"Castle"

You may find this difficult to believe, but I wasn't a well-behaved child in high school.  Well, I sort of behaved.  I got good grades and took care of my little brothers.  Never mind I did the bare minimum for the grades and made innumerable mistakes with my brothers.  The rest of my time was spent making mischief, often with brothers in tow.

This photo/art was a collaborative piece.  My girlfriend took the photo of me in the park while well-behaved children stared out windows in school.  I don't remember if we bothered to get permission for the outing or not.  Sometimes I forged a pass out of classes.  Sometimes I asked a naive art teacher to write us a pass.  I didn't even have that teacher.  I just saw her as an easy mark.  I told her about this many years later and she laughed.  She said if she could've written herself a pass out of class she would've.

My girlfriend and I showed up at school eventually and look, see, we did something productive!  Give us A's for being creative!  I never got in trouble for my rampant truancy.  I got caught once by the vice principal.  He looked up my records and said, "I've got kids with real problems.  Get out of here!"  Yippee.  See ya!

I'd like to say this was all for the good, but I was a bad influence on my brothers and some of my friends.  I have a little regret, not a lot, but some.  Mostly I was glad to get out.

The schools created my truancy problem in the first place.  I was too academically advanced for my grade, but not socially, so my early teachers often sent me out of class to amuse myself in the library or wherever.  Looking back, I can't imagine sending a little kid to the playground by herself, but at the time I mostly loved it.  I tagged along after the custodian and read books that kept me forever ahead of my class.  This set me up for a life-long pattern.  Leave me alone and I'll do my work, even excel at it.  The downside is a disregard for rules and the inability to work in a restrictive environment.  I also felt excluded, literally looking in windows from the outside.

That vice principal missed the fact I had real problems.  It's just nobody knew what to do about them, and I'm not whining about my excessive freedom.  I got to play in the castle.

I had a chance encounter with my first real boyfriend this week, and maybe seeing him has me living in this period of the past more vividly than I normally might.  We didn't talk, just smiled and said "Hi" to each other, but he looked great.  I've felt giggly about seeing him, the same kind of giggly as skipping school.  I hope he's having a great life.

I'm also thrilled with the results of the US election.  Thank you to everyone who voted and for all our international friends' prayers and best wishes!

Less fun, but important to me, Dr. Neil fixed my celery damaged tooth.  I don't love him like my old dentist, but he seems competent.  I'm not ready for a permanent commitment, but I'm thankful to the repair.  I think I'll stay away from celery in the future.

Squire's Castle in Cleveland Metroparks