Randy (Solitaire) wanted to know if I was as opinionated (he said outspoken, ha) in grammar school as I am now. Well, no. I kept a low profile because I was smart, not a thing to be in a class of illiterates with muscles. In spite of my caution, I was chased and humiliated, but learned how to cope. To my credit, I never confused what was being done to me with self worth. I am guessing my mom had a great deal to do with that.

I was growing up in America, but raised in a household with immigrant Greek parents from a small town. If you want to know about the Greek personality, don’t go to Athens that has become so worldly, go into the Greek countryside and talk to any rural folk. They will welcome you, feed you, be utterly kind. At least that was the custom and mood of the time of my parents, and that is what they brought to this country, and that is what they gave me.

My openness and small size, my lack of guile,made me vulnerable to the hardened inner city kids of Chicago, raised with a different ethic. To them, my wish to be friends was needy and weak and they took full advantage. To this day I must monitor my open approach to new people lest it be misunderstood.

I was small for my age. The other kids towered over me. I was living in Chicago and my body was geared to the Mediterranean by bio history. The cold nearly killed me. I wore a scarf on my head and sat on my legs to stay warm. The teacher kept straightening me up and taking my scarf and it never occurred to me to tell her I was cold and she never figured it out on her own or asked me why I sat that way.

During Chicago winters (often below zero), we were forced to stay outside during recess. I would sneak back in and hide in a corner of the basement. Monitors would find me and make me go outside again, where I would find a corner of the building to huddle in. The cold didn’t seem to bother the other kids. They’d be running around and jumping rope and hardly aware that it was freezing. My tough luck, I thought, that I can’t stand the cold.

Years later, when you might think my body had learned to cope, a friend often referred to me as “Coldilocks.” Jay explained to me that warmth that goes into me goes into a kind of hyperspace and is never heard from again.

So if I am “out there” now with opinions and fulminations, I am kind of making up for those missed opportunities to stand behind what I think.

xx, Teal