Princess Snowflake

All of this looking back of late brings to mind how fuzzy many of my early childhood memories actually are. I never took detailed notes of my day to day life and, as much as I love my memory, I often have a hard time knowing if what I’m remembering was a picture I saw, an actual memory of an event, or some weird thing that my brain threw together for fun. High School is easier to remember, since I have yearbooks and other people who were there at the time to guide my memories back to the correct path. Yearbooks are the must have guide to memories in this age of Facebook.  Don’t know who just friend requested you, to the yearbooks! But before High School, things get a bit hazy and weird.

I remember a few things clearly. I remember some of my preschool and kindergarten days in Plymouth and the day that Santa came to school on a snowmobile. It was a typical Minnesota winter day sometime before Christmas, and I remember there being about a foot of snow already on the ground. We were doing some sort of story time, or sharing time, or "You kids just sit on your hands and be quiet before I go mad" time; when we heard the buzzing of a snowmobile off in the distance. The whole class looked out the big sliding glass windows at a red and white shape blazing across the white snow and most of us were confused until the figure was close enough to be identified as Santa. SANTA WAS COMING TO CLASS!

Once Santa had parked his snow hog and stepped inside, the excitement began! However, I had been fooled before by false Santas like those fakers at the mall ringing bells. How I hated those fake Santas.  So I naturally asked Santa, "Why didn't you come with your reindeer?'

"Because they are getting ready for Christmas," he replied to me, "And we don’t want to tire them out before Christmas. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to make it and deliver your presents."  I had seen the great television documentary "The Year Without A Santa Clause" and knew that such things could happen, Heat Miser or no Heat Miser. So I decided not to press the issue.

The next clear memory that I have is of my first grade teacher, Mrs. Goldstein. To say that it is a clear memory is pretty much not true. I have very vague notions about her. When I remember her, she was a tall and nicely roundish woman who is somehow always wearing orange and yellow clothing. I do remember her as kind, funny, pleasant, and interested in us as students. I also remember her as being psychic. All of her students thought of her as psychic because no matter how well you hid the fact from her, she KNEW when you had a loose tooth. She would call you up to the front of the room for some other reason, some reason that you would trust. Then once next to her, she would ask, "Is your tooth loose?" and by then it was too late. You could only nod. 

"Can I see it?" she would ask so sweetly and you would have no choice but to open your mouth. And then it happened. Before you knew, her thumb had grasped that loose tooth and popped it out into her hand.

"How does she know?!" was a common refrain among us kids. How indeed? Of course, the how became much clearer when my brother had kids. For as secret as you think you are being as a child, watching my nieces and nephews play with a loose tooth in their mouth proved that no child is that clever at hiding when their tooth is loose. I can only imagine all the years of watching a sea of children pushing on loose teeth with their tongues and fingers that she had to endure. Her skill at removing teeth had to be a sanity saving measure that she perfected over her teaching career.

In the second grade, my teacher was Mrs. Mooney. My memories have her at being around 100 years old, which in reality means she was maybe 60. But she was the exact opposite of Mrs. Goldstein. Mrs. Mooney was thin and all sharp angles. Instead of soft brown hair, she had this cloud of white permed and thinning hair that somehow always looked as mean as she looked. She was cold and efficient, and I would guess that she was really sick of our shit. When I think of her, I think of ice blue clothing and ice cold eyes. Mrs. Mooney was the first teacher to make me aware of the problem with my name. My parents named me Greg and it isn't short for anything. It's not a nickname and it's spelled correctly. However, Mrs. Mooney felt that I should really have been named Gregory, which was only right and proper. A point she liked to make to me when she said my name wrong.

There was some discussion among us neighborhood kids about whether she was a witch or not . Also a topic of hot debate was if she was working with the Rippy Ladies. Now, the Rippy Ladies were the three evil sisters that lived in our neighborhood, and existed in that same realm of imagined horror that every scary house or person exists in for neighborhoods everywhere. Our scary family lived in a white house on a heavily wooded lot. In the summer, you couldn't see their house, but in the fall and winter, when the trees were just skeletons, you could see their small house and imagine all the people who had't returned from that place. The Rippy Ladies had sharp knife like fingers that would rip your flesh if they caught you. They were known to take small children away, especially around Halloween if you were dumb enough to approach their house. At night, they would roam the streets and you could hear them clacking their knife fingers together, hoping to catch you unaware to drag you back to their home to feast upon your flesh. Despite the many dares, I never went to the Rippy Ladies house.

It was very likely that Mrs. Mooney was working with them, picking out children from her class that she hated and letting the Rippy Ladies hunt that child. We were all convinced of this fact. Mrs. Mooney also taught me that while being teacher's pet was just about the worst thing a person could be, being the smart kid wasn't much better. When she would have to leave class for something, she would often pick someone to be in charge. Those of us chosen this way were known as the smart kids and weren't to be trusted.  When I was chosen, it was at first a badge of honor. She thought I was smart! But when the hissing resentment issued forth from my classmates, I learned the truth. Ah, she taught me so much that old hag.

 

As I remember it

In the third grade, we moved and I started attending Wayzata schools, and Widsten Elementary. My third grade teacher was Miss Cecilia Frick. Unlike the other two, she was young, very eager and sweet. I remember thinking that she seemed too young and that she couldn't be a teacher. All teachers were old. She had to be in her early 20s, and she was a good teacher. She also taught me a little about marriage. Half way through the school year, she announced that she was going away to get married, and would be gone for a couple of weeks; and that when she came back, she would be named Mrs. Cecilia Carr. I remember thinking that it was really weird that a person would get a whole new name when they got married.

After that, the memories get less clear. I do'’t remember many of my teachers until High School. I do remember weird events. I remember that I worked in the elementary school library, helping the librarians put books away. I really wanted that job, and I could leave class to go hang out in the library and put books away. 

I remember in the fourth grade, we were supposed to get in groups and put together a magazine of our own design. For whatever reason, I ended up working alone and I made my own magazine titled "Better Shacks and Weeds". I wrote all the stories for my magazine and I remember that was cause for my parents to be called in to meet with the teacher. I was playing in the classroom while the teacher and my parents talked about that magazine; and at one point, I clearly remember them all turning to look at me at once. It was a really strange and disconcerting event and I knew that even if I hadn't done something wrong, I had done something wrong. I think they were worried that I hadn't made a bunch of friends. It was never sure of what was actually being discussed.

The truth is that I was also worried about not making friends. Before the move to Wayzata, I remember being so upset at night because I didn't have the recipe to make friends. In my heart, I knew that there was a secret to making friends, and it had to be just like the secret to making food. There was a recipe to it, and I didn't have it. I was beside myself with worry because I had no idea what I was going to do without that recipe!

In the end, I did make some friends. Dave and Steve lived in our neighborhood, on our street, and I played with them a lot. Dave and his brother Jeff taught me about computers and hacking in the old days before the internet. Steve and I nearly set his garage on fire while mimicking the hairspray flamethrower effect I'd seen in a James Bond movie. 

However, Bunny Pepmiller was my best friend at school.  Well, she told me that her real name was Bunny, but I would later learn that her real name was Ann and they called her Bunny because she was born on Easter. Bunny was a powerful force of nature, and it turns out the leader of a 'gang' on the playground. She led a group of all girls who called themselves 'The Spiders' and I became the first boy of their all girl gang. We were awesome and that is also what we call foreshadowing.

Another pre-high school teacher that I remember was my 7^th grade English teacher. I don't remember her real name at all. What I do remember is that she was a cement block of a woman – short, square and immovable. She was unpleasant to talk to and harsh in her judgments. She didn't settle for nonsense or half assed answers or reports. She had pale skin and her hair consisted of tight, dark grey curls that looked a lot like steel wool. No one really liked her, and so the rumors started about her. It was said among those in the know that she had lost her hair many years ago and now wore a wig! The scandal!

But that story quickly changed. The fact that she was bald and wore a wig was never in dispute, but the WHY became the new focus. And this it was quickly decided that it was because she was a female

professional wrestler and having long hair would be a disadvantage in the ring as it was too easily pulled. So she shaved her head bald to be the ultimate lady wrestler! And her wrestling name was Princess Snowflake. To this day, I only know remember her as Princess Snowflake.

I don’t know that she ever heard us call her Princess Snowflake, but she had to have heard it at some point. To her credit, she never acknowledged it or disavowed it.  She just kept teaching us and we created stories about her grand days as a professional wrestler.

In the 8^th grade, I moved to Minnetonka and I don't remember much about that year. I do remember Mr. Alexander, our art teacher. He was bald and wore a bandanna on his head most of the time. He also had a mustache like Salvador Dali, all curled at the end.  At the time, I was pretty clueless about the fabulous Mr. Alexander and looking at it now, I'm fairly certain he was my first gay teacher. But any guidance he might have been able to give is long since gone in the past, as hazy and fading as my memories.

(Full disclosure: My mother claims that she met the Rippy Ladies and they were just sweet old sisters that lived together. However, I have no idea what spells they used upon my mom and therefore such stories are not to be trusted.)