That house contained one gift available for anyone to use —a piano. I have no idea how it got there —whether the previous tenants left it or someone in the family bought it —but Beverly’s son, Sean, played it all the time. Though I loved all the music he played, I especially enjoyed “The Entertainer.”
One Saturday afternoon I was bored, so I opened the piano bench and found a Michael Aaron Piano Course book for beginners. I read it, studied the illustrations on the pages, and began teaching myself the basics. Mom noticed my interest and decided to arrange for several of us kids to take piano lessons. She found a teacher who taught in his apartment nearby and agreed to give affordable group lessons. Mr. Peter Katz was an eccentric, large man who had a floor-to-ceiling computer he called Cecil that took up most of his living room.
In the space that was left, he placed several chairs for us to sit on and wait for our turn to play, across from the piano and bench, with Mr. Katz’s chair beside it.
Mr. Katz also distributed Amway products. As I waited for my lesson one afternoon, I leafed through his Amway catalog and spotted a sleek camera. I read the description, which made it sound like the best camera ever made. Then I noticed the price in bold print just below: $12.00. When Mr. Katz finished Celia’s lesson, I mustered the courage to ask him about what I saw in the catalog.
“Mr. Katz, I really like this camera.”
“Yes, it’s quite a nice item. Would you like to buy it?”
“I —I don’t have twelve dollars.”
“That’s okay. You can make payments on it. Just bring me your money every week, and I’ll keep it safe until you save enough to buy the camera. How does that sound?”
It sounded fine to me, so I told him so. “But it might take me a while. I don’t make very much money.”
“As long as it takes,” he said with a smile.
I began giving Mr. Katz any money I earned cleaning appliances, if and when we actually got paid, which was intermittent at best. Mr. Katz made a notation in a little book he kept by his stack of Amway products. It did take me a while, but eventually I paid Mr. Katz the final installment, and he proudly gave me the camera at my piano lesson.
My birthday came soon after I got that camera, and my sister Kathleen gave me a photo album. Any money I earned or received as a gift went toward buying film and developing photos. It cost about three dollars for a roll of film, plus extra for flashbulbs that snapped on top of the camera. Even though I had to spend about $3.50 to develop a roll of film, I didn’t care about the cost. Nothing would stop me from taking pictures. I loved that camera, and I loved taking pictures of people and putting them into my birthday photo album. I never threw away a single picture, even the blurry or grainy ones, because each photo was an investment.
Between watching TV with Heber, learning to play the piano, and taking pictures with my very own camera, I felt like a normal kid for the first time in my entire life.
THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR meant changes once again. At the end of the summer, the twenty of us who had occupied the Ogden Circle house moved into a new, slightly larger house on Elmer Drive, just a few blocks away from our previous address.
Because of the yearlong gap in my education when I was living in Mexico and sporadic school attendance in the States, I started at Stukey Elementary School as a third grader. Even though I was about a year older than everyone in my class, I didn’t mind that when I met Mrs. Klitsner.
Mrs. Klitsner was tall and slender. She walked gracefully with smooth and careful steps, and her voice was soft and gentle. She had long, dark auburn hair, which contrasted beautifully with her fair skin and freckles.
I adored my teacher and obsessed over everything about her —how she dressed, how she styled her hair, and even how she smelled. I had always craved attention and approval from all of my teachers, but Mrs. Klitsner soared far above the rest. She was patient with me and motivated me when the work seemed overwhelming and I wanted to quit. Somehow she knew when I needed a hug and kind words of encouragement.
Though I could always read well above my grade level, I was behind in math, science, and history. My education with its starts and stops was like a tangled pile of yarn that stuck out every which way, instead of being a tightly wrapped ball. Being a strong reader with excellent comprehension saved me, allowing me to manage fairly well in subjects I wasn’t familiar with. Mrs. Klitsner helped me when I didn’t understand things —sometimes very basic concepts —that I should have known. She brought out strengths and abilities in me I never knew I had. And because of that, I worked harder in her class than I ever had in any other. I was determined to earn her approval.
I loved books, especially the ones by Beverly Cleary and The Boxcar Children series. Another favorite was Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. It was difficult to read the last chapter of that book because I was bawling my eyes out. At times, I’d open it up and reread the last few chapters just so I would cry. I believe I was grieving things in my personal life that I didn’t realize needed grieving. The act felt therapeutic. The days when the “Reading Is Fundamental” cart came to our room were my favorites —I got to return the book I’d been reading and borrow a new one!
Construction paper cutouts of the planets dotted our classroom wall. Every time a student finished reading a book, Mrs. Klitsner moved his or her name to the next planet closest to the sun —the ultimate goal. One boy, a fast reader, always had his name ahead of mine. I wanted to pass him because I wanted to be the first one to reach the sun to please my teacher. I never did get ahead of my competitor, but this little game helped me learn about the planets.
When we studied Colorado state history and read about the Indians who lived in the southwest corner of the state, we got to make biscuits like the Indians did. Since I was constantly hungry, I grabbed the biggest biscuit, much to the dismay of my classmates.
At recess, I loved to play tetherball —and I was good at it. Being taller than the other kids gave me an advantage, and I won a lot. On the swings, we would go really high and then jump off, trying to outdo one another. The monkey bars presented a challenge: If your hand slipped and you fell, your turn was over. I was so determined to swing from bar to bar that I practiced over and over until my hands became blistered and raw. I always made it across without falling.
There was a boy who liked me and showed his affection by drawing me a picture of a Denver Broncos helmet. Then we started “going together,” and he occasionally walked me home from school.