Day 3,707—Summer Stories X: when I Drove a Scooter—

Today, I started running later than I’ve had recently. It is my first kind of day off when I don’t have class, and I finished my homework yesterday. I thought originally I would have class through the end of the week, but while the homework is still pending, we don’t have to meet anymore. I felt tired today and walked a little when I was going up hills. I think I was dehydrated: I could tell my body was a little off.

Yesterday, after spending the morning working for my class, I worked out, read, and used my sauna bed. I didn’t have a ton of time because I had to get my kids at 4, but it was still nice to do something that genuinely made me feel better, and I partly have to thank this class for pointing me in the right direction. For the longest time, I felt obligated to have fun the way other people have fun, but fun for me is more about being active and sweating. I would love to have a sweat lodge in my backyard, maybe one day. Possibly I could convince my dad to build one for me. I am sure he could do it, but he is normally more motivated by projects where he sees a clear practical purpose.

         I have been reading this book about St. Louis, and it has been interesting. I didn’t know the Lemp family was so heavily associated with suicide, or as they referred to it back then, the “Dutch act.” According to this book, every male in the family died by suicide, except the most recent Lemp who was the last of his line and died in his 90s. At one time, they were one of the richest families in the country; they owned the Lemp Brewery that made Falstaff beer. I have always been fascinated by the Shakespeare character of the same name, which has made me seek out Falstaff memorabilia over the years. Too bad Falstaff never drank beer only wine which he referred to as “Sack” throughout the many plays he was in. 

20 years ago, I was driving a scooter, back before they had a huge resurgence. I bought a used one that didn’t work that well. The top speed was 30 mph, and I mainly just drove it to school and around my neighborhood. I remember one day I was driving to school with it and it stopped working, so I took it to the sidewalk to try to get started again.

         Once on the sidewalk, I went to school and went about my day. Later, the school police officer showed up in one of my classes to “talk” (yell) at me for apparently cutting to school using the sidewalk. I know what teacher it was, Ms. Barbow (spelling). I don’t mind writing her name because she was more than a bad teacher; she was a bad person. In one of my proudest poetry assignments, the task was to mimic Walt Whitman. She thought I was cheating (never told me) and gave me a D-. She had no proof, or she would have failed me. She just didn’t believe I could write that well. I didn’t even know about it until much later. I asked my mom to talk to her and my mom said she was not nice and that was all she told me then. 

People like her are the reason I know some people will always assume the worst of me. I know these people exist because one of them was one of my teachers. She not only convinced herself I cheated, but she convinced my mom too. I don’t forgive either of them for assuming the worst of me and never talking to me about it. This is the reason today I will still assume that people are keeping important things from me and not talking to me about them. I know it happens because this happened. I only know this because my mom told me over 10 years after it happened. Up until then, I thought maybe my poem just wasn’t as good as I thought it was.