Someone to Tell It To

Judging by the astonishing popularity of facebook and the fact that people everywhere are constantly talking, texting, tweeting, I would say it's possible Maslow forgot something in his hierarchy of needs - someone to tell it to.

I’ll bet you know who yours is, the first person you call when you want to tell about something that happened or share an insight.

I suspended my rant, “Don’t people talk to one another anymore?” long enough to notice they are talking to one another perhaps more than ever before. I believe it comes from a deep and abiding need for connection.

The internet offers us a vast menu of sharing options. We can share with the general public, only with friends, or include friends of friends. We can share long soliloquies, updates of only 140 characters, or anything in between. We can share photos and playlists - and share we do, 1.26 billion of us on facebook alone. 

Since cell phones and social media make it so easy to find someone to tell it to, the danger is that we’ll overlook the people we are actually with. The greatest gift we can give anyone is to be fully present. There’s no app for that.

What is it that makes them so mean?

With the recent release of Lee Daniels' The Butler, there has been much discussion about race relations - how far we've come, how far we still have to go. Since The Butler takes place from 1957-2008, and I was born in 1959, it brought back memories of a childhood that included upsetting television news images, and frightening real-life encounters with racism. The following is a true story of something that happened when I was in the fourth grade. Names have been changed:

I had just started Kindergarten in 1964 when Mom and Dad told me the news: We were moving to a new house. It was two doors down from my favorite kindergarten classmate, Katherine. She told me there were four other girls our age on the block. Since I was an only child, this new abundance of potential playmates made my heart sing.

I still remember when we went to the house in Glendale, New York for the first time. It was a warm September day. Mom and Dad went into the house. I was more interested in meeting my new playmates. My parents let me stay outside with Katherine who introduced me to some of the girls on the block. Debbie and Donna were sisters. Their mom, Dora, and her friend, Marilyn, were sunning themselves on lounge chairs in their driveway. The two women never even turned their heads as we approached. When Katherine introduced me, Marilyn said, “Just what we need, another goddamn kid.” I remember feeling hurt, and sorry for her daughter, Linda, for having a mother who didn’t like kids.

I quickly learned that fitting in wouldn’t be easy. My parents were the only immigrants on the block. We were the only family who spoke a language other than English. My parents pronounced my name Rih-tah, and Americans pronounced it Ree-da, which left me wondering how to pronounce my own name. I was the only one who didn’t have siblings. I was the only one who wore clothes my mother made. I was the only one who wasn’t catholic. Katherine moved away soon after I moved in, which made me the only one who went to public school. Marilyn called it n****r school. “I’ll be goddamned if I send my kids to school with goddamn n****rs.”  

The kids would make fun of my parents’ accent, ridicule my school, stomp all over the freshly-laundered Barbie clothes my mother made. I wondered what is it that makes them so mean?

Despite Marilyn’s disapproval, I loved my school. In fourth grade, I had a teacher whom I adored. Her name was Mrs. Thompson. I admired everything about her. Her first name was Jane, my favorite name since I discovered it in my first grade reader. She was young, slender, energetic. She made learning fun. She laughed often and was kind to us. Being in Mrs. Thompson’s class was a joy.

Because we got along so well, the time we spent in school together wasn’t enough for us. We decided to organize an after-school softball game. There was a park and ball field adjacent to the schoolyard. We gathered there on a sunny Friday afternoon.

There was a rough group of kids my mother called “teenagers” who hung out at the park. My mother often warned, “Stay away from those teenagers.” Not long after we began our ball game, the teenagers began to assemble nearby watching the game. Some of them were drinking out of paper bags. They looked angry and I remembered my mother’s warning, but I was happy to be out there in the sunshine playing with my friends, so I didn’t pay much attention to them. 

I was in the outfield, happily fiddling with the glove my crush, Kenny, lent me when I heard screaming. I looked up and saw Paula and Laurie running toward me, terror on their faces. The teenagers were on the infield attacking some of our friends. At first, I didn’t get it. Why were they attacking us? Was it just because we were playing ball in their park? Then I heard that word again, n****r. One of the teenagers picked up a bat. Holding his paper-bag drink in his right hand, he swung the bat awkwardly with his left. I’ll never forget the sound of the bat hitting Abe’s head. Horrified and crying, we ran back to the school to get help. Paula, Laurie, and I frantically banged on the massive metal doors with our skinny arms and small fists. No one answered. With no adults around, and no access to a telephone, we did the only thing we could think of: We ran home to get our mothers. By the time my mother and I got back to the ball field, the teenagers were gone, and Abe was being placed in an ambulance. Two other boys, both named Thomas, had also been hurt.

We returned to school on Monday with sorrowful, fourth-grade hearts. Their injuries wrapped in bandages, Thomas Bell and Thomas Holmes were present. Abe was absent. I carefully avoided eye-contact with Kenny whose older brother was one of the teenagers. I could only imagine how badly he felt. It was the first time I saw Mrs. Thompson look sad.

Abe eventually made a full recovery and returned to school. After awhile, we got back to being Mrs. Thompson’s class, but every time we went to recess we’d see the ball field and remember.

©2013 Rita Maniscalco. All rights reserved.