by Beatrice M. Hogg
Age 5 to 11
When I was in grade school, I had the cooties. No one ever explained to me what “cooties” were, or how I caught them. Unlike the measles, they lasted all six years of elementary school, following me through three schools. But over the years, I have been able to determine a few things about cooties. Apparently, only girls got cooties. Girls who developed cooties were different in some way — they were either plain-looking or overweight, dressed funny, or had a strange family. Unfortunately, I fit all of those categories.
I grew up in a small coal-mining town in western Pennsylvania called Hills Station. I was adopted at three weeks old and brought to Hills from North Carolina. My adopted parents were in their late fifties/early sixties when they adopted me, a generation older than the parents of my peers. I grew up an only child in a town of mostly large Catholic and Baptist families. When I was around four, my father retired from the mine and bought his first Cadillac, staying with that brand for the rest of his life. Only one other father in town drove a Cadillac. I was embarrassed to be seen in the car.
And there were my personal cootie credentials. I was left-handed. When I used pencils, I smeared the page as I wrote, leaving a gray smudge on one side of my left hand. My right-handed parents tried to teach me to tie my shoes, but by following their example, I learned to tie backwards. The laces always came apart, and other kids laughed as I struggled to make my strange-looking bows. Maybe my left-handedness also caused me to be uncoordinated. I could not hit a ball, kick a ball, throw a ball, or run. Gym class was my personal Hell. And I was smart. All of the black kids accused me of trying to be white because I did well on tests. I was chubby and dark-skinned, with short nappy hair and big feet. I got a new outfit for the first day of school and new dresses for Christmas and Easter, but that was it. Most of my clothes were ill-fitting hand-me-downs from my neighbor Holly, who was older and bigger than me.
Six years of cootie-ness. I started first grade at five, because of some law related to my birth month and the fact we had no kindergarten. I was a year younger than most of my classmates. My first school was Hills School, a two-room schoolhouse across the street from my house. During my first week of school, I fell when the recess bell rang and was trampled by the other kids. I still have a scar on my leg from the rock that was embedded in my knee that day. In gym class, no one wanted me on their team. No one wanted to drink from the water fountain after me, as cooties were contagious. Since my last name was Hogg, every morning’s roll call was punctuated by oinks and snorts.
For fourth grade, I had to go to Canonsburg, the nearest big town. By then, a new elementary school was being built outside of Hills. But until it was finished, I had to catch a bus every morning to First Ward School. Riding the bus was stressful. If I was first in line, I got a seat all to myself, as no one wanted to sit next to me. If had to share a seat, the other kid tried to move as far away from me as possible, so no cooties could jump on them. The boys in the back of the bus made jokes. One of the worse insults imaginable was, “You like Marvella Hogg.” Everyone on the bus would laugh, as no one could imagine someone liking me. I pretended not to hear
One month after the start of my fifth year of school, Hills Hendersonville Elementary School opened. I no longer had to ride the bus, but now my father drove me to school in the dreaded Cadillac. Kids snickered as I got out of the car, either because of the car or because of my gray-haired father. At ten, I wore the same shoe size as my mother, seven and a half. My mother thought that a sturdy, brown brogan would be the best shoe for school. The big, heavy shoes made me look like a cartoon character. In fifth and sixth grade, I hated test days. Kids sitting near me would try to copy my papers. I had to be a contortionist, trying to cover my work while answering the next question. Even my cousin, and girls I grew up with made jokes about me behind my back. At Hills-Hendersonville, we had a cafeteria. Neither the black kids nor the white kids wanted me to sit with them, so I sat at the end of a table by myself. Finally, the two years of torture were over, and I was in Junior High.
I wish I could say that Cecil Junior High was better, but it was more of the same. I started wearing glasses at twelve and my mother died the summer after seventh grade, when I was thirteen. And don’t get me started about puberty. But I survived.
I am now over fifty and I still don’t fit in. But what was once weird is now just eccentric. I have friends who are just as unique as I am, and I don’t have to ever kick a ball if I don’t want to. I shop at thrift stores, buying the discarded clothes of strangers, but I get to pick them. And now, I like my unusual name. Growing up as a Cootie Girl has made me more sensitive, a quality I use in my writing. They may have been laughing at me then, but as a writer, I can have the last word — in print. Cootie Girls Rule! (Stick tongue out here.)
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