BETWEEN MY MOTHER AND LYDIA ITS BEEN A ROUGH WEEK.

Miss Thursday sits out in the front yard. She does not look friendly, just very cold. About four I opened the storm door a crack and peered out. Her deadly chill caused me to hastily jump back in the house. Miss Thursday may very well roam around out there without me. Its just too cold for a lady of my advancing years.

I haven't written for a few days. I've been busy learning stuff. In the last five days I have learned back in the old days we poor kids were discriminated against. My sister Geri called me . She said our brother, "Smiling Bud" had called her. Lydia Passmore had died at ninety-eight years old. Miss Passmore was a teacher at East Junior High School. She was also the teacher who terrorized me several times a week by taking me out in the hall and asking if I was hungry and did my parents ever feed me. I do admit at five foot nine and about ninety pounds I looked anorexic, I wasn't. Geri then informed me that Miss Passmore had kept her from trying out for cheer leading by saying we were too poor to buy the uniform. I called Bud and talked about it. He told me how several teachers had labeled him because of where we lived. Ninth street, the shabby kids. I would like to go picket the school or something but it was tore down years ago.

I have also learned that my sister thinks my Mother was a Beautician besides teaching school. Now I am not sure what left field that came out of. Geri swears its true. When did my Mother ever be a Beautician? Why was this secret kept from me? Was it because she didn't want to fix my hair and instead let me run around all scraggly? If she really was a beautician, why didn't I have good hair? I sure have a bunch of questions and nobody to ask.

I have also learned that I will not be able to keep my New Years resolutions. Miss Debbie has never left the house and I have not learned one word of Spanish. In fact I haven't even been speaking English good lately. The year has not started off with a bang. But we're only two weeks in, so maybe things will look up.

So here we are at Thursday and I am reeling from the fact that there were Teachers who find out where we lived and thought we were low class and not too smart. I am still incensed over this fact. I asked Bud, "How do you think they knew we were poor? I didn't know." He laughed. "They knew we came from Ninth street. They knew we were poor." Just because our house had no paint, how did they come to that conclusion? They sure didn't look at Ninth street like I did and still do. I personally thought it was a magical place. So with the unleashing of old memories at Lydia's passing and learning my Mother had another life she kept from me. Its been a very rough week.

I'm downtown Blogland. I haven't been here for a few days. But it still looks the same and very cold, very. I let the bitter wind spin my words off. The words that make very little sense. But gee, what can you expect from a kid from Ninth Street anyway. I turn towards home. I smile as old memories race through my mind. Those teachers had no idea just how lucky us Munch kids were. So for now, I'm outta here.