Not a Poster Child

by Francine Falk-Allen

  We watched a lot of movies about World War II and Nazi Germany in the fifties. My grandfather was of Swiss-German descent and his second wife, my step-grandmother, was German. I asked Mother while watching one of those movies, “Were we for the Germans or the Americans in the war?”

  “For the Americans!” she said with some alarm. “Why do you ask that?” (She was keeping a secret about my step-grandma— who, I later found out, had been a Nazi sympathizer—and wondered if I’d heard something about her past.)

  “Because Grandpa and Grandma are German,” I said.

  Mother kept her silence.

  Of course, along with why the Holocaust had been “allowed” by God, my underlying personal question was, Why did God let me and all those other children get polio? Did I do something wrong when I was little? Were my parents and I being punished? I really had a hard time believing this was God’s will. Why would He punish an innocent three-year-old?

  When I inquired, or when other kids asked the same theosophical questions, the pat answers we received from adults were myriad and cliché: “God tests those He loves most”; “Everything happens for a reason”; “God moves in mysterious ways, his wondrous works to perform”; “God gives us free will; many people abuse that free will, are tempted by the Devil, and give in to him, and that is why there is evil amongst humans.” That last one made the most sense to my simplistic, childish thinking. God good, Devil bad. Side with one or the other.

  But of course, that simplicity did not continue to suffice for my inquiring mind.

  Occasionally, after Daddy died, we watched Oral Roberts, the evangelist, on television. (My dad would not have watched a show like that; he would have preferred to watch wrestling and chuckle.) Mr. Roberts would give a sermon and then people would line up to be healed. Someone with a wheelchair, a crutch, a limp, or some apparent illness would approach the stage slowly and sit in a chair. Oral Roberts would lay his hands on the person’s head and pray, and then firmly press on the head a few times with dramatic emphasis and ask God to “Heal this man of his infirmities, O God, heal him, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen!!!”

  I always thought, Gosh, doesn’t that hurt their neck? But afterward, the person would get up and walk away and leave his crutches on stage, and everyone would applaud and shout.

  I turned to my mother once and said, “Can we go to see him? Maybe he could heal me.”

  “No-o-o,” she answered, in her “for heaven’s sake” voice.

  I don’t think we watched the show much after that. Whether Mother believed in faith healing or not (I soon saw it as a hoax), she didn’t want me to get my hopes up about that sort of thing.

  My first truly spiritual experience happened at Camp Fire Girls’ camp nearly two years after the flood, in 1957, when I was nine. I had occasionally spent the night at friends’ houses before this, but other than my hospital stint, I had never been away from home as long as a week—and of course, my mother had come to see me every day in the hospital. I never even had a babysitter. So this was a big thing, to go away to the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, a three-hour drive up into the hills, with Daralyn and her mom—especially since Daralyn was in a tent with older girls and I was in the nine-year-olds’ tent, where I didn’t know anyone at first.

  Mother was happy to be home alone for a week and eat Chinese and Mexican food, which I eschewed until later learning that ethnic foods were cool.

  At Camp Me Wa Hi (“by the water in the hills” in Pidgin American Indian that someone had made up), I had free time in between sessions one day, and I wandered a short way from the tent into the surrounding woods—far enough to be alone, but close enough to still hear the voices of girls and know I was not lost. I found a little stand of ferns, willowy shrubbery, and saplings, with an area underneath the greenery where the ground was partially clear, and sat down under the low, leafy canopy. It felt like my own little protected fairy haven. I looked up through the fronds and waving twigs to the sky and trees above. The light through the spring green leaves transfixed me with their exquisite translucence. What color! What light! What a miracle was this natural world.

  And then a new thought: I am here totally alone. No one knows where I am. No one in the world. I was having my first experience of being solitary, and it was happening in this place of beauty. I was hooked. It was exhilarating. My soul felt unencumbered. From that day forward, I sought out solitary places of nature and beauty.

  12

  —

  just another schoolgirl

  (who discovers water)

  The last couple of years of grammar school were fun and easier: kids knew me, and being among the oldest kids in my class gave me some confidence. I knew I was bright, and I got invited to most of the birthday parties, though there were some girls that were clearly in a more advanced social sphere, partly because they’d learned social expectations that I didn’t quite have down yet, and sometimes because their families were also more sophisticated and/or had money.

  I have always had to allow myself a little extra time to get from one point to another, and have always erred on the side of pretending I am normal and can do things as quickly as anyone else, but most of my teachers cut me no slack. The advice I received from all adults was that I needed to stop what I was doing before other people, cut my fun or tasks short, leave something out: makeup, hair styling, and so on.

  It’s a lot to ask, especially of a child or teenage girl; I was often late—and being late for class could result in time spent in detention after school, or, as happened in the second grade, writing “I will not be late for school” one hundred times (Mrs. Palmer’s room, again, though that time was Mama’s fault—she consistently was not ready to leave on time in the morning).

  My poor, depressed mother spent eons staring out the window and chain-smoking after my dad died. She didn’t have to be anyplace on time, and I paid the price for our tardiness. It has always been a source of tension for me, estimating how long things are going to take (even though, in an ironic twist of fate, I eventually became a cost estimator in a factory, and did precise time and motion studies).

  Despite my physical slowness, however, I always enjoyed being active. When I wasn’t watching afternoon or Saturday morning TV during those years, or voraciously reading, I was mostly outside in good weather. I’d do my awkward skip up the block to Daralyn’s (before I was old enough to become self-conscious about the way it looked) or over to the next block to see my friends Marilyn, Joyce, and Carolyn, or to the next-door neighbors’, Retha and Missy, or Ellen’s across the street. Out and about, all the time. My mom would call around the neighborhood to fetch me home at dinner. This suited my independent nature. With my dad gone and my mom working till late afternoon, there was no longer anyone home in the afternoon, and I preferred being at someone else’s house to being home alone with a TV movie after school, unless I was too fatigued to play.

  Kickball was the sport we played in grammar school, and I had as my fourth grade Phys Ed teacher Mrs. Cooey, who thought I should run despite my paralysis. We all referred to her as Mrs. Cootie, and she truly was a weird, crotchety bug. I could not kick with my strong leg, because I had to stand on that one. If I stood on the polio leg for my max of one second, and kicked with the strong foot, I’d either fall over or only be able to tap it with a short little kick—plus, I’d miss the ball most of the time— so instead I gave it the best I had with my “lazy leg,” as Mother called it. Sometimes I could kick it straight, sometimes it went sideways.

  The ball would only make it to the infield. I did begin to see that kicking it away from first base was an advantage. But Mrs. Cooey made me run the bases, which was a fool’s fantasy. I got lots of skinned knees from slipping on the gravelly blacktop as I did my gimpy step-step-skip; plus, I never once made it to first base. As a result, not surprisingly, no one ever wanted me for their team. I was the last one standing when the captains selected teams. If a close girlfriend was the captain, I’
d sometimes get a mercy pick. I soon began to think, I wouldn’t want me on the team, either!

  One morning, my homeroom teacher, Mrs. McDowell, came striding out from the old one-story brick and ivory stucco school building with its Spanish tile roof and marched over to the kickball area with a determined vengeance that impressed us all mightily. We wondered what was about to happen. I thought it likely that some girl was in trouble and had been found out for some infraction.

  Mrs. McDowell was known as a sweet but firm and strong teacher. She sometimes rubbed my cold little leg with her caring, rough hands when it turned purple in the winter, so I considered her an adult friend.

  She was not, it turned out, after one of us. She marched right up to Mrs. Cooey, arms swinging at her sides, and said, “What are you doing? You can’t make her run those bases! She could get hurt out here! Can you imagine what might happen to her if she has a bad fall!?” And then to me, “Francine, you just kick. You do the best you can, and have someone else run for you. You can still play the game, but you don’t have to run.” With a fiery parting look for Mrs. Cooey, she turned on her heel and strode back to monitor the rest of the playground.

  Wow. Somebody standing up for me. I had never seen one authority figure challenge another before, least of all in my defense. I knew better than to say anything to my PE teacher, but I may have given her a look that said, Okay, now we have a new understanding, you old bat. The other girls were stunned, and I vaguely remember a little amazed gossip going around later on. From then on, though I was never in the first draft, of course, I was not so ostracized in the team-picking process, since I could kick the ball enough to enable a good runner (someone like my friend Kathryn) to make it to first base, maybe second if the outfielder fumbled. In this way, though I was never enthusiastic about kickball, at least I could play it and be one of the team members instead of sitting and reading a book and waiting for PE or recess to be over.

  As for Mrs. Cooey, I believe now that she had a bad back. She was fat and walked as if her waist was in a brace, as if her upper body was separate from her lower, a disconnected rotation going on there. Maybe she had some lifelong injury; maybe she thought that if she’d only been pushed to do sports, she would not be as stiff as she ended up being.

  Or maybe she was just a mean old bat.

  Four square was a game I could play somewhat competitively. There was a cool but intense atmosphere surrounding this lunchtime sport. There were perhaps six fields painted on the playground blacktop. Each field was divided into four smaller squares, one kid to each square. It was like tennis, in a way, though played in a micro area without a net, and with a big bouncy ball about ten inches in diameter, which made a really satisfying, reverberating thwongggg! when it hit the ground. The server bounced it and slapped it lightly into someone else’s square, and it was hit in turn into various squares. If you could not hit the ball or if it was hit in an outside corner or a spot where you could not reach it, you were out. If you hit it outside the lines or in your own square, out you went; end of the line, for (hopefully) a short wait before your reentry.

  Generally, the round started out pretty easy and friendly and then heated up. It was fun to keep it going but if you did that for too long, the other kids didn’t get in to play. If you tried to put people out right at the beginning, you were considered a poor sport with too much attitude. In those days we would have called it just plain mean. I played with kids I knew and liked, and it may be that they were exceptionally kind to me, knowing that I could not run to get the ball in a far corner. Whatever the case was, I loved four square. I could stand up more easily for a half hour back then, and I was in line for that game almost every day. And when I missed or made a wrong hit and my ball was out, I got right back in line.

  Dodgeball was a different story. What a masochistic game. Stand in line and people throw that same innocent four square ball at you . . . and you’re supposed to get out of the way? Forget it. I got hit all the time, and it hurt. That was a game for boys or tomboys, as far as I was concerned.

  Around age ten to twelve, I went to visit my much older sister, LaVonne, in San Francisco, whom I looked up to as a fascinating role model. (Her dad was my mom’s first husband, and she was nearly nineteen when I was born.) We would occasionally make the three-hour trip to the city from Yuba City, though Mother (no longer “Mama”) hated to drive. Luckily for me, I was allowed at last to take the Greyhound bus and stay a week or two with my sister and her family.

  While I was there, LaVonne took me shopping one day for a coat, which my mother had neglected to pack for me, though she knew San Francisco was much colder than Yuba City, even in the summer. My sister was a little disgusted that Mother had not thought of this, saying, “Tch! Mother didn’t pack a coat for you?” pursing her lips and shaking her head. But she was also not very surprised: our mother could be a little spacey, despite her pragmatism and domesticity.

  We were walking along the sidewalk and I was enjoying the foreign atmosphere of a city, looking forward to riding a cable car or going to the huge Sprouse-Reitz for an ice cream soda, when my sister commented, “I gave that lady a dirty look. I always give people a dirty look when they stare at you.”

  I felt pride at this display of love from my big sister. But I had not realized that anyone was staring at me; in fact, I never noticed that happening, other than when kids at school were so obvious about it. Now I was embarrassed that I had not known this. People were staring at me because of how I walked. On the streets of San Francisco. Probably everywhere I went. Possibly it had been happening a lot, and I didn’t even know it. I felt so foolish.

  I did not wish that my sister hadn’t said anything; she didn’t know that I was unaware of this phenomenon. I felt that she loved me and was sticking up for me, and I was glad to have a champion in the world, even for the simple gesture of occasionally giving somebody a dirty look. I also felt like I needed to do several rather contradictory things: buck up, pretend I didn’t care, act proud of who I was even though I was ashamed of my crippled walk—my weird, unfeminine walk— and try and learn to walk differently, to bend my left knee a little to make that leg seem shorter or not walk in front of people at all unless I had to.

  That last option was going to prove almost impossible, especially as a lifelong approach, though I mastered it in many circumstances, particularly those involving meeting boys outside of school. If you stand on the sidelines, or spend the party sitting down, or stay in the car at the drive-in, no one can see how you walk. I did always jump at the chance to dance later on, if asked. But I began to beg off doing things in PE at school more and more. I didn’t want to be stared at or have those thoughts stimulated: She can’t do this, she looks really weird, gimpy, stupid, crippled; our team will lose if she plays with us. I didn’t want people to call me a “spaz.” And I sure didn’t want people to know that sometimes, in fact, one or another of my toes was a little spastic, since I didn’t always have control over what little nerve action existed down there. I was just glad the toe moved at all, in its paralyzed environment.

  Thank God for swimming pools, where, although the entirety of my weak, skinny, drop-foot limb was laid bare when I wore a swimsuit, once I was in the water, I was free and able—almost equal.

  I had encountered my first full-sized deep-water swimming pool as a little girl when I went to Daralyn’s next-door neighbors’ house. I had a very frightening experience there: the Russells insisted that I don a life jacket, and between me and Daralyn, we managed to buckle it on me upside down. When I went away from the edge of the pool and ducked under the water, I got stuck upside down, and for a few moments, till Daralyn or someone else righted me, I was quite sure I was about to drown.

  Despite this supposed near-death experience, in the very hot Yuba City summers (we’re talking days that sometimes hit 117 degrees, and months of over 100-degree temps), we’d hear the Russells and their guests next door and sing things at the top of our lungs like, “I wanna go swimmin’
with bow legged women and dive . . . between . . . their legs!” We hoped this wanton display would entice them to call us over for a swim. It never did.

  In 1957, however—at age nine, at Camp Fire Girls camp, surrounded by pine trees and girlfriends—I tentatively decided that I was going to learn to swim. My mom didn’t swim and was afraid of the water, so this was not something she encouraged, even though it was known to be excellent exercise for polio survivors.

  I got some swimming instruction from my counselors, but was really shy about looking foolish and also about the potential of drowning, so I didn’t participate much in the classes. I did watch, however. And I practiced. And I got the hang of it: Take a big breath, put your face in the water, breathe out through your nose, turn your head to the side so your mouth comes up above the surface, gulp some air, blow it out into the water, and repeat. Coordinate this with arm strokes to pull yourself forward, and kick your legs. (Kicking was not so easy, but it was doable.) And keep your legs straight—that creates more forward thrust. Wow.

  I know the counselors must have been watching me; there were lifeguards on duty all the time. But I felt like I was teaching myself to swim. Now and then some considerate women’s swim instructor would coach and encourage me.

  What liberation! Movement without the drag of a leg that didn’t fully participate. My arms handling part of the propulsion. Being in water was almost like flying—at least, how I imagined it to be. And it was in some ways easier than walking, since water acts as a support.

  By the end of the summer, with practice at pools at home when I could finagle it (the Covas across the street put a pool in, and I was welcome to use it whenever I wished), I was swimming nearly as well as other kids. Without the serious leg power, I’d never be competitive or play water polo, but who cared? It was something physical that I could do, and fairly well, for a gimpy kid. There was grace involved, and effort, and coordination of arms and legs and breath. Plus, swimming was a cool and sociable thing to do in our valley town.