It's not easy being green
Elk River, Winter of 1977-78
The year before, my mother had decided to go back to college. In order to save money, she moved in with Jim, her future former husband, while I went to my grandparents’ house in Maryland. It was a year scented by cigarette smoke and coffee fumes. Mornings were my favorite time of day, sitting in the warm kitchen, a tray of food prepared for me by my grandmother, usually Eggo waffles dabbed with Parkay squeezable margarine and dripping with Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup, cartoon-character shot glass of orange juice on the side. That winter the snow kept coming. It piled up and formed five-foot drifts in the driveway, places to dig out forts and make snowmen. Snuggling in my grandmother’s bed as we listened to the radio school closing announcements became an almost-regular ritual.
Mom scored a one-bedroom apartment in student family housing in the summer of ’78 and I moved back in with her. She took the couch in the living room while I slept on a full-size mattress on the floor in the bedroom, a wooden orange crate for a bedside table topped with a flowery ceramic lamp, a clock radio, and an “I Love You This Much” figurine -- a robed, potbellied man, arms outstretched – that she had given to me in first grade.
1978-79 was the first year
of court-mandated school desegregation for
the Wilmington city schools. We were bused 34
miles roundtrip from suburban Newark, a
predominantly white, middle class community
at the time, to an elementary school in the
middle of the inner city. It was the fourth
school I had attended since kindergarten.
The dark, institutional halls smelled of
ancient gymnasium mats and cafeteria pizza.
Because I didn’t like sandwiches, Mom would
pack things like crackers and cheese or the
occasional hard-boiled egg, cooked until it
was sulfurous and the exterior of the yolk
was green. I’d display the egg to my friends
and toss in the trash can to a chorus of
ewwwws.
After lunch, students were herded over
crumbling asphalt to play outside on ancient
metal jungle gyms and rusty swings. Murals
with selected scenes of black history covered
the exterior walls. At night the surrounding
neighborhood leaked into the schoolyard;
people left behind their bottle caps and
broken glass, empty lighters and plastic
bags. The atmosphere became more unwelcoming
when I acquired the nickname “Kermit,” a name
given after I came to school in a kelly
green, polyester, three-piece suit (worn with
white turtleneck!). Think Saturday Night
Fever meets Annie Hall meets the Muppets, a
well-meaning gift from my grandmother, who
had become accustomed to choosing my clothes.
The teachers weren’t happy either and went on
strike from mid-October through most of
November. Much of that time is lost to me. My
third grade teacher brought me back to
Chesapeake City Elementary for a day or two;
I read a lot of books from the small
children’s section at the University of
Delaware library, spent many hours staring at
the ceiling of the Malt Shoppe. The ending of
the strike coincides in my mind with reports
of the Jonestown massacre, images of children
lying on the ground beside their parents, as
still and peaceful as if they were asleep.
April
1979
By early March, 1979, my grandmother was dead
and Mom, Jim, and I had moved back to
Maryland to watch over my grandfather.
Our grand experiment was
over.