of sugar, a plastic lemon full of concentrate from which I sucked the last jaw-locking drops, a cone-shaped sieve and a wooden pestle worn smooth by generations of hands. I loved the efficiency and assemblage, and I loved the closeness of my mother, who was just turning thirty. There was not yet so much distance between us that we could not share such space and movement. In the years to come I would look back and remember the jars filled with syrupy fruit, the wax floated on top, the lids pinging as they sealed, the deep purple juice that stained our mouths black; I would remember the feeling of safety and sureness and provision and wonder when that closeness had been lost.
O VER THE NEXT YEAR , I watched as my father rose in the evening, took his meal, collected his calfskin gloves and lunch pail and walked into the darkness. Mornings, just as Greg and I woke for school, my father would come back through the door, bringing with him the remembered smells of diesel and cedar but none of the joy he once brought home from the wilderness.
It was all different. The water we drank was chlorinated,our meat wrapped in Styrofoam and plastic. Our church, the Assembly of God, was progressive, allowing women to wear makeup and pants. My mother took a job checking groceries at McPherson’s; my brother began playing ball. Sometimes, when I came home from school, I was alone, except for my father dreaming in his shaded room. On still afternoons I would lie on the couch and sleep, startled when I woke to find my father in his chair, eating Saltines and cheese, reading his Bible, watching me.
We were in the world, and the world would destroy us. It was out there, waiting, biding its time. There were hippies and drug dealers, sex maniacs and pimps, Communists and big-city gangs. Even in Idaho, kids were being lured away by marijuana and LSD, flower power and peace marches. My father became more vigilant. What I
could
do was participate in church activities, go to school, and be with my family. What I couldn’t do was join drill team or play girls’ basketball, which required the wearing of indecent clothes. After I came back from a football game one evening, disoriented by the sensory overload of floodlights and the pep band’s deafening blare, my parents were frightened. Better that I remain at home, under supervision. The risks were simply too great.
Each schoolday, I walked the few blocks to Jenifer Junior High, where the girls wore fishnet stockings and blue eyeshadow, where the high school boys hung out in their GTO’s and Barracudas, smoking Marlboros and listening to Casey Kasem play the Top 40. For the first time in my life, I saw myself as others must: a plain-faced girl in home-sewn clothes, doing what was expected of her. I went to church, Iwent to school. I brought home A’s and teachers’ commendations. I risked nothing, while all around me the world was on fire: Woodstock, Vietnam, Kent State, Haight-Ashbury. Race riots and Agent Orange. The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Who. Men were burning their draft cards, women were burning their bras. Sin, sin everywhere, just as the Bible had warned, and yet, like Lot’s wife, I could not quit looking, hungry for one last glimpse before the judgment of the Lord descended.
A freak, I thought. There were so few others like me. Even the girls with whom I attended church were allowed to wear nylons while I trudged along in my knee socks, the hem of my dress brushing my calves. No one in my class understood why I could not go to the after-school dances held in the cafeteria, or why the Liberty Theater was taboo. Where once I had proudly borne witness to my faith, knocking on doors, spreading the Gospel, I was now too embarrassed to explain why I couldn’t join drill team, why I turned down invitations for birthday parties at the skating rink. Soon, even the nicest and most compassionate girls quit asking me to join them.
But there was another group, teenagers
O VER THE NEXT YEAR , I watched as my father rose in the evening, took his meal, collected his calfskin gloves and lunch pail and walked into the darkness. Mornings, just as Greg and I woke for school, my father would come back through the door, bringing with him the remembered smells of diesel and cedar but none of the joy he once brought home from the wilderness.
It was all different. The water we drank was chlorinated,our meat wrapped in Styrofoam and plastic. Our church, the Assembly of God, was progressive, allowing women to wear makeup and pants. My mother took a job checking groceries at McPherson’s; my brother began playing ball. Sometimes, when I came home from school, I was alone, except for my father dreaming in his shaded room. On still afternoons I would lie on the couch and sleep, startled when I woke to find my father in his chair, eating Saltines and cheese, reading his Bible, watching me.
We were in the world, and the world would destroy us. It was out there, waiting, biding its time. There were hippies and drug dealers, sex maniacs and pimps, Communists and big-city gangs. Even in Idaho, kids were being lured away by marijuana and LSD, flower power and peace marches. My father became more vigilant. What I
could
do was participate in church activities, go to school, and be with my family. What I couldn’t do was join drill team or play girls’ basketball, which required the wearing of indecent clothes. After I came back from a football game one evening, disoriented by the sensory overload of floodlights and the pep band’s deafening blare, my parents were frightened. Better that I remain at home, under supervision. The risks were simply too great.
Each schoolday, I walked the few blocks to Jenifer Junior High, where the girls wore fishnet stockings and blue eyeshadow, where the high school boys hung out in their GTO’s and Barracudas, smoking Marlboros and listening to Casey Kasem play the Top 40. For the first time in my life, I saw myself as others must: a plain-faced girl in home-sewn clothes, doing what was expected of her. I went to church, Iwent to school. I brought home A’s and teachers’ commendations. I risked nothing, while all around me the world was on fire: Woodstock, Vietnam, Kent State, Haight-Ashbury. Race riots and Agent Orange. The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Who. Men were burning their draft cards, women were burning their bras. Sin, sin everywhere, just as the Bible had warned, and yet, like Lot’s wife, I could not quit looking, hungry for one last glimpse before the judgment of the Lord descended.
A freak, I thought. There were so few others like me. Even the girls with whom I attended church were allowed to wear nylons while I trudged along in my knee socks, the hem of my dress brushing my calves. No one in my class understood why I could not go to the after-school dances held in the cafeteria, or why the Liberty Theater was taboo. Where once I had proudly borne witness to my faith, knocking on doors, spreading the Gospel, I was now too embarrassed to explain why I couldn’t join drill team, why I turned down invitations for birthday parties at the skating rink. Soon, even the nicest and most compassionate girls quit asking me to join them.
But there was another group, teenagers
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