A shock is something that comes to you unexpected. It isn’t only big events that shock;
sometimes the little things carry a big wallop.
I am of the opinion that shocks almost make a physical imprint on a
person; they can factor in and out of one’s consciousness and decision making
later in life.
There are four times in my youth that I was truly shocked, although
not of the kind that was really damaging.
I just have thought it funny that these particular incidents have stayed
with me my entire life. One of the four
was a physical shock, and was so insignificant that I shouldn’t even have it in
my brain, but oh yes, there it is.
I was just a tiny kid – maybe 2 or 3 - when my grandma lived
in an apartment building on the ground floor in Long Beach. I have a vague recollection of the way the
apartment house looked on the outside – I do remember it was stucco - but
because the shock happened in the bedroom, that is the only memory I retain
from inside the apartment itself. On
this day my grandma was babysitting me.
n the bedroom Grandma had a double bed. She often read in bed, so she had an old bed
lamp that hooked over the headboard, had a lightbulb screwed into a socket, and
was turned on and off simply by pulling a little chain. A dark pink and maroon floral chintz
bedspread covered the bed, and the same material hung as fixed drapes on either
side of the window that looked out onto the apartment walkway. The window had a pull-down shade, which
grandma always pulled down to darken the room when I napped. I close my eyes and I can see exactly how
that room looked so long ago.
On this particular day of my first shock, as usual we had
lunch and then it was time for my nap.
Grandma pulled backed the bedspread and boosted me onto the soft
bed. She tucked me under the spread,
pulled down the window shade and then gave me a kiss before she left. To this day I remember the softness of her
cheeks and seeing her little pince-nez glasses on a chain dangling toward my
face. I remember her walking out of the
bedroom and pulling the door shut but not closing it completely so she could hear me if I called
to her.
Why do I remember this as clearly as if it were
yesterday? Because shortly after she
left, I discovered the dangling chain from the bed lamp and of course I had to
pull it. Nothing happened. I was too young to know there should have
been a light bulb in the socket, but shortly, in a continuation of my childish exploration,
I stuck my little finger into that empty socket. ZOWIE!!!!
I’m sure this is why the image of that afternoon with Grandma is still
so present: the jolt of electricity I felt in my fingers was not enough to hurt
me but came with enough surprise to permanently etch the event – and her
bedroom – into my brain, where it remains to this day.
The next real shock I had was in sixth grade. Some boy in class, probably Tommy Graves who
always was being called out for one thing or another, had just used the word
“busted” instead of “broken” in answering a question asked by the teacher. Ms. Whateverhernamewas (whose real name
escapes me at the moment) drew herself up somehow into a formidable presence
and said in very precise English, “The word you should use is ‘Broken.’ And
then loudly with emphasis, “A BUST
IS THE BREAST OF A WOMAN.”
Every girl in the class audibly gasped. I can still see that event play out in front
of my eyes. Our teacher has her dark
blue polka-dot dress on. Her hair is
upswept with a rat under her pompadour.
Her purse, made to be a handbag but carried by her with the straps over
her shoulder so she could tuck it ever-so-tightly in her armpit, looks
ridiculous even to a 6th grader.
Her long face is serious and dark.
She glowers one more time at poor Tommy and says loudly, “Don’t forget
this: “A BUST IS THE BREAST
OF A WOMAN.”
Oh, the humiliation of it all. In my
family, any word describing a bodily function or part had to be spoken by
employing a euphemism. Had my sister and
I ever said “breast,” we would have been warned the first time we said it, and
our mouths washed out with soap the second and subsequent times we said
it. Words like “Breast” or “Bowel
Movement” were forbidden words in the Dobbins household and were not to be
uttered at all, for any reason. My
sister and I knew and used the euphemisms for everything, so you can imagine my shock when this teacher
uttered such a word in front of Tommy Graves and Sammie Collins and Charles
Clifner and Allan Austin and the rest of the boys, all of whom we girls were
beginning to be aware of in a totally different and puzzling way. The shock marked this episode in my psyche
for all time. As with the little
electric shock from the lamp, I can close my eyes and see this event also replayed
in my mind. Now I can laugh at it, but
not then.
Today, old and wise (or at least older and wiser than I was
then), I grudgingly make allowances for the term “drug bust”. After all, even I know it is not correct or
meaningful to say “drug broken” when you mean a drug bust. But if I hear a cop or a TV commentator say
something like having to bust down a door, I feel myself automatically drawing
up into as near a formidable presence as I can, tucking my invisible purse
tighter in my armpit and saying, “We do not say the word ‘bust.’ A bust is the breast of a woman.”
I somehow cannot make my peace with this breech of the
King’s English, regardless of whether “bust” in this day and age is now sitting
comfortably in one of the dictionaries that also allows jury-rigged instead of
gerry-rigged. My husband has been
sensitized to this particular use of “bust” because he sees me get nearly apoplectic
when I hear it used on TV. When I get to the part said by the teacher,
he always kindly says it right along with me.
We laugh about it, but deep down inside I don’t feel it is a laughing
matter.
I managed to make it until about the 8th grade before I
experienced my next big shock. At
Hamilton Junior High school a new girl entered our school mid-semester and was
assigned to our homeroom. I was asked to
introduce her around and make sure she wasn’t left out of activities. I will never know why I was picked for that
job; I was terribly shy and perhaps the powers that be thought appointing me to
shepherd little Donna around that first day would be good for me. And perhaps it did; however, because of doing
this job I later received a big shock that undoubtedly is the reason why I
remember this event so clearly. Donna
was a darling girl and became popular very fast. She certainly didn’t need me, a geek, as a
friend, but she never forgot me and thought we never became social friends
outside of school, I always felt a special closeness toward her.
Donna and I later moved up to the same high school. Our classes and interests diverged, but one
day I found myself standing next to her in the cafeteria and in the idle
chit-chat between us learned that she was a Catholic. I was shocked down to my toes. To my knowledge, I had never met a Catholic
before. My mother’s entire family was
very anti-Catholic and they often, at family get-togethers, discussed at some
length what they considered the evils of Catholicism, which of course included
first and foremost the Pope. While I
never consciously paid much attention to these discussions, of course as a
little kid I probably absorbed their prejudices. We were not a religious family ourselves, but
we knew what we didn’t like, and we didn’t like Catholics. So hearing sweet Donna admit to being one was
just a very shocking thing for me to digest.
I never again could see her without consciously thinking that she was a
Catholic. It didn’t change how I felt
about her, but it certainly confused things for me. She was a Catholic and she was a good
person. How can that be? (Oh, the evils of prejudice!)
Again, as I got older and wiser I learned that my family was
very bigoted in many areas, not only towards religion but also towards other
races. At any rate, by the time I came of college age
I was able to shed the image of Catholic somehow being bad - and for a while
all but shed my family, too, over that and similar issues. I seem
to have been born with a tolerance and awareness that was out of sync with my
mother’s side of the family. I remember
so clearly the unreasonable shock I experienced with Donna, and I determined to
keep my own kids from having those kinds of beliefs instilled in them.
Now in my adult life I have certainly experienced a few shockers, but life does that to us. There will always be things that tend to
knock the socks off of a person, but at least as adults we are in a better
position to sort things out with some real expectation of understanding and
processing it into the right perspective.
I do have to say that life can sometimes get a little dreary without a
dose now and then of surprises and/or shocks, but the kind that makes a
person’s hair go grey I am better off without, that’s for sure.
And luckily shocks happen less and less as we march into old
age. I’m keeping my fingers crossed as I
say that, so I don’t have to eat my words!
