I almost quit this blog today.
Wouldn't have taken anything down...just would have stopped putting new posts up.
But, I want any readers that I may possibly have to read this one.
My first grade year changed the rest of my life forever...didn't necessarily change it for the better, either. It was the first, and one of the largest, of many hurdles I have had to get over.
It is time that I get this out in the open. This is a continuation of my life story, which I attempted several months ago (around November or so; feel free to check that!), but received no comments, which is discouraging, but I shall persevere with this. I shall go ahead... Please...comments are welcome!
To answer an online survey question many months ago, "Ever been beaten up?", I finally came out in the open with some details. Here's my answer to the question:
Yes, definitely, and I WILL give details this time.
One day, in September, 1976, a 4th grade boy, with dark hair, and dark-rimmed glasses, came up to me as I walked through the playground to the 1st graders' door, and he asked me my name. I told him, "Vicky." He then asked me my last name. I told him, "Zeldman." "Zeldman?" he repeated, so as to confirm. I am sure my reply was something like the sloppy-sounding "Yeah," as I was rather lacking in social graces, even then. And next thing I knew, he was beating me up.
Now, did I do something wrong during that short dialogue??? I didn't think so then, and I still don't. I answered both his questions, no problem. Next thing I knew, he started pushing me down, and beating me up. Hmmmm...our first encounter STARTED OFF normal enough...I thought so then, and I haven't changed my mind.
I was TERRIFIED!!!!!!! I shook like a leaf, and continued to shake like so, throughout most of the year. The transition from kindergarten to 1st grade was enough of an adjustment for me...a whole day, instead of half a day. Instead of just going in for the afternoon, I had to leave the house at 8:30am, and the "closing bell" wasn’t till 3:30pm. What long hours!! Almost all day, I had to stay at this thing called a "desk," except for gym class, which I learned to loathe. An individual desk...not like the huge tables we used most of the time in kindergarten. So rather than being part of a small group, I was alone. "Alone": a condition that became a huge part of my life more often than not, starting in 1st grade. And now, on top of all the other changes, now, there was this nightmare going on, before I even got in the building! What was I to do?? And little did I know that it would last the entire school year long!!
Never before had I ever been taught how to fight back. My parents, to fill you in, went to school in the '50's. There was MUCH more supervision and control of kids back then...at least in greater Cleveland. 1st grade girls didn't have to know how to fight back. So, I was never taught how. Now, I was being beat up on, and there was nothing I could do but form a nice, protective little shell, if you will. Once just plain sweet, but relatively normal, I was transformed into a painfully shy girl...you could almost be guaranteed that I wouldn't speak unless I was spoken to...and even then, not always. The very few friends that I had before, all decided to pretty much abandon me, for fear that they, too, would get hurt. "A true friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out." Given that quote, I guess I didn't really have any true friends in the first place in those days...or they wouldn't have left me alone to deal with that whacked-out boy.
As far as I know, the boy started beating me up for no apparent reason. All year long...I fought with Mom, verbally that is. I argued with her...told her I was too sick to go to school...stomach ache...sore throat...stomach ache AND sore throat...ANYTHING I could think of that would get her to let me stay home where I was guaranteed safety and happiness. Nope. Didn't always work. She knew WHY I was trying to weasel out of going...but she also knew that I had to go if I could...it was the law...and she would get in trouble if I was absent too many times. I couldn't argue her point there. I didn't want her to get thrown in jail either, but...what about ME?? What about MY little dilemma?? "But I CAN'T go, he'll hit me again!!", I would bawl. "But you have to go to school," she'd say, "or the Truant Officer will come and throw Mommy in jail." Well, then...I wondered what I would have to do, to get to meet and tell this Truant Officer person that I couldn't go to school. I didn't know what he looked like, where he lived, or what...all I knew was that staying home was all I could do to stop the torture. This was the beginning of Mom and I being at each other's throats much of the time that we try to live together. Before that, I don't think we ever argued.
I can still remember how Jerry would stand by the 4th graders; door and wait...indefinitely, it seemed…until I came along. Then, the action began.
October, 1976...about a month after Jerry started picking on me... Actually, class pictures had been taken late in September. But, I was home, sick...yes, really sick.... Not just trying to avoid Jerry. So in October, was Make-Up Day...the day when the kids who were absent on Class Picture Day had their individual pictures taken, and had to accept that they weren't going to be in the Class Picture that year. In the gym, there were three or four photo stations set up. I went to the one that someone told me to go to, I presume. I was very timid and very agreeable, so not likely that I chose the photographer myself. I remember that my picture had to be taken twice, because the first shot didn't turn out well. I was petrified, as usual....too petrified to even look at the camera on the first shot, mainly because, out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn that I saw Jerry walk through the gym. No doubt about it. Everywhere that I went, once I left our house, I thought I saw Jerry out of the corner of my eye...so accordingly, I was petrified everywhere that I went, except at home. The second shot was a little better, but you could still tell without argument otherwise, that I was petrified beyond comprehension. Mom has both of these pictures in safe keeping, but if I can get them from her on my next visit, I will make a point of scanning them on to my hard drive, so I can post them and let you see what I'm talking about. Could what I've described to you, have been Sign #1 that, at six years of age, I was going through what's now called "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder"??? I’d guess so, based on what little I know of that condition. Thank goodness, I must say that it only took about a year or two for that fear to completely leave me. I carried that fear with me, beyond my first grade year...through 2nd, and even part of 3rd, grade as well.
First grade was also the year that my grades suffered. Always a brilliant kid, who always got good grades, suddenly, I was getting not-so-good grades. Not that I was turning into a dummy...but rather that what I knew I had to face outside of the classroom, in the playground, was becoming a major distraction, and keeping me from thinking clearly. Whereas I'd always gotten "Outstanding" or at least "Satisfactory," that year, I got a lot of "N"'s ("Needs Improvement," and I remember those well, because I was so ashamed of myself, not knowing that the reason my grades went south was perfectly normal and understandable). I had become so painfully shy that I didn't even tell Mom what was happening in that playground, day in and day out, every day that I was there. A friend of mine, who lived a few houses down, told Mom, and that was how she found out. That was also how we learned that his name was Jerry and that he was in the 4th grade...but a puny kid, considering he was not much bigger than I was, and I was three years younger.
Then, Mom tried to talk to some of those teachers, and the principal... HA! The principal...little Mr. Vance. He was about as short as some of the kids...shorter, even, than some of the upper-elementary school kids. HE was gonna tell that twerp Jerry to quit beating me up???? Riiiiiiiight. Picture him looking eye-to-eye with, if not even up, at the kid, and shaking his finger while calmly saying, "No-no, Jerry. Don’t do that." Like Jerry was gonna listen to that pipsqueak????? Sure enough, Jerry DIDN'T listen to that pipsqueak, or anyone else, for that matter. Early on in the year, my friend Karen, who was in my class at the time, tried to get Jerry to stop, on more than one occasion. He didn't listen to her either. I remember Karen pleading with Jerry: "Don't you hurt my pal! Don't hurt her...she's my pal!" I was her "pal" in those days...but, in the end, even her pleas didn't stop him, as he'd push me down so that I was looking down the sewer. Just four years later, Karen herself went bonkers and gave me a hard time, of a much different nature. There WERE normal people in that school...but after Jerry, it seemed, I was doomed to only have the nut-cases "befriend" me...false friendships, for sure.
My friend Shelly, the one who told Mom what was happening, tried to teach me how to fight back...to no avail at all. I was NOT a fighter. I'm still not a physical fighter. In my adulthood, I've developed an ability to fight back verbally, particularly when my temper is tried...but never physically...not ever...unless I'm being raped...then, possibly physically.
Sure enough, the teachers' "We don’t care" attitude wasn't just toward Mom. They never watched the playground, all winter long. They were too busy snuggling up inside, so they could stay warm. Damn them!!!!! What would it have taken to wake them up and get them to start watching the place like they were supposed to?????
The motto, at that school, and in the entire South Euclid-Lyndhurst school district, until I was in the 7th grade, seemed to be: "Let the kids do what they wanna do." Hell of a switch from when my parents were in school, and there was actually some sort of discipline going on, in the schools and at home. Suddenly, no one at the school cared, and they tried to get the parents to not care either. While the teachers and staff tried to get the parents to not care, Mom remained on the lookout for me and refused to be told to "go away and don’t get involved" in fighting for her own daughter's safety and welfare. She got soooooo fed up with the way things were being done...or not done...at that school, sometimes she took it out on me. I know that she didn't mean to do that...I do that a lot sometimes myself. It's called "displaced anger." I didn't say it was healthy, or correct!! I'm just saying that it's a human thing. It probably did me no good at all...after all, I was the one being picked on...then to be the target of any of Mom's displaced anger...No wonder I started favoring Dad!!! He was never around when the going got tough, because the wrinkles of the day were essentially ironed out for the night by the time he got home from work. Evenings, weekends, and official days off from school were lovely for me...an absolute blessing...a gift to be savored, every second, every minute thereof!
In November 1976, two months after Jerry started picking on me, I developed a nervous twitch. This, actually, was no nervous twitch. I was squinting and blinking often, because my eyesight was getting blurry and I didn't know why. I needed glasses...but, because of what was going on at school, it was dismissed as a nervous twitch. When Mom took me to the doctor, and I couldn't read the eye chart, instead of telling the nurse that I couldn't read it, I withdrew into my then-new protective shell and said nothing. Rather than take the time to understand me, the nurse threw the eye chart down, and that was it. As far as she cared, there was nothing wrong with me, other than that I was positively stupid for not being able to read the chart. OK, the nurse was supposed to know...after all, she was a grown-up...and I was a 6 1/2-year-old kid. What did I know?? Even at home, watching TV, I'd be squinting, blinking...blinking, squinting... Everything was so blurry...but it must have been a nervous twitch caused by the fiasco I had to deal with every school day. For that reason, it took well over a year to get my first pair of glasses, which were much needed during that time.
Meanwhile, in Cleveland, and in the playground of Rowland School, the weather changed. The infamous Blizzard of '76/'77 happened...and for me, that meant having snow balls, some with ice in the center, shoved down my shirt collars...thanks to Jerry. Quite possibly, that was why I started getting sick so much...and continued to get sick often during my childhood.
Sometimes Jerry would show off to his same-age friends how "macho(???)" he was, because he could beat up a girl. I was sooooooooooo embarrassed!!!! How COULD he!! What was the big idea??? I felt made a fool of, but could kind of understand what he was doing.
But...thankfully, winter couldn't last forever. Then came the spring...and Jerry was still at it.
I think Mom may have finally caught up with him and may have given him a piece of her mind, without letting on that she was my mom...
Whatever the reason...just days before the last day of that school year, Jerry approached me...and asked me...I still remember this. He said, rather sheepishly, "I'm not gonna beat you up anymore...OK??" Uh....as though I might, what, tell him I wanted him to continue??? As though I was gonna say it wasn't OK that he was gonna stop???? Geez, Jer!!
But...sure enough, the beatings stopped.
But, as long as Jerry was still in the same school as me...which was for another two years...I was constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering if the torture really had stopped for good, or if he'd be back.
Nope. He never came back. The first year that he was out of that school (moved on to Junior High), I was sooooooooooo damn relieved!!! You have NO idea! Jerry wasn't at my school anymore...YAY!!! Unfortunately, the fear that I had developed that year...the fear that Jerry was lurking around every corner and waiting, as he did in the playground, waiting to jump out at me and start beating me up again... took about a year and a half to disappear enough that I was no longer paranoid of every little thing. Mom had to comfort me and reassure me that Jerry was no longer at my school. I wasn't sure whether to believe her just like that or not...but eventually, I realized that she wasn't lying to me about that. At that point, I was in the 4th grade...same year that he was in when he was torturing me. Wow!! I really WAS getting a little power, for a change...presuming that being older meant having power that wasn’t there previously.
I remember another boy in Jerry's class, giving me a hard time, late in my 1st grade year, and on-and-off during my 2nd grade year...but not all year long, and not every single day. Just when he felt like it, and/or when I didn't stay after school, as I have a very vague but clear memory of taking a pottery class after school so that I could go home after most of the other kids had already gone home. Sometimes, this one boy stuck around too...sometimes not. Howard, who was a little taller than Jerry and me...decided to chase me home a few times, growling like a lion, and saying, "I'm gonna kill you!!!! I'm gonna kill you!!!" Just when I thought I could stop being afraid...y'know? He thought he was such a hotshot too...What a fool!!!! Like I said, what WAS it with that place??? I was probably the sanest one there...until the Jerry episode...then, I was the most terrified, shyest one there.
The school’s idea of "helping" Howard and I both...for different behavioral quirks, of course...was to put us in the special class that was supposed to be for kids with learning disabilities. Howard, because he was leaning towards being a bully like Jerry (who, by the way, never got shoved into that class)...and me because I'd become so withdrawn and scared of just about everyone. True, thanks to that class, I didn't feel like I had to be afraid of Howard...and he apparently learned to stop picking on me...so, maybe that class did do us some good...I don’t know. To Mom, it never made sense that we were in a learning-disabilities class for personality-quirks (if I may put it that way.)
It was the whole thing with Jerry, though, that transformed me, almost for good. Suddenly, I was so scared that I would hardly talk to anyone. To this day, I'm very, very shy at first, when I first meet someone. It takes at least a month or so before I open up enough to get by.
So, now you know.
So, two traumas that occurred in my life, involved a Jerry... One Jerry beating me up all year long...and another Jerry who disappeared on me, for a month (I wrote about that some time back on this blog.)
Thank you for reading, and whether this is acceptable to you or not, it is my history...I have had to carry this around for almost 34 years. Writing about it gives me the promise that maybe somebody on the other end will understand, and/or benefit from knowing all of this. So, there you have it, and thanks again for stopping by!!
