The Snow Ball
The red brick building of the town’s elementary school had been drowned and frosted over by the winter, until all 3 acres from afar appeared indistinguishable from the pallid snow surrounding. Within this colorless edifice lay the cozy revelry of polite laughs and giggles: ‘twas the Christmas half-day at Homan Brook Elementary.
We had been practicing for the dance for a few months – once a week a woman would come in and teach us all how to ballroom dance. All the girls had to buy expensive, really nice dresses (like something a flower girl in a wedding would wear) and the boys had to buy full suits. We were taught a bunch of different dances, like the Foxtrot, the Charleston, and when the day finally came, we all just kind of danced around while parents and teachers ate decadent Russian teacakes and raspberry creams and snowball cakes and laughed.
The dance was opened with students reciting speeches, written by the teachers. The speeches were littered with jokes and phrases that the parents reveled in, while the children stood blankly in confusion. “Can you believe that ballroom dancing is part of the first grade cir-cur-icculum?” Parents erupted in polite laughter as Elliot Collins stumbled over his oration, unsure of what the words coming out of his mouth even meant.
As we all grew older, the hand-cut snowflakes hanging from the ceiling became an emblem for this special memory.
***
Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration, delicate fingers fumbling with a tiny pair of pink safety scissors, Edith watched as the little scraps of white paper fell like tiny angels from her snowflake to the floor below her. Her focus almost drowned out the snip snip of her scissors, the record player cranking out Old Man Sunshine, and Miss Johnson’s shouts as she tried to break up the fight that had broken out between Elliot and Frank over the last bit of blue ribbon. Her attention was all on perfecting her masterpiece. After all, how else was she going to get little Edward to fall in love with her?
She looked over to examine Lucy’s snowflake. Lucy was her best friend, since her first two favorite colors were the same as Edith’s, and Lucy always got the best stuff. Her mother let her wear pink stockings with ruffles, and she got to wear those same shoes that the pretty girls in the magazines wore. Edith frowned as she noticed that Lucy was already on her third snowflake while she had only just finished perfecting her first. Her eyes narrowed and she got back to work.
After a while, with her hand cramping and a pile of paper snowflakes settled in front of her, Edith decided it was time to reward herself with a break. She glanced around the room, lit softly with gas lamps in the corners and one big blaring electric bulb (recently installed) from the ceiling. It gave a little hiss; and this was the first time Edith had heard this subtle noise, which got her thinking – why were the holidays so different-feeling from the rest of the year? I mean it snowed all the way to March, but no-one cozied up like this in January. The room was quiet, save for the shaking of snow crystals in the makeshift Bethlehem, the snipping of the other girls’ scissors, and the occasional whine from Audrey, the girl who seemed always to have a sniffle.
Edith scuffled across the room to reach for a Raggedy Ann Doll that had been casually strewn on the quarter-sawn white oak floor. She ran her fingers over its soft red yarn hair and blue patterned shirt. Disinterested, she directed her attention instead to the glistening pastries across the room. A collection of candies and treats, ranging from oh Henry chocolate bars to blue frosted cookies, the array was captivating. As if her mind had been read, Miss Johnson’s voice pierced the room, “Class, it’s time for a snack. Everyone may take two treats from the snack bar.” A wave of children lunged to form a line, each longing to get the best slice of snowball cake, or the biggest Abba Zaba candy bar.
Edith sat herself in a chair placed directly in front of the chalkboard, which stretched all the way from the floor to the ceiling, looming above her. She wondered how strange it must be for adults like Miss Johnson to be so close to the ceiling, she herself standing at a mere three and a half feet tall. Edith hoped one day to be as classically beautiful as Miss Johnson. She was constantly draped in fashionable clothing, from furs to ruffles and long strings of pearls. Today, she wore a light blue silk dress with white piping and buttons, her brown sleek bob of hair topped with a white musketeer hat. Mrs. Johnson’s cheeks were always rosy with blush, her lips painted with the perfect shade of red. Her shoes were clean black two-inch T-strap heels.
Finding herself staring at a row of almond wafers wedged between white Russian cakes (with the ruby and yellow squares showing through where Miss Johnson had carefully cut them), Edith wasn’t sure how to proceed. For if she took a wafer for its excellent texture and a small wedge of rhubarb flan, she would not be able to try the Russian cake, nor the raspberry cream, doled out onto little sweet and edible oatcakes.
Well, there, she thought, if I procure the raspberry cream, I’ll have the oatcake as well, and that’ll be somewhat (at least in snap and bite) close to the almond wafer… so, when it came her turn, she did decide on the raspberry cream, but then made a last-minute course correction, and, foregoing the Russian cake (those adorable squares!) she impulsively reached for a marshmallow kiss.
“Edith, why are you holding your Raggedy Anne and the marshmallow cake?”
“It’s not a cake, Gertie, it’s called a marshmallow kiss! And I am going to feed Annie some of it, before I try the raspberry cream.”
Gertie tried to dip her finger in Edith’s kiss, and Edith barely swerved it away.
Gertie was the daughter of an extremely fat mother and father, master bakers, who had provided most of the confections. Edith was surprised at Gertie’s ignorant, and ill-mannered swipe.
“Class, all repair to your seats before eating, and I’ve asked a special guest to say the Grace.”
Miss Johnson strode to the door, opened, and looked down the hall. In a very unladylike way, she stuck her slender fingers in her mouth and blew: a long piercing note filled the hall and echoed. A door was heard opening, and slowly shut, and before the class had time to become afraid of a possible visit from Principal Rasmussen, a formidable man who smoked a pipe and wore a bowtie, a young man entered, crossed himself, and stood, with an eagle-like posture, at the teacher’s podium. Miss Johnson’s boyfriend was a charming man, put-together and respectful. Edith noticed he was always clad in blue or black pinstripe suits.
“Class, thank you for waiting for the Grace.” He then intoned a special prayer, which was larded with references to the array of special cakes before them; he even mentioned the marshmallow kiss, snorting with pleasure as he did so, and concluded: “… and, Holy Spirit, as we prepare to celebrate your son’s Birthday, we hope to treasure all these things in our hearts as well as our stomachs, as we prepare to revere your Father.”
The end of the day approached, and Edith sat in anticipation at the notion of returning to her home and preparing for the evening’s proceedings. As she fixated on the second hand of the classroom’s black Telechron wall
clock, Edith wondered to herself: Why is it that time always seems to stand still when anticipation is at hand?
Lucy, in all her juvenile unconsciousness (Lucy was three and a half months younger than Edith), approached Edith and gave her two sharp jabs to the arm.
“What are you doing, Edith? Why aren’t you cleaning up like the rest of the class?”
“Lucy, can’t you see I’m busy? I’m the only one in our class who can tell time, and that means it’s my job to watch the clock.”
Of course, Edith knew she should have been cleaning with the rest of the class, but she also knew that Lucy would be none the wiser to her trickery, and of course she’d avoid the exertion of cleaning up after herself. Satisfied with her production, Edith returned her gaze to the clock.
One by one, parents began showing up at the door to pick up their students. As each student set off to their homes, Edith felt herself rising in impatience and frustration at her own mother’s tardiness.
Finally, as even Miss Johnson began to shuffle in weariness, a beat-up Model T lumbered into the yard, belching smoke from its rear pipe, making an ungodly racket, for the pipe was broken or had a hole in it. It then pulled up in front of the red brick building of the school, and Edith rushed off towards it, bidding a hurried farewell to Miss Johnson and her boyfriend.
“Why, Edith! I have the most wonderful news! I’ve invited over your Uncle George and your cousin Dorothy to come attend your Snow ball, and I managed to get your father to put down the whisky for long enough to come watch as well.”
Edith took this news with a grain of salt. She tolerated the presence of her cousin Dorothy, as she was always on her case about dressing more femininely, and her Uncle George was loud-mouthed and invasive.
“But Mom, what if I don’t want them to come?”
“That’s nonsense, of course you want them to come. You know, when I was a child, your grandparents were constantly whining, ‘I’m too busy to come to your talent show, I can’t handle another dance recital.’ Well, now they’re in a morgue and I’m too busy to plan their funerals. You should be appreciative that the people in this family care enough about you to come to these things. God knows if they even want to.” Mother was so bundled up, she looked like a big round ball of wool and fur, hovering over the windscreen, feet pushing the pedals below.
Back then, you see, there was no heating in the average car, and ours was below average, a 1915 Model T. I’ll always remember watching entranced as my mother drove that old thing. Her nails, always painted red and chipped, would tap lightly on the cheap leather of the steering wheel. Her feet would shift clumsily between pedals, and her eyes would squint to see through the windscreen on stormy days.
Upon returning home, Edith’s mother was hasty in smothering her in makeup and a frilly lace dress. After all, it wasn’t often that she could go to her little girl’s first school dance, however resistant she might be. Although her mother rejoiced in seeing her little girl all layered in ruffles and fringe, Edith was indifferent toward the white sparkly dress. She would much rather wear something elegant and simple, something that Miss Johnson might wear. As Edith’s mother looked down at her daughter, all caked up in powder and adorned with lace, she couldn’t help but feel proud of her own capabilities. “See – look at you,” she said. “I’ve done such a wonderful job.”
As her mother began preparing her own face for Edith’s special night, her stomach groaned in hunger. “Mother, I’m hungry.” Edith’s voice came out high pitched and tinny, and her mother had no trouble countering it. “Honey, you can eat at the dance. Right now your mother has to make herself look presentable for all the cameras.”
Edith noticed her mother hadn’t made eye contact with anyone but herself through the mirror for at least a few minutes. She gathered that she wouldn’t notice if she slipped away… perhaps to her mother’s bedroom where she kept all her guilty pleasure chocolates underneath the dresser.
Slowly and calculatively, Edith crept out of the room into the master bedroom, the ‘big room’, as she called it, and reached her arm as far as it could stretch under her mother’s mahogany dresser. Grasping at the familiar lump of delicacy, she gasped in delight as her hand emerged with a small Charleston Chew bar enclosed within it. She took her prize to the front parlor and indulged.
A few moments later, the rude honking of a horn quickly followed by a loud whistle (not quite as strong as Miss Johnson’s) announced the arrival of Uncle George in his shining white 1923 Packard. Edith loved to ride in Uncle George’s Packard (which he named Coco after Coco Chanel), since it wasn’t nearly as run-down as her own mother’s car. Showing up at school in the Packard was always a delight, the other boys and girls would gape at the luxury of her transport, and Edith could smugly show Lucy that she wasn’t the only girl who could have nice things.
“Edith! Long time no see, huh? How’ve you been pulling through with school? Those boys starting to flirt with you yet?” Uncle George roared with his unmistakable booming voice, ending the utterance with an awkward wink.
Edith simply shrugged since she had no interest in encouraging her Uncle to ask her such questions. Her mother sat oblivious to the exchange, stroking the soft leather of the seats.
As they approached the school, Edith’s mother continued to marvel silently over the plushness of Coco’s leather seats, the crispness of the bright red dashboard, and she began to sit up a little straighter and folded her arms over in a very ladylike, yet un-mother-like manner.
***
I remember the school being flooded with children, herded like cattle by their owners, posing for pictures and smiling obediently under the influence of sugary bribes. Next to the entrance, Mrs. Collins knelt grim-faced in front of her Elliot, listening to him practice the word “curriculum” over and over, like a conductor before a big showcase rehearses before a mirror.
The actual room where the dance took place was draped in decorations. The teachers had truly outdone themselves by hanging all of our individual paper snowflakes from the ceiling. We walked around the room with our necks craned, proudly identifying which snowflakes we had cut and which ones we thought were the prettiest. It felt like the room was miles long – it’s really funny how big a room looks when you’re so little. When I got older, I revisited that room and was bewildered by how small it really was.
Now, the Snow Ball was a very fun dance, for the kids and especially for the parents. If I had the time I would tell you all about the details, like how my partner Frank Ankins had trouble finding where my waist was, and how I was too ticklish to even let him touch my waist when he did find it. But what really made that night matter in my seven-year-old mind was something else entirely.
Miss Johnson surprised us by having us switch partners, and I was paired with Edward Stout, the boy all the girls seemed to like simply because they chose to. In that moment, as all the parents laughed and watched the kids ballroom dancing, those with cameras clicking throughout the night, I was having my first romantic experience with a boy… and all that my young, inexperienced mind could think about was: how hairy his arms were! You see, looking back has taught me that getting older comes with realizing just how little you know. But in that grown-up moment, dancing with a boy at a real school dance, I felt as if I had seen and experienced it all.
The red brick building of the town’s elementary school had been drowned and frosted over by winter, and it was easy to hear the cozy revelry of polite laughs and giggles from within. What couldn’t be heard though, was the formation of memories, of children and who they thought might be their first loves, of families living out their joyous lives.
As my 104th birthday approaches along with the holidays, this is the memory that annually resurfaces at this time of year. I like to look back at a simpler time, and as I review these memories, I can see the world through my childish eyes once more.