TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 103

[Tobie Shapiro]

December 28, 2000000000006


Dear On-line Crew,

	As I write, my internet connection is 
mucked.  I cannot get e-mail.  I cannot get onto 
the internet.  Meyshe is particularly upset 
because he goes on line and plays chess and Go 
with people from all over the world.  I had a 
dream about him last night.  I was sitting in the 
audience watching a show.  At one point, there 
was a line of actors in front of us, all 
pretending to be in a car, and jostling about in 
unison.  Meyshe was sitting next to me in the 
front row.  And he got up and tried to join the 
actors.  I tried to restrain him, telling him 
that he was not part of the show.  It felt bad 
for me to do that, but I had to.  He kept saying, 
"It's better if we all go".  One of the actors 
actually said to me, "It's all right.  Let him." 
But I knew it wasn't all right, and I tried to 
keep Meyshe in his seat.  The whole thing made me 
so sad that I started to cry, my shoulders 
shaking, my heart breaking.  Feyna was sitting on 
the other side of me, and she noticed that I was 
crying, said, "Oh, Mom!" and comforted me.  Then 
I cried all the more, because I didn't want my 
grief to affect her.  I didn't want her thinking 
that she had to take care of me.

	I woke up, wet eyed.



 
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What she was here for

	I don't remember if it was Miss or Mrs. 
Hedricks who was the sewing teacher at Willard 
Junior High School.  This was the eighth grade, 
and all the boys took shop while all the girls 
took, "Home Economics,".  Home Economics was a 
euphamism for cooking and sewing.  They would 
have had us diapering baby mannequins if they had 
the funding, and teaching us how to mix a martini 
for our husbands' grand arrival home after a day 
of earning the bread money.  It was all swallowed 
whole back then.  And even if you resented it, 
which I did, you didn't think of why.  You just 
accepted the inequality as one more thing that a 
girl has to do that a boy doesn't.  One more 
thing a boy gets to do that a girl doesn't.

	In cooking class, which was the first 
semester, there was a big class room that had 
clusters of kitchens.  It was like a laboratory 
class.  There would be four girls to each 
kitchen.  In the kitchen would be a stove and 
oven, a sink, a refrigerator and cabinets.  In 
the cabinets were supplies like flour, sugar, 
salt, pepper, canned goods, and in the drawers 
were tools like beaters, whisks, measuring 
spoons, rolling pins.  It's a wonder they didn't 
have us ironing, making beds, wiping noses.  And 
did the boys get lessons on how to buy flowers if 
they'd been bad?  No.  They got to turn wood on a 
lathe, and make tongue in groove joints.  They 
drilled holes and glued and clamped and operated 
dangerous machinery.

	Back in cooking class, we were to keep 
notes in a kitchen diary.  Every class had a 
cooking project, and we were supposed to keep a 
running commentary on our experiences with the 
ladles and spatulas, the  mashers, blenders and 
bowls.  One lesson was given over to making 
meringue.  The separating of eggs was a big 
mystery.  Take the yolks and put them in one bowl 
and put the albumen in another.  Not a fleck of 
yolk should contaminate the whites, because we 
had to whip the whites until they were stiff and 
formed peaks when shaped with a spatula.  We were 
told that even a tiny dot of yolk would spoil the 
whipping.  The four of us paired off and each got 
a turn at cracking the eggs, then using the 
broken shells to pour the yolk back and forth 
from one shell to the other until all the whites 
were emptied into one bowl and all the yolks into 
another.  But ours had a tiny error.  Just the 
slightest jot of yolk had ruptured on the edge of 
the broken egg shell and contaminated the whites. 
My partner and I decided that this miniscule 
amount of yolk couldn't possibly make a 
difference.  And we were only given so many eggs 
each, so we didn't have much of a choice.  We 
beat those whites until our arms were sore, but 
they wouldn't rise or stiffen.  They remained a 
dull grey and liquidy mix in the unhappy bowl.

	I noted this in my kitchen diary.  "When 
they say you can't let any yolk at all get into 
the whites, they really mean it.  None at all. 
Or you will fail like we did."

	The teacher took great pity on me and 
gave me an A for caring so deeply, and for my 
perception about the yolks.  It was a decade 
later that I learned to separate the whites from 
the yolks by cracking the egg into my hand and 
letting the albumen seep between my fingers while 
the yolk stayed behind in my palm.  We made 
tamale pie, biscuits from a mix, custard, fried 
chicken, and brownies.  By the time we graduated 
from cooking class, we were ready to get married.

	You don't actually need to know how to 
sew to survive in the modern world, but sewing 
was the second  semester.  And this is where Miss 
or Mrs. Hedricks came in.  She was a monster 
teacher.  Everyone hated her, except Carol Jurs 
who was the teacher's pet.  It was rudely 
obvious.  Anyone else could get a tongue lashing 
for what Carol would get praise for.  Hedricks 
fawned on her, and held her up as an example for 
the rest of us miscreants.  She took it all in 
with marvellous grace, and held it over all of 
our heads, saying she could get us in trouble if 
she wanted to, that Hedricks was wound around her 
little finger.  Carol Jurs was one of those 
tomboys who hogged the ball in team sports, and 
excelled at kicking, running, leaping and aiming.

	Miss or Mrs. Hedricks knew that most of 
us hated her and that didn't improve her mood 
any.  She was missing her left ring finger and 
legend had it that she sewed over it with a big 
old singer sewing machine.  I eyed her hand 
surreptitiously and gasped quietly.

	In sewing class we worked from patterns. 
She would have us write down what pattern we were 
to purchase at Hink's, and we'd go there and get 
them.  Butterick.  I remember Butterick, makers 
of fine patterns the world over.  We each got a 
singer Slant-o-matic sewing machine and we 
learned how to fill a bobbin with thread, and how 
to thread the sewing machine.  Then the first 
project was,  ta da!, making an apron.  An apron! 
How convenient.  We worked our way up through the 
sewing projects until finally we were to make a 
skirt.  We got our patterns at Hink's.  And this 
pattern required a zipper.  Do not take your 
zippers for granted, ladies and gentlemen, for 
they are the most impossible things to install. 
I read all the instructions on the black board, 
and followed them to the letter.  My zipper was 
all goofy and not matched up.  I had to take it 
apart and start over again.  This time, I was 
specially careful to follow those instructions to 
the last little detail.  No soap.  The zipper had 
to be torn out again.  After three tries and 
three times ripping out the zipper I finally 
approached the fearsome Miss or Mrs. Hedricks, in 
deep frustration, and asked her what to do.  I 
showed her my botched job attached, as it was, to 
my aquamarine gathered skirt.  I asked for her 
help.  This was a brave move.

	"Go follow the instructions on the board! 
Read the instructions!" she snapped.

	"But I did.  It didn't work.  I tried."

	She screamed at me, "Go back and read the 
instructions.  That's what they're there for. 
I'm not here to answer your questions!"

	I looked at her, non-plussed.  I checked 
what she had said to me against all logic and my 
mouth fell open.  I made the mistake of using my 
voice.  "Then what ARE you here for?"  I asked in 
complete innocence.

	"You have a sharp tongue, young lady!" 
Then she elaborated on the theme, dressed me up 
and down.  Told me I was cocky and useless.  "Go 
back to your machine, and follow the 
instructions.  Any idiot can put in a zipper!" 
She ripped those words right out of her throat 
and beat me with them.  I went back to my machine 
and cried.  I had a sharp tongue, but I was 
bettered by Miss or Mrs. Hedricks, who made my 
life miserable for a whole semester.  I guess 
that's what she was there for.



 
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Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net