At first she just said that Aman had broken a lot of bones so it would take longer to heal, but this didn't seem to make that much sense to me. Finally, after continued questioning, Mama explained that Aman's religion didn't let her drink milk or eat meat, and that without the calcium and other stuff from animals that Aman's bones had a hard time fixing themselves.

Looking back, my mother did a pretty good job at hiding her opposition to what probably appeared to her as a form of neglect; she just gave me the facts and let me stew on that for myself.