Tuesday, January 09, 2007

I should have been a teacher

When i was in the 5th grade, my best friend Connie lived next door. We really had nothing in common except that we were two lonely eleven year old girls.

My mother was distainful when i asked her why she wasn't friends with Connie's mother. She thought they were "common." I wasn't sure what that meant, but i knew it was bad.

That summer my brother Tim and i were shipped off to spend a month or so at my grandmother's house. Connie and i wrote each other long impassioned letters full of angst and magazine clippings and bird feathers. Each letter was carefully sealed with sealing wax and stickers.

I guess i must have sent her some biological information in one of my letters, because here is an excerpt from one of her letters to me:

Dear Meno,

No, i didn't know what a bonar was. (but now i do) He (Timmy) might start looking at her (you know).

Here's another bit from another letter:

Yesterday we went to a movie Yours, Mine and Ours. We stadyed through it 1 1/2 times. It was about a lady that had 8 kids and a man that had 10 kids they got married, 18 kids. He went to sea, she had a baby, 19 kids. It was all mixed up. I'm going to have a lot of kids.

Connie and i had gone to the special movie that was "just for girls" together in the 5th grade, and we were desperate for information on the male of the species. I think i remember my brother explaining what the word boner meant to me. I must have shared this precious bit of knowledge with her.

What can i say? Sharing information just comes naturally to me.

I eventually lost touch with Connie after we moved to Seattle and she moved at least 10 times after her parents got divorced. I wonder where she is and what she is doing.

21 comments:

Mother of Invention said...

Yes, it would be interesting to hook up again, if not just to see how many kids she DID have!

I remember all the Gr. 5 girls being herded to an area school and seeing that movie. Such mystery revealed!

I had no brothers or close boy cousins so I was really in the dark about Classified Boners!!

Girlplustwo said...

and if she has a lot of kids....

i love this flashback thing you are doing.

Anonymous said...

meno, I submitted my novel tonight. This was my first rewrite and I'm empty. Just thought I'd share the good news. And I don't have to begin the next book until a week or so, so after I travel and perform the next two days, I'm free. Well, sorta. A gentleman caller is gonna come see me. I know this is totally off topic, but it's late and everyone's asleep and I just have to share. Ya know?

meno said...

MOI, Connie and i spent many hours trying to figure out what it was that happened to boys. We knew that god would not have given out unequal bodily misery to the sexes. HA!

jen, she started down a long sad path before i lost contact with her of (at age 13) having sex with one boy after another. Each new letter would tell me about the latest boy. i didn't know what to make of it.

hi holly, there is no topic sacredness here. Congratulations! Is it an adult book? When can i buy it? Say hi to Mr. Gentleman. And you could always send me an e-mail too. I love to hear from my real writer friend.

Julie Q. said...

Thank goodness for girlfriends or I would have never learned anything about the workings of the human body (male or female). My parents were just too embarassing to talk to.

Lucia said...

I think a lot of us had to glean information (sometimes correct, sometimes not) from our friends. A girlfriend in elementary school told me about sex, and after mulling it in my small mind, I thought, "Eeww! Not possible. Or is it?"

karmic said...

Loved the reminiscing. Heh I had to get my info from a weekly newspaper article about sex.
Wonder if your friend had as many kids?
You know the GOP congressman John Boehner. I think some folks call him "boner" but his name is pronounced as "Bayner". Thats what came to my mind too.

Anonymous said...

A "bonar." Oh, God, that is so funny. I had no clue what that was until I was much, much older. In fact, I remember telling a stupefied college roomie that I thought it was permanently that size. Ignorance is bliss?

thailandchani said...

It is interesting to speculate about what might have become of these friends we had. My friend G, the one I mentioned some time ago in a blog entry, went into the military, was discharged for some unspoken reason ~ married a totally inappropriate man and had an extremely difficult life. She went on a full-tilt course of self-destruction. When I saw her ten years later, she had quite an alcohol problem going on. That's the last I ever saw or heard of her.


Peace,


~Chani

Elliot said...

My next door neighbor in 5th grade used to tell me all the time that he was gay. I had no idea what he was talking about. It wasn't until 8th grade, and him being long moved away, that it all came together. Sex is so puzzling when you're young and drowning in innocence.

alphawoman said...

Look for her. You never can tell if you can find her or not. Odds are with the net and all you have a good chance! I know where mosts of my grammar school pals are.....one of the fab things about a very small town.

alphawoman said...

Look for her. You never can tell if you can find her or not. Odds are with the net and all you have a good chance! I know where mosts of my grammar school pals are.....one of the fab things about a very small town.

Mona Buonanotte said...

My 4th grade teacher went to Montana, and while she was there met up with a teacher, and our classes became pen pals. I still wonder what happened to mine, and whether or not she married a minister, which was her life's goal at the time.

amusing said...

Yeah, and why aren't the boys herded somewhere and lectured about condoms and respect? Hmmm? Why do we begin to bear the onus of reproductive knowledge in fifth grade while the boys get to go run around outside?

Hey -- write a post with her real name. If she googles herself (or someone else googles her) it may turn up, with you saying you wonder what happened to her, and your mystery may be solved? The tricky thing about finding long lost women is that they marry and change their names -- So let her find you!

QT said...

Great memories, meno! In 5th grade my best friend and I would tape record ourselves doing different commercials for stuff and then play it all back and laugh hysterically. I would give my eye teeth to get my hands on one of those old tapes.

Anonymous said...

*I* wonder if she had a lot of kids....

Lynnea said...

Its funny we think we write such 'deep stuff' when we are children and then we read what we wrote...

I remember that special movie. We were ushered into a different room than the boys. We watched a movie all about periods. When we traded books with the boys after school they had all the cool information!

Tink said...

LMAO. "Bonar"

I needed friends like you growing up. I was so confused. My Mom gave me books on everything. But I was too nervous to read them, so I just looked at the pictures and came up with my own ideas.

Which apparently happened with a lot of kids. Hence the 20something yr old I met when I was 19 who thought a woman laid an egg everytime she got off. So he tried NOT to please his lady friends.

meno said...

julie, Connie and i were locked in ignorance together. We made assumptions and deductions and guesses. My parents also never told me one word about sex.

lucia, When Em was in 6th grade, a woman from Planned Parenthood came to talk to the girls and their mothers. One girl raised her hand after the presentation and said "The man puts part of his body INSIDE the woman's body???? Are you SURE???"

sanjay, I'll bet Boehner got teased all his life about that name!

ortizzle, it is pretty sad that we were all kept so in the dark. I remember telling one girl, who was 21 at the time that a man had to be prone when he got an erection or else he might faint. "REALLY?" "Yep, it's true."

chani, i remember that entry. I am afraid Connie, even at that young age, was kind if a lost soul too.

jeremiah, drowning in ignorance too. I though that french kissing meant to kiss while holding hands.

alphawoman, i tried looking for her, but i think she must have married and changed her name.

mona, penpals used to be so much more common. Now we are all on the internet.

amusing, good question. In our school, the boys got to see the girl's movie AND their own movie, but we were not allowed to see their movie. Trying to keep us delicate little women in ignorance. I'm still pissed off about that.

qt, those tapes would be worth having. Think how we'd all laugh with you are your brilliance.

mrs.chili, i certainly hope she didn't have 19 of them!

maggie, are you saying that information about "bonars" is not deep? That movie scared the hell out of all of us girls.

tink, my first sex book was "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* *but were afraid to ask." I found in in my parent's room and read it in secret when they weren't home. Bet that guy wasn't too popular. :)

Mother of Invention said...

Seems that your friend grasped the meaning of boner pretty quickly!

meno said...

MOI, that was funny!!! You are so right.