Member-only story
A Soul That Has Been Refreshed
By Individuals Who Dropped In Just When Needed
When I was younger, maybe four through first or second grade, I remember easily making friends — playing outside with the neighborhood kids, riding bikes, and swinging on the school ground swings or in someone’s backyard. Life seemed grand because it was less complicated, and we could meander within a several-block radius without human helicopters hovering above.
Recess at school was not a drama fest, although it was segregated, with boys doing boy stuff and girls doing girl stuff. It was the 1960s Midwest, after all. Everyone knew their place, and no one was the wiser at that age.
I don’t know what triggered my inability to deal with more than a few acquaintances at once. It may have started in 2nd grade when Ms. Froemming constantly reprimanded me for my wayward daydreaming. She was mean-spirited and not happy with her lot in life, so she would take it out on the little people in her classroom.
As a left-handed female, I was on her naughty and “outside the norm” list. I put her in an awkward position when it was time to teach me how to write cursive (among other things, right-handers could easily manage). I worked as independently as possible for a 2nd grader and learned to write beautifully despite being labeled wrong-handed. But I…
