“Shoulda Been The Boy!”
There wasn’t much opportunity growing up poor in a mill town.
No one in my family went to college. Some did not finish high school.
Everyone worked at the paper mill, where the rank air reeked like skunk. Towering smokestacks belched unfiltered yellow haze skyward, blanketing the town and peeling paint from the houses.
Even as a child, I knew I wanted nothing to do with the paper mill. My goal was to go to college. I was quick to learn and book-smart too. But even finishing high school was going to be an uphill battle with my mother.
Ain’t you clever! My relatives said, except if they were on my mother’s side of the family. The more they ignored me, the more outspoken I became, until my mother signed me up for kindergarten a year early.
She had two babies at home plus Nana, her ailing mother. Putting me on the school bus mornings was worth the trek to the bus stop.
Today, a kid like me would be called gifted. Fifty years ago, in our neck of the woods, any such gift was wasted on a girl.
Too smart for your own good, my Grampa Tebow liked to proclaim, toasting me with an empty beer can as he rose to rummage for another.
Shoulda been the boy! Nana whispered, wide-eyed, when I showed her the gold stars on my papers.
Smartie pants! My mother muttered if I corrected her word choice or pronunciation. You may not always be right, but you ain’t never wrong!
I knew it would be a cold day in hell when she agreed to let me go to college. Of all of us kids, I was the oldest. It was up to me to pave the way toward higher learning.
In my first year of high school, I joined the Debate Team. The next year, I became president of the Latin Club. Defeated by my newfound ability to argue a point ad nauseam, my mother quit talking to me.
It was bliss. For a short time, I lived in a private world, reading book after book I brought home from the library.
But it didn’t last. One day, my mother appeared in front of me and told me get your nose out of that book. The fragile bubble of my private world burst.
Soon, she had me washing dishes, vacuuming the hall, or hanging wet sheets on the clothesline out back.
When school started that fall, I spent time with my father’s side of the family, who praised my good grades regardless of gender. I practically lived at my grandparent’s house, which was on the bus route to my high school.
One day, I learned that my absent father wanted me to move back to help my mother with the kids. Her house was 7 miles away in the swamp lands of a local lake. No buses went there except the school bus.
I did the only thing I could think to do.
I threw some clothes and my Selectric typewriter into the back seat of the rusty Oldsmobile my grandfather has given us, and drove to distant relatives, where I hoped no one would find me.
Did I graduate from high school? Of course, I did!
While I was in college, my mother, Great Aunt Fig and Grandpa Tebow died of cancer. All three had worked at the paper mill. For a long time, whenever I pictured them, all I could see was that foul yellow smoke.
