from Anne Montgomery
One
thing we teachers get to have that most other adults don't is a real summer
vacation. Not the week or so most people take during the warm stretch of
the year, but an actual couple of months off. (They don't pay us much, but we
do have perks.)
As
the school year winds down, I am often reminded of those summers when I was a
kid, a time when I got to be someone else.
I
stood before a wrap-around mirror at Lane Bryant, a store that originally
supplied clothing for pregnant women, and then moved on to the plus-size
juggernaut we know today. I was 12.
"It's
not my fault," my mother said to the saleswoman, wringing her hands.
"I feed her fish and salad with no dressing."
The
woman nodded. "I'm sure you do, still the child needs a size 16 in that
dress."
I
turned away from my fashionably attired mother in her spike heels and cat
eyeglasses, wondering if she realized that, while I was fat, I was not deaf. I
could hear the pleading in her voice. "How did I end up with an obese
daughter?"
Being
an overweight kid in the 1960s was a rarity, as most any class picture from the
time will clearly show. Add to my girth the fact that I was a tomboy
and cared little about my appearance and rarely brushed my red hair, so my
mother had it sheared short. Perhaps she thought I might find the style
disturbing and be prompted to care more about my looks. But the only
thing my bowl cut with a prominent cowlick in the front did was confuse
people in regard to my gender. Sometimes, I was asked if I was a boy or a girl.
By
fifth grade, I was a thickly proportioned five-foot-five. In photographs with
other students, I was, on occasion, mistaken for the teacher. Other kids teased
me, but they never got too close. I think I actually frightened some of them. I
did have a few friends, but when I turned 12, the girl who lived two houses
down announced one day that she would no longer spend time with me.
"You're
a fat girl," she said, not looking me in the eye. "Boys don't like
fat girls. If I'm your friend, they won't like me either." She turned and
walked away. She never spoke to me again.
I
sometimes stared at other girls in my class. By comparison most seemed to
be petit, delicate little things. One in particular, a blond, blue-eyed
child with perfect pitch and straight A's, always stood out. She wore white
lace ankle socks and played the piano. When the parts were cast for the school
play one year, she was named the head fairy. My role? Head witch.
Every
summer my parents sent me to Girl Scout Camp. The first time I was eight and
went off for two weeks. That led to annual month-long excursions I would
continue until I was 17.
I
quickly learned that at camp no one forced you to brush your hair. What truly
mattered had nothing to do with appearance. The most important thing at camp
was swimming, for this was the activity that opened the doors to almost
everything else. Campers were labeled according to their aquatic skills and
assigned a cap color. Red was reserved for those most likely to sink like
stones. Yellow caps had some skills but needed serious monitoring. Green
caps could hold their own in the water and blue caps were masters, swimmers the
counselors never worried about.
One
year, a new cap category was created just for me and one other camper. Casey
and I were anointed white caps, after we completed the Red Cross Senior Life
Saving course, which meant we had unfettered access to sailing and water
skiing, canoeing and even scuba diving. I sometimes walked the dock when the
other girls were taking their lessons, striding past the roped-off areas that
kept the inexperienced swimmers from straying. I'd head out to the far end of
the wooden-planked pier, not the least bit self-conscious about how I
looked in my bathing suit. I would stand and stare out over the lake,
where no ropes or buoys marred the view. Then I'd dive in, going deep into
the dark water, feeling freer than I ever did on land.
The
other thing that made me special at Girl Scout Camp was music. I had
acquired an old guitar from my aunt and had taught myself a few rudimentary
cords. (It's rather amazing just how many songs you can play with G, Em, C and
D7.) I learned quickly that the girl with the guitar was highly prized around
the campfire every night. And when we'd sung our last song to the snap and
pop of logs dying in the fire, we would head to our brown canvas tents that
nestled in the trees, perched on wooden platforms, the sides rolled up.
Cocooned in thick cotton sheets and flannel blankets, the pine-scented breeze
wafted over us, as lake water kissed the rocks just a few feet away, and I
knew a tranquil peace I had never found anywhere else.
The
end of camp brought tears all around. Friends soon to be separated and,
for me, the return to the world where neither swimming nor my nascent
attempts at guitar playing mattered.
Then,
one summer, I returned home from camp and my aunt's jaw dropped upon seeing me. "Who
the hell are you!" she said, looking me up and down. "Damn! She's got
cheekbones."
It
wasn't that I lost weight. The pounds just somehow rearranged, perhaps
because I had less access to the candy bars I used to sneak daily.
Or maybe it was the rigors of that eight-day canoe trip. Or maybe it was
magic wrought by the forest and the lake and the music and the fire. Whatever
caused my transformation, no one ever called me fat again.
Here's a brief intro to my latest women's fiction novel for your reading pleasure.
The past and present collide when a tenacious reporter seeks information on an eleventh century magician…and uncovers more than she bargained for.In 1939, archeologists uncovered a tomb at the Northern Arizona site called Ridge Ruin. The man, bedecked in fine turquoise jewelry and intricate bead work, was surrounded by wooden swords with handles carved into animal hooves and human hands. The Hopi workers stepped back from the grave, knowing what the Moochiwimi sticks meant. This man, buried nine hundred years earlier, was a magician.
Former television journalist Kate Butler hangs on to her investigative reporting career by writing freelance magazine articles. Her research on The Magician shows he bore some European facial characteristics and physical qualities that made him different from the people who buried him. Her quest to discover The Magician’s origin carries her back to a time when the high desert world was shattered by the birth of a volcano and into the present-day dangers of archeological looting where black market sales of antiquities can lead to murder.
Former television journalist Kate Butler hangs on to her investigative reporting career by writing freelance magazine articles. Her research on The Magician shows he bore some European facial characteristics and physical qualities that made him different from the people who buried him. Her quest to discover The Magician’s origin carries her back to a time when the high desert world was shattered by the birth of a volcano and into the present-day dangers of archaeological looting where black market sales of antiquities can lead to murder.
has worked as a television sportscaster, newspaper and magazine writer, teacher, amateur baseball umpire, and high school football referee. She worked at WRBL‐TV in Columbus, Georgia, WROC‐TV in Rochester, New York, KTSP‐TV in Phoenix, Arizona, ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut, where she anchored the Emmy and ACE award‐winning SportsCenter, and ASPN-TV as the studio host for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. Montgomery has been a freelance and staff writer for six publications, writing sports, features, movie reviews, and archeological pieces.
When she can, Anne indulges in her passions: rock collecting, scuba diving, football refereeing, and playing her guitar.
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