For all of my years in school, I had been surrounded by the same classmates – boys and girls I had grown up with. It wouldn’t be until high school that the kids from the several rural schools would join us, so it was probably natural for me to have a special fascination for the new student who had transferred to Knoxville all the way from Philadelphia. Although her last name put her at the far end of the alphabet, Barbara was placed in the middle third of our large sixth grade class – possibly because our homeroom teacher, Mrs. Cotter, had the most experience dealing with “new” students from outside our Midwest culture.
Mrs. Cotter was a revered institution in our school system. She taught classes in all levels of the junior high, and I was in at least one of her English or math classes for all three of those years. Mrs. Cotter made everything an adventure. She made math not only interesting, but fun. I learned to love and appreciate the English language in her classroom. She challenged us with intriguing math puzzles and showed us how to draw diagrams of sentences so that we could identify the various parts of speech and understand the best ways to express our thoughts. She was big on clarity and the role of proper punctuation. At the end of the day, as we sat in our homeroom waiting for the dismissal bell, we competed in lively games of mental math and forgot that, even in play, we were learning.
Barbara, with her dark brown eyes and quiet manner surprised us all by knowing what gerunds were. Mrs. Cotter had not yet introduced gerunds to our class and she and Barbara seemed to know secrets the rest of us were ignorant of. Was this new girl smarter than we were? Or did they simply teach English differently in Philadelphia? One day, soon after that, I found myself walking beside Barbara as we left the school and headed toward the downtown area. I asked where she lived and, learning that her home was in the same part of town as mine, suggested that we walk together as far as our paths coincided. During that walk and a great many to follow, we became friends and it wasn’t long before we were sometimes stopping at the local teen hangout for a Coke or Green River, or at the record shop to listen to a couple of the more recent popular recordings but seldom buying one. We began detouring to each other’s houses and became familiar with each other’s siblings and parents.
In both junior high and high school, students on the honor roll were granted an excused absence from school at the end of each semester. Barbara and I seemed to be always on the honor roll and began spending those precious “free” days together. We became closer friends and were soon exchanging birthday and Christmas gifts. Once we were in high school, we found ourselves enjoying our favorite classes together; English, literature, algebra, geometry and vocal music classes. I liked to sing but didn’t have a particularly good voice, while Barbara had, not only a fine alto voice, but was willing to work seriously at improving it. She and I joined our church choir and she was given an occasional solo while I was too self-conscious to even consider such a venture.
In the spring of our junior year in high school, I was offered a job at the J. C. Penney Store arranging the display windows at the front of the store, lettering signs, assisting at the hosiery counter when needed, and (my least favorite chore) ironing garments that had arrived wrinkled, after being packed in boxes and bundles. The fifty cents an hour seemed like a lot to me, having existed on a mere five-dollar-a-week allowance. It had been three years since my dad had built the miniature golf course and I had worked there most evenings from Memorial Day through Labor Day with no pay, nor had I expected to be paid.
It would be another year before I would be awarded a scholarship to the University of Iowa and my dad would repay me for all that “free” labor by paying my other college expenses. And I would then meet Pat – my first dorm roommate and new best friend.