I passed Denver, just a fleck on my side. I imagined the city was full of amazing cuisine just a simple right turn off the highway. This was the first cool city I had seen in quite some time, and the first city that didn’t feel stuck in the same scenery as the last thousand plus miles. But my dream was California, not a restaurant with California in the name.
My exit finally arrived and I took off down another two-lane road — but this one was different. Sure, the thin lanes wound past foliage and lakes, but they also curved and had guardrails for protection, not just for show. The need for a guardrail made me feel dangerous and alive. I took in everything surrounding me. I found myself weighted once again under childlike amazement to see how the ground looked so dry and yet greenery was not in short supply. The soil was a light brown, which in Indiana meant you were either on sand or you hadn’t watered the garden. Some of the trees looked like bottlebrushes and some shot straight up for at least twenty feet before the branches even started. We never had a Christmas tree, but I imagined this is where they all came from.
Each turn took me higher and each turn opened up a new view over the valley and mountains. It took me a while to comprehend that I, myself, was climbing a mountain. The road was called Lookout Mountain Road, after all, but where I came from, roads were named all kinds of things whether they were running up the side of a mountain or not.
Buffalo Bill’s gravesite left me less than amazed, with the exception of the sweeping view. The grave was relatively nondescript, just a mass of stones looking like a chimney from the old one room schoolhouse that fell over when my town couldn’t raise enough money to pay for preservation. I realized back in the Wild Wild West, this may have been the best they could do. I suppose the view was his personal proclamation of excess and importance. I don’t know why, but I expected something like a massive marble statue of a cowboy.
I walked back to the log cabin also serving as the Buffalo Bill Museum. I noticed admission was five dollars and found myself in a deep internal conflict between whether or not I should pay the seemingly small fee to enter to see some of his iconic cowboy outfits and memorabilia, considering I wouldn’t pay five dollars to eat a cheeseburger right now, or just get in my car and take off to my next destination.
“Excuse me, Miss,” a polite voice said, interrupting my raging internal debate. “Are you in line to buy tickets?”
I turned around and faced someone I knew. I needed a few seconds to put a name to the face, a face aged considerably since my last memory. During those few seconds her doubt about my mental abilities to process human interaction was evident on her face, polite voice or not.
“Mrs. Papadoukas?” I asked
“Yes?” she replied while taking a small step back, shocked and visibly confused.
“It’s me! Blossom Franklin. You were my first grade teacher back at Meridian Grove Elementary.”
“Hmmm,” she said, taking inventory of my features. “Blossom Franklin? I did work at Meridian Grove but I retired two years ago. What class were you in?”
“Let’s see, you would have been my teacher in 1993. With Amy Peppers.”
“Oh! Yes! Amy Peppers, I remember her. Such an adorable and good little girl. She was homecoming queen, I believe. Do you still talk to her?” she asked with too much energy.
“Well, um, no. We weren’t really friends, we were just in the same class.”
“I see. What was your name again?”
“Blossom Franklin,” I replied.
“No, still not ringing any bells. Well, listen Blossom, I hope you’re doing real good. If you see cute little Amy, send her my regards. Now, excuse me please,” she said and brushed past me to step up to the ticket office.
I stared at her back. She was my favorite teacher because she always read Curious George and had fun projects using glue and scissors without micromanagement levels of supervision. She believed we were capable and independent humans, even at six years old.
Was I really that unremarkable as a child? My name was Blossom Springtime Weatherby Franklin, for crying out loud. My mom wrote it in big black permanent marker on the back of my jackets, my backpack, and even the inside of my cheap knock-off white canvas sneakers because she was so paranoid about someone stealing my school supplies since we were so broke. I always told her no one would steal my things when they could all afford the real brands. They could afford the Eastpak backpacks and the Keds sneakers. They didn’t need Westbag and Neds.
The memories of first grade replayed in my mind, and over the nostalgic dreams, I heard her whisper to her husband, “Remember when I told you about the little girl who would always lay on me and smelled like a moldy wet dog? The one who always had the sniffles and I was afraid she would get snot on my skirt? THAT was her. You just can’t get rid of some people.” She chuckled and my good memories went flying out the window on the wings of her laughter.
Mrs. Papadoukas was always the answer to my security questions online because no one could spell her nae correctly — she left a huge impression on me. Now, she was leaving an entirely new one.
Note to self: Change all security questions and forget about first grade.
Blood coursed through my veins, throbbing against my temples. I was embarrassed and ashamed. I was just a child; a child clearly desperate for love and affection. I thought she had willingly given me what I craved, but apparently, she gave me just enough to keep me away. This was the same story, over and over and over again.
“You were my favorite teacher,” I whispered as she walked inside, pulling her husband quickly behind her.
Confusion, frustration, and anger boiled and twisted, curling my toes and knotting my stomach. My fingers twitched and my shoulder muscles tensed in to my neck. I needed to blow off the building steam before I got back in my car and drove. I knew myself and I knew if I even attempted to drive right now my thoughts would muddy my mind and my concentration would be lost in a sea of distraction. Mrs. Papdoukas unknowingly convinced me to not spend my $5 to see old leather chaps and I instead settled on taking the free walking trail up to the Lookout Mountain Nature Center.
I hobbled up to the nature center, another massive log cabin, the dark logs blending in with the pristine forest scenery. The beauty surrounding me should have rendered me breathless, but the only thing taking away my breath was pain. My feet were killing me and I instantly regretted undertaking a one and a half mile trail in flip-flops. Thankfully, I had a bottle of water in my hands due to sheer dumb luck, but that bottle was now bone dry. I’m pretty sure I licked every drop of water out of the inside. I learned very quickly I am not meant for the mountains and I would prefer to go somewhere a little less rugged, where six-year-old kids can’t run past my obviously out of shape aging body, and where I can do small things to look active without climbing a mountain.
“Welcome to the Lookout Mountain Nature Center and Preserve,” a young man greeted immediately when I walked through the door. I could tell he was young by his eyes, but his Paul Bunyan beard and deep green button-down shirt could have easily hid this secret from others. He wasn’t bearded in the hipster way, he was bearded in the, ‘I’m a real lumberjack and I can survive a zombie apocalypse’ way. “What brings you to the nature center today?”
I couldn’t quite answer back that I had no intentions to actually come here but I had just realized even my first grade teacher thought I was a loser down at the Buffalo Bill site. I chose to just look at him and not say anything at all.
“Did you see any animals on your way up?” he asked a bit more sheepishly.
“Animals?” I replied. “Like, what kind of animals?”
“Well, people mainly see deer. There has been a rare bear sighting or a very rare mountain lion sighting — but they’re usually so far away it takes a trained nature observer to spot them.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose you can tell nature is as foreign to me as Mars,” I laughed.
“Yes. Yes, I can. But, you are experiencing the beauty of her today. So, welcome. You’re free to walk around, ask any questions, and you can fill up your water bottle at the fountain by the bathroom.”
“Great, thanks. Hey, since I’m new to this whole nature thing,” I started, “what else is there around here to see? I don’t exactly have a schedule.”
“Do you like dinosaurs?”
“Does anyone not?” I replied way too quickly, causing him to chuckle.
“Good answer. There’s a rack of cards over there as well. You would probably like Dinosaur Ridge, and if you drive down through Windy Saddle, you’ll see some scenery that will take your breath away.”
I clapped my hands and thanked him before making a beeline to the bathroom. On the walk up, I had sweat out all the water my body once contained, making peeing impossible, but I was going to take my time getting to know the water fountain.
I thanked Paul Bunyan for his generous recommendations and exited through the front door less than five minutes after I entered. He laughed as I went, leaving me feeling more than a little guilty. Should I have at least looked at the exhibits inside or signed some sort of guest book? Was it bad manners to walk in, steal some water, and walk back out? I wasn’t sure I cared about bad manners.
The moment my feet hit the trail, all thoughts of Papdoukas, no, I would call her Preppydookie from now on, vanished. The smell of fresh pine filled my nostrils, giving me memories I never actually made, and I promised myself if I had children one day, I would always give them a real Christmas tree.
One and a half miles didn’t feel quite as long going back as it did on the way out to the nature center. I kept my eyes open for rare and exotic Colorado animals but the only living thing I caught sight of was the tail end of a busy squirrel and tiny humans running quickly down the trail, stressing out their parents.
I enjoyed feeling the dirt spray up in between my toes with each heavy step. I felt like I was starting to understand what people meant when they said they felt at one with nature. Wooded paths full of beautiful flowers, the songs of little birds fluttering about, and the rustle of wind through the low foliage made losing yourself extremely easy.
My daydreams of being Snow White were quickly halted when I breached the trailhead and spotted Preppydookie with her troll of a husband, fiddling in the trunk of their luxurious car whose cost was way more than two school teachers could possibly afford . I would not say another word to her, I would not look in her eyes, I would not smile, and I definitely did not want her to see me again so that she could remember what a pathetic child was.
“Oh, come on,” I snarled through gritted teeth. I watched them continuing to shuffle bags around before pulling out a small backpack. They snapped a little at each other, bickering while they decided what to put inside. A few bottles of water, a few pieces of fruit and a towel went in the main pocket before everything was zipped up and the trunk was slammed close.
“Oh, thank God,” I whispered, anxious to get off the trail, head down the road, and see what this unplanned dinosaur location was all about. “Oh, no. No, no, no,” I wheezed, realizing they were coming my way and there would be no way to avoid them. I frantically looked around, noticing I either had to start trucking back up to the nature center or give in to my primal urges and truly become one with nature. My feet threatened to dislodge from my body if I turned around and started walking. Before my brain could weigh in one way or the other, I felt my body throwing itself behind a bush just slightly off the trail.
They approached slowly, continuing their seemingly unhappy and overly animated conversation. I huffed out of frustration, hoping they would pick up the pace just a little bit so I could pull the fir tree limb away from its precariously poking position against my rear. With each step closer, I took a deep breath, doing my best to avoid the gnats swirling around my cavernous mouth, and promptly held my breath, hoping they wouldn’t see or hear me. I didn’t want to explain why I was hiding in a bush, especially not to the woman who just ripped my heart of my chest and stomped on the only pleasant childhood memories I possessed.
“I still don’t understand why we couldn’t just drive up there,” the husband said, his arms flailing as he pointed up the mountain, but in the wrong direction.
“Because you need to lose ten pounds and you had a fried egg for breakfast,” the evil woman who I would not name sneered. I was seeing an entirely new side to her and I realized she was not a kind or nice person at all.
With each passing day, I was constantly being placed in situations where I realized the people I knew weren’t the people I thought I knew, and the world was not the world I thought it was. Nothing was black and white, cut and dry, simple and easy. I always thought I was given the short end of the life stick; I always told myself I had it so hard. I was wrong. I didn’t have anything at all because life doesn’t owe you anything at all. I had what I made. I had nothing because I made nothing for myself. And this wretched teacher was miserable because she made herself miserable with her fake life, and her fake hugs, and her fake care.
I continued to stare in amazement, the duo bickering all the way around the first turn in the trail. How truly miserable they must be to want to spend their time arguing while surrounded by all of this beauty. I waited a few minutes in case the chubby husband won and they decided to turn around. When they kept going, and were probably already at the Nature Center, I popped out from behind the bush, scaring a small girl who had just started walking with her parents, and ran past them without even an apology.
The lumberjack was correct. Lookout Mountain Road the other way, or as he called it, Windy Saddle, lived up to its name. Never in my life had I been on a hairpin turn before, let alone driving myself on a hairpin turn. For the first time, I understood what people meant when they said something gave them a tight butthole. If I hadn’t been driving, I would have kept my eyes closed. Eventually, at the pace equivalent to one slowly creeping snail, and with a buildup of what must be very experienced drivers behind me, I found my way down to Dinosaur Ridge. I was promptly greeted by a Tyrannosaurus Rex sign, which filled my dinosaur-loving heart with happiness.
While the lumberjack did inform me about this place, and about the amazing views from the drive down, what he failed to mention was Dinosaur Ridge was yet another hike. I could pay $2 to visit the barn and see some exhibits or I could walk around the trail. The day was swiftly getting away from me and my stomach started to become unruly, loudly screaming its whale song once again for all to hear. I dug out the mammoth jar of peanut butter and scooped two fingers in to the creamy thickness.
“Do you need a spoon?” someone asked with a laugh.
I looked up to see a man next to me wrangling six children out of a car. “Well, I suppose a spoon would help,” I replied, laughing at how silly I must have looked.
“That’s the biggest damn jar of peanut butter I’ve ever seen,” he said, “and with this unruly bunch, I’ve seen a lot of peanut butter. Hold on a second, I know we have plastic spoons around here somewhere. Ah, yes, there they are.” He pulled a small parcel out of a bag. Inside was a spoon, fork and knife. “You can keep all three,” he joked.
“Honey, don’t be silly. Give the poor girl some bread, too. No one just eats peanut butter. No one does, do they?” a woman who I assume was his wife asked, looking me straight in the eyes.
I surveyed the family. The whole lot had beautiful, bright red hair and were in an assortment of flannel shirts with the same basic design, just different colors. Half the kids had freckles, which came from their mom; the other half had blue eyes, which came from their dad.
“Well, I never have before, but I was in a hurry and forgot bread and utensils. Now I just have a sticky mess,” I laughed in return.
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br /> “I’ll grab you a bag of buns and I’m pretty sure we have some diaper wipes around here. You don’t go anywhere without them when you have a crew this size,” she said. She dug around the expanse of their oversized SUV and handed me a blue plastic MegaMart bag containing half a bag of smashed buns, a few napkins, two bags of potato chips, and a few of those bougie flavor packages you put in water to create soup or toss in to a casserole. “We’re on our way home. We just live around the bend, and we won’t need any this. Not to be presumptuous, but I noticed your license plate was from Indiana. I don’t know where you’re going or your plans, but I figured you’re on a road trip. Especially if you’re eating peanut butter out of the biggest damn tub I’ve ever seen with your fingers.”
“Mommy said a bad word,” the smallest hellion screamed, causing the other red headed devils who were perfectly behaved and lined up like angels to start shouting and pointing.
“Ugh. We made a rule if they ever heard us say a bad word, they get $10. We thought this was a brilliant idea until we realized it’s never just one kid by themselves and costs us quite a bit.” She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Alright kids, settled down. You’ll all get your $10. Thank you, Mommy did say a bad word. What don’t we say?” she asked them as they quieted back down, content with their bribe.
“Bad words!” the only girl yelled. “But you can say them, Mommy, because I like money!”
“That one is going to be trouble,” I said out loud without thinking.
“She already is. She’s seven and knows Chanel from Dior when I can’t tell Nike from Reebok.”
“And, she’s going to be locked up every night once she turns ten. She is already starting on about actors and their abs,” the dad chimed in.
The mom kept digging in the trunk area while I stared at their kids, lined up and quiet, patiently waiting, staring back at me and probably wondering why I hadn’t left their family alone yet. Truthfully, I didn’t know either.
The Wrong Side of Twenty-Five Page 18