Memories jump off story ideas

I've been writing my middle grade series that takes place in a town called Nowhere, Oklahoma (not it's real name--SURPRISE! *snort*), when I was six. We moved from California to this little hole-in-the-wall town in March of 1968 (Yes, I know I'm dating myself). Anyhoo, I couldn't remember how long we lived there, so I called my mom (still kickin' at 88 years old). We lived there only four months. But it was four months that none of us will ever forget.

I have some wonderful memories, but my siblings didn't. Mom shared a few with me, one of them she recently found out from my bro (5 years my senior).

Jumping ahead here--when Erica Orloff critted my Faerie story, she mentioned that the teacher was too mean. Well, okay, I could tone her down, especially since the gym teacher was a goblin and he could do mean quite nicely thank you very much. But meanness in teachers isn't a new thing. It comes in all forms.

Back to my bro's story. It turns out the teachers in this little town didn't take too kindly to strangers, much less strangers from CALIFORNIA. In fact, they wouldn't allow any people of color to live within the city limits. I think when my aunt died in 1988, they 'allowed' one African-American family to move in, and I'm sure it wasn't an easy adjustment for that family. Remember--boondocks of Oklahoma. My bro's teacher was nasty enough to make him stand at the front of the class to 'teach' the rest of the class square roots, because he was from California, therefore smarter than everyone else. My bro had just turned 12 and hadn't learned square roots.

Four months later we moved to Tulsa, a virtual metropolis, but I think that experience had a profound effect on my bro. In high school, he wasn't just at the top of the curve for grades, he was so far ABOVE the curve they had to leave him out of the calculations because he skewed the curve too much. He continued his academic career by getting a PhD in Electrical Engineering. Yep, he's one smart cookie. And sometimes when I talk to him, everything goes right over my head, and I've been known to ask him to dumb it down for me.

Everything that we see, do, act upon, etc. changes who we are. It becomes our baggage. Some baggage is good, some isn't. It's all in how we deal with it or if we allow the baggage to rule our lives.

Something to think about.

Write on!