Four Eyes

MemoirPrompt for 11/8/20: Flash! Write a true “flash” (100-300 words) story about a flash - literal or metaphorical- from your own life.

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"Four Eyes" - 300 words

My fourth grade teacher finally figured it out. One day she held up two fingers and asked the class how many was she holding up. She skipped past the know it all, perfectly dressed future homecoming queen and past the up and coming nerd who already sported one of his dad's pencil pocket protectors. She continued to scan the room. One by one all the raised hands were bypassed and I saw her turn towards me.

"Michael, how many fingers I am holding up?"

I was mortified. Not because I was singled out. I was embarrassed because I had no clue. My confidence stopped at three or less. But a quick answer was needed as I had learned that drawing out awkward silences in class only drove the humiliation deeper.

Swiftly I answered, "One big one?

Again my routine clownish behavior was rewarded with snickers from my classmates which died immediately as stern teacher eyes behind winged glasses caught them in their cross hairs. She swiveled back to me and gave me her patented grin of pursed red lips whose corners only flirted with the notion of lift off.

“So, you don’t know then?”

Parents were called, eye appointments were kept and in ten days or so I was in the optometrist’s office picking up my first pair of glasses. As the optometrist fitted them, I watched in the mirror. Yeah, I could see better, but would it be worth all the ridicule that would inevitably follow? I was sure it would not.

I was hating Life as we left the doc’s office. Stepping outside, I looked up at the Tampa skyline that surrounded us. In an instant, my world had become a wondrous and beautiful land I never knew existed.

I never again worried about being a “Four Eyes”.

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Daily Flash Writing Prompts - Facebook 

Summer 1963

Times Past Challenge – 6/16/18

Reflect on a big change in my lifetime.

560 or so words ( originally over 1200 )

Links posted at 

~ Reflections and Nightmares

~ Carrot Ranch

Summer 1963

The State Theater was located on the north side of College Avenue between Monroe and Adams Streets in Tallahassee, Florida.  It was just four blocks down from the Travelodge motel my father (G1) had taken over after retiring from the US Air Force a couple of years earlier. It was the summer of 1963.  I (Boomer) remember it well.

Being from a military family who moved at the drop of a hat, exploration was first on my agenda.  Knowing the layout of the land was an imperative first step in acclimating to new surroundings.  Having a movie theater just down the street seemed  a good place to begin.  I would start there. 

The family's military lifestyle did not prepare any of us for the  nastier aspects of the world we would now exist in.  My parents had become used to the protective bubble a military life offered.  I was born on base and knew nothing else.  There was no such thing as segregation in my world up to that time.

I stepped up to the ticket window and bought a ticket. I remember the black woman inside the ticket booth asking me not once, but twice if I was sure I wanted to go into the theater.  I was adamant.  I was 12.  It was Saturday and I was burning daylight while the matinee was well into its first serial.  She handed me a ticket.  I went in, bought some popcorn and a coke and went into the theater.  Not long after I had settled into my seat, I sensed someone big sit down in the seat behind me.  They leaned over the back of the seat next to me and said, "Boy, are you sure you are in the right theater?"  

I turned and there was a very unfriendly looking black man staring at me hard.  I told him yes, I was in the right theater.  I lived just down the street at the Travelodge and my name was Mike.  I ended with "we just moved here."

"Son," his voice became friendlier, "you really are in the wrong theater. ....  You need to leave.  We don't want any trouble here."

I stood up and looked around.  It finally dawned on me there was not one white face there other than mine.  And it seemed to me all eyes were focused on me and not the screen.

I left and walked the four blocks back to the Travelodge.  When I got home, I told my dad I had been kicked out of the theater by a very scary black guy.  He looked at me.  He did not ask what I might have done to deserve getting the boot.  He just sighed and told me to blow it off, we would talk later.  I think he knew but had forgotten how the real world worked.

Thus began my exposure to the very real and ugly world of segregation in the US South in the early 1960's.  That summer I witnessed white people beating on black people while white police leaned on their cruisers and sucked on toothpicks.  I was shamed by a public librarian for drinking out of the wrong fountain.  I was told in no uncertain terms that my kind was not allowed to sit in the back of the bus.  And at a nearby rib joint, I was refused service again because I was white. It was an eye opening coming of age summer.  One I have never forgotten.

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The years 1962 and 1963 were absolutely crammed with more seminal moments than the rest of my life combined.  The above is the one I revisit most often I think.

To attempt some structure to my memoir here, I decided to try just focusing on one event while offering just enough background to give the reader perspective.  I am not sold on my effort, but it is different than some of my other stream of consciousness posts or my based on facts fictional narratives.

Any criticism, comment or hey der's welcome.

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Image from this site - and is not a copyrighted image

The Mugging

Flash! Friday – Vol 3-9  -- 209 words – written prompt – “A Fleeting Moment” – Image prompt – man w/ umbrella on a bare square

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Mark slid his hand truck under the stack of burger buns.  Tipping the stack, he walked it down the ramp of the trailer.  At the backdoor of the restaurant, the previous two stacks were still waiting to be taken inside by his co-driver.  There was no room for this one.

“Division of labor …… Right,” he said to himself.  “George is probably munching on a Whopper.  What a Loser.”

There was nothing he could do.  George was lead driver.  Mark tipped his stack back up and lit a cigarette.  He considered this new driving gig.  A full weeks pay for a 36 hour run delivering buns to Burger Kings in New York City and Long Island.  Leave Thursday night, back in Lewiston, Maine dark thirty AM, Saturday.

He noticed a man with an umbrella walking in his direction.  The back door opened and the first stack disappeared inside.  Mark tipped his stack.  Something poked him in the back.

“Give me your wallet.”  Mark turned to face umbrella man.

Oddly, Mark felt no panic.  “No wallet. I have ten dollars in my front pocket though.”

“Ten dollars?  That’s all?”

“We eat for free.  I don’t need money.”

The mugger snatched the ten spot.  “Cheap ass truck drivers.”   He walked away.

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Back story – This incident actually happened to me.  However, the guy was not carrying an umbrella.

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Image courtesy of NannyDaddy