Summer of 1987 – A Summer of Change
I would like to say I was an average, every day, boring
teenager dealing with average, every day, boring problems such as pimples,
hair, make-up, clothes, whether or not my eyes were too big for my face,
sexuality, and a massive mess of other problems that would make Godzilla’s
attack on Tokyo look easy; except my journey into puberty was not to be a
simple hop… skip… or jump. Though trust
me, I prayed, wished on fairies I tried to capture, opened every fortune cookie
I could get my little hands on trying to change the outcome of my situation,
and yet no matter how hard of an effort I made it was not meant to be. One would think being raised in NYS Foster
Care System as a teenager wasn’t excruciatingly abysmal enough, the Fates,
Gods, Gremlins; whoever it was peering down just had to make my life even more
hellish?
Every teenager is convinced, at one point in their pubescent
lives, that there is something abnormally wrong with them. Girls and boys, each had their own set of
separate issues that would arise, not once… not twice… but, rather, multiple
times a day, from the time our hormones began to change, at around ages 11 and
12. For girls, we gained hair where hair
shouldn’t be, lumps where there were no lumps, and let’s not broach the subject
of the day we get our first period! That
first day might as well be equivalent to Paul Revere riding through shouting
“The British are coming! The British are
coming!” There is panic, mayhem and everyone behaving as if the world has ended
with the “Rise of the Red Tide.” There
we are peering deep into the mirror, spending hours on end, convinced if we
stare hard enough, we will magically turn into Madonna, Carrie Fisher, or even
Princess Diana herself, as we all wanted to be a princess. I admit it; I am an 80’s kid, so sue me!
It was the summer of 1987, and I was 14 years old. I had just been moved to live with a new
foster family, The Smiths, in Rosendale, NY.
The only explanation I received for the transplant was Mr. and Mrs.
Petrocelli felt they were not able to help me.
This is adult speak for “you’re not fitting in well here, dear. We are so sorry, but we need to move you to
somewhere more acceptable; i.e. you’re not wanted, but your baby brother is.”
At least this is how I perceived the situation in my 14 year old, guilt-ridden
mind. It would not be until many years
later, when I was an adult myself and able to sit down with Rhonda and Vincent
to speak with them, would I be able to understand that, in truth, they did not
feel they were helping me. I was
depressed and withdrawn from everyone around me. I was hiding in my room and barely
talking. They were worried and felt,
perhaps, bringing me back to them, after so many years away, was not conducive
to my own mental or emotional well-being.
Unfortunately, this did not change how I looked at the world as an angst
ridden, overly emotional, “the world is going to end and it must be my entire
fault” young teenager; nor could it prepare me for what would come later that
summer.
The Smiths were a foster family whom catered to teenage girls;
within the Foster Care System this was an abnormality. Foster homes, for teenagers were rare or did
not last long within the system, as the parents tended to become burnt out
quickly. The Smiths were special having
been a foster home for several years; and for the first time I actually felt
free, in the sense that I was around young women my own age. Midge was in her early 40’s and worked for an
insurance company as an adjuster. Ron,
her husband, was a brusque man, who worked for the telephone company, helping
to put up lines and cut down trees. That
summer of 1987, before school started, I experienced what it truly felt like to
be a teenager, going out every Friday night to roller skate at Wood n’ Wheels,
over in Port Ewen, with all the other teenagers, not to mention my foster
sisters, Fran, Tammy and Maria. Fran
took the time to teach me how to roller skate as I had never even strapped on a
pair of skates before, and let me tell you I landed on my backside more times
then I managed to stay upright! The
music was blaring, while the girls, including us, would cluster together in various
groups, giggling, and pointing at all the multitude of different cute boys, who
arrived in their torn jeans, long hair and t-shirts imitating Bon Jovi, Axel
Rose, George Michael and other top musicians of the 80’s. It truly was a special summer, one I was
never to know again, at least until that fateful day in August, when everything
I had known, changed once more.
The day started off as most days in the late summer days did,
hot and dry with temperatures feeling as if they would and could melt the skin
off your body if you did not jump into the pool with the first chance. I ran across the street once chores were done
to hang out with my friends, Jennifer and the twins, Christina and Marie. We spent the day down at the creek, cooling
our feet, attempting to capture frogs and salamanders; while discussing the
foreboding subject looming over our heads: the return of school in just two weeks! All of us made exaggerated groaning noises,
pretending the idea of school was evil! Horrible! The absolute pits! In fact, all of four of us were secretly
looking forward to the first day; each had already planned out our back to
school outfits, received brand new haircuts and ordered, then reordered
countless times our backpacks. As we sat
there talking over what was to come, I could feel a small shiver run up my
spine, admitting privately to my own secret self I had some trepidations. These girls, my BFFs, had no idea I was
actually scared to go to Junior High School and encounter kids I had not seen
since 4th grade. The last
time they knew me I was the poor kid who came to school in the same clothes
several times a week, and would wear long sleeves even when it was warm in
order to hide the bruises.
I found myself staring down at the water, beginning to feel
depressed as I wondered who would remember me, when I heard my name shouted
from up above us; I realized it was Fran calling me home for dinner. I jumped up and quickly said my goodbyes to
the girls, promising to meet up with them tomorrow
“Same place… same time… Catch you on the flip side! Remember
don’t feed the gremlins after dark!” I
shouted grinning and winking to the other three as I ran towards the house,
leaving Jenny, Christina and Marie in a fit of giggles. Jenny knew I was calling Christina and Marie
gremlins as it was a private joke between the three of us.
Rushing towards the one story log house, I slammed open the
screen door, Keds in my right hand, causing Midge to have looked up from the
kitchen area, where she was busy cooking dinner; the scent of Sloppy Joes
filled the open spaciousness of the log house.
“Wash your hands…” was all I could hear as I was barreling through the
side door, I paused long enough to drop my shoes under the jackets hanging from
hooks and take off running, not wanting to miss dinner. As I rushed into the bathroom I ran into
Tammy and Maria, my other two foster sisters.
What proceeded can only be described as a herd of elephants all vying
for the same watering hole, small though it might be, plenty of pushing,
shoving, and several elbows in my ribs; being the youngest I ended up having to
wait what seemed like five hours for the two of them to wash their hands, fix
their hair, pluck their brows and look at their skin. I just wanted my sloppy joes!
Finally! Success! Hands washed!
The smell of Ivory soap filling the air, I once more rushed out to join
the family at the table, sitting between Fran and Maria, with the bay window
seat at my back. I loved that table and
benches. I mean, who wouldn’t love being
able to eat at a heavy country picnic style dining table with picnic benches
for chairs? There I was, about to bite
into my first bite of heaven, otherwise known as Sloppy Joes, when I suddenly
began to smell Chinese food. I am never
quite sure what happened afterwards or even why. No one is quite sure what brought on the
first seizure, nor why it took so long past the beginning of puberty for the
gram mals to begin. The Neurologists
could not be sure I was not having gram mal seizures in my sleep.
It would take many years of testing before we would get a
diagnosis of sorts, and learn that I have a rare form of Epilepsy;
unfortunately it was not to be for that summer.
That summer began as the best summer I had ever had, one in which I
could pretend I was simply an average teenager who loved books and scary
movies; and yet it ended with me adding on yet another stigmatism to the
already long list to make me once more feel like an outsider amongst my peers
as the school year was about to start. Mick
Jagger “Good Times, Bad Times” song best describes the summer of 1987 with the
following lyrics: There've been good times |There've been bad times |I have my
share of hard times, too| but I lost my faith in the world…
