Now, when you think of Tulsa, Oklahoma, you think, 'what a snore, right?' ME TOO!
It was the summer of 95, and I had just turned 13, and I was ready to paaaaaaaaartaaaaay. Yeah. I was into the teen years. I was no longer in that awkward you can't do anything inbetween phase. I was a mature woman, and I was ready to go out and see the world. Unfortunately, being born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I didn't have the best of luck getting out of there, as you can imagine.
You see, I was born in Tulsa Oklahoma. My parents were from Tulsa Oklahoma. My grandparents were from Tulsa Oklahoma. To put it bluntly, I think our family fucking built Tulsa Oklahoma. I lived in a normal suburb, in a normal state, I lived on a normal street, and I lived in a normal house. However, I lived with a family that is FAR from normal.
First there is Jason. He's the oldest, and at that time, he was 16 and he had just gotten his driver's license. Boy oh boy, he was hot stuff, or so all the girls thought. And, as he thought. But to me, he was just my big brother. He has blondish reddish hair and big blue eyes, and he used to gell his hair so stupidly it almost made all the girls cry.
Next there is Margo. She was Jason's twin, also 16. Margo was my hero. She was tall, had long, curly red hair, sparkling green eyes, and most importantly, she had boobs. When I was a teenager, i wanted boobs more than anything in the world. I was so sure of myself and so bold and unpredictable, yet i had this stick body that was just as unpredictable as I was. And more than anything I wanted the older boys to look at me the way they looked at her. She was almost perfect too. She was beautiful, talented, and sweet. She wasn't booksmart; she was people smart. And, she was quiet and always knew how to act. Very unlike me, as you will see.
Next there's Nathan, who didn't really look like josh but wanted too. He and his friends never could really figure out why all the girls liked Josh instead of him, but they spent hours trying to figure it out anyways. Josh was tall and lanky, and he had more blondish hair that he was in the process of growing out like his best friend.
Next in line there's me, and like I said, i was thirteen that summer. I had short, red hair that was stick straight, I was tall and skinny, and most importantly, I had no boobs. I was boobless most of my teenyears. Ulgh.
After me, there was the retarded one, Jenny. Not really, she just acted that way. She always bugged me, always stuck to me like glue, always copied me, and never left me alone! I remember stomping to my mother on boring days when Jenny's goal seemed to be annoying the hell out of me. It would only take about fifteen minutes, I am very short tempered. I would scream and shout and carry on, telling her to stop and go away, but my mother would only tell me to be nice and set a good example, which would only set me off more. She too had short hair, except hers was blonde, and she had pretty blue eyes, unlike my dull green ones.
Next there are the twins, Madeline and Mike, who were ten that summer. They were so funny, always bickering or making up stupid things to say to people, sometimes just random ones. After that, there was Shirley, who was seven, and she had long, curly red hair just like margo. Last but not least, there was Chris. He was four, and he had short red hair cut into a cute little bowl cut. He was by far the cutest boy in the family.
My mother looked a lot like Margo. She was forty four, very tall, and she had bright green eyes and long, curly red hair. She was firm but a nice mom, but she always had a knack for embarassing me and my siblings, yet she was very fair and sometimes a little pushy.
My father was tall also, and He had blonde hair and blue eyes. He was very relaxed, and he was the one we often asked when we wanted something. He never yelled at us angrily, and he always made time to help us with something, however, he was utterly clueless about raising children, what with him being an only child, and he often let us do things that my mother later found out about and was not happy about. He was a nice father, but he was sometimes so confused about things himself he couldn't be much of a help.
I'm not really sure how my parents managed to have nine children. I guess it just sort of happened. Either that, or they don't like much to use birth control. Beats me. Oh and get this; my mother was pregnant that summer; AGAIN! She was the type of mom who never really got angry, just flustered. My dad was pretty laid back too. They cared how we behaved, they just...were really relaxed about it. I guess that's why the children in our family were so wild and unstructured.
We lived in a medium sized house where practically everyone shared a bedroom. I shared with Jenny, nathan shared with Jason, and so on. Our house was on a quiet street towards the ouside of Tulsa. We had a large backyard that stretched about half the length of a football field before cutting off into woods that were lots of fun to play in as a child. Our yard was shared with the Hanson's. They had a smaller yard, for they had a deck off their house with a large pool that we all used frequently. Our house was nice, but to the naked eye appeared a little ragged.
The windows were usually dirty, the yard sometimes went a little too long without being cut, there were bikes on the lawn, and bright, unsightly, sidewalk chalk drawings scattered in the driveway and on the sidewalk in front of the house. However, I lived in that house my entire life, and it was home to me, and I loved, it, not matter how small it seemed sometimes.
Anyway, my mother and father taught us as home, and that's where the story begins; with the completely pointless and stupid idea of homeschooling. (editor's note: I have no REAL problem with homeschooling. That is just Angie's point of view, it means nothing. I hope I haven't offended anyone, it just worked in the story. Read on!)
My entire family was homeschooled, like I said. My mother worked with several other women in our neighborhood, so we had a big class that got together sometimes. We went all year round, taking breaks a few days a week, so it wasn't like continous school. I wanted desperately to be send to a public school, but those were (gasp!) evil. I wanted to venture out and meet new people, see new things, but, like most things, my plans went unheard.
Most of the time, my mother paired up to teach with the next door neighbors. Another particularily large family named Hanson. They had seven kids; Isaac, who was fifteen and Nathan's best friend, Taylor who was 13 and who hung around with Ike and Nate, then Zac, who was friends with Madeline and Mike and was 10 also, Jessica who was 8 and friends with Shirley, and Avie, who was six and was also friends with them. Lastly, there was Mackie, who was four and was friends with Chris.
My mother taught the older kids, while a former teacher and thier mother, Diana, taught the younger kids. Well as you can imagine, it was pure hell sitting in my hot basement half the year with so many people, while countless other teenagers my age were up at the Junior high, having the time of their lives.
My 'class' consisted of Margo, jason, Nathan, Isaac, Taylor, Zac, me, Madeline, and Mike. The other 'class' consisted of Shirley, Chris, Jess, avie, and mac, and sometimes zac, madeline, and Mike would go over to Diana's class for a lesson or two. It almost worked better that way, because unlike the little kids, we wouldn't laugh when Zac, the weird one, started to make noises and do strange things to his desk.
My basement had two main rooms, one for us, and one for them. It was cold in the winter and hot in the summer, because my mother said "We dont' really NEED central air, right?" Um, whatever.
My birthday was June 1st, so summer had just started. Our summer started June first and was officially over on September 1st, so it was a bit longer than it would be if I went to a public school. This is one of the shockingly few better things about homeschooling. Like I said, I had just had a birthday. I had a few friends, but most people were homeschooled too, so things never got that exciting at my parties.
Where we pickup in the story is during my 13th birthday party. It was a real snore- I mean fun time of course. Well, at least I was finally a teenager. I guess. But what came with it was the most humiliating period of my life.