Living Seoul

Visiting with the doggies at Mom’s in Houston. Try not to mind my silly voice when I talk to Diesel.

It’s funny how I somehow know all the lyrics for a strange assortment of songs from the 1960s. Today at work I was listening to the “My Oldies” playlist I created for myself a couple months ago. I started wondering who these people were…the singers, songwriters…the bands themselves. Oldies…I grew up listening on the radio, I have some of the songs in iTunes, but I haven’t seen many of the actual performances. I got curious after work and spent at least an hour watching Oldies videos on YouTube. In my viewing fury I bookmarked 25-ish videos. I made myself choose three to actually put on here…I kinda chose them because they’re all bands of guys with mop-ish hair, haha. But no Beatles.

“She’s Not There” The Zombies, 1964

Well no one told me about her the way she lied
Well no one told me about her how many people cried
But it’s too late to say you’re sorry
How would I know why should I care
Please don’t bother tryin’ to find her
She’s not there

“Judy in Disguise” John Fred and his Playboys, 1968

Judy in disguise, well that’s what you are
Lemonade pies with a brand new car
Cantaloupe eyes come to me tonight
Judy in disguise, with glasses

“The Rain, The Park & Other Things” The Cowsills, 1967

I saw her sitting in the rain
Raindrops falling on her
She didn’t seem to care
She sat there and smiled at me

I was terrified of males until I was in tenth grade. It’s probably because I was terrorized by them for most of my childhood and adolescence. I recalled one of the most scarring experiences to one of my co-workers the other evening. In retrospect it’s almost an amusing story, but I’ll never ever forget how humiliated and upset I was at the time.

This experience came after a number of other bad experiences I’d had with boys up until then. There was the boy in kindergarten who used to chase me around the playground EVERY morning before they opened the doors for school. He’d pucker his lips and make kissing noises while he chased me. One day he got me. I probably cried. Then there was the boy in first grade (who has a rat tail I might add) who used to call me “Gorilla” because I had hairy arms and legs. The town I grew up in was mostly white and Asian people. People always commented on my dark hair and light skin when I lived there because most white kids were blonde. I was so jealous of the other girls who only had a blonde fuzz on their arms and legs. I felt cursed because my hair was almost black on a background of pale skin. My arm and leg hairs were long. I hated it and felt ugly because of it. Being called “Gorilla” by rat tail boy didn’t help. Around the same time there was an incident on the playground. I was hanging upside down on the jungle gym with my friends when a boy ran up to me, pulled my shirt away from my body and threw wood chips into my clothes. I got down, astonished, and had to pick bits of wood from inside my shirt and out of my hair. I had never even spoken to the boy that did it.

The dreaded "Star Crunch".

This all led up to third grade. There was a boy in my class that started a rumor that I castrated other boys in my class when they were asleep, cooked the remains and brought them in my lunch. Of course, he was more graphic about what happened. I was MORTIFIED. I was intimidated and unfamiliar the male anatomy when I was that age. So to have a classmate running around the room screaming my name with the word “penis” in the same sentence was appalling. I had no idea how to handle it except denial. I hoped the other kids in my class knew he was crazy. Each day I wished that no boys would be absent so he couldn’t bring it up. He’d always say, “Oh, I know why XXXX is absent today! Melinda must have broken into his house last night!” And then he’d laugh maniacally. I think it went on most of the school year. My Mom started packing a Little Debbie snack in my lunch called a “Star Crunch”. When the boy saw that I was eating it he immediately claimed it was evidence of my night time activities. He claimed that is what it looked like when I fried them and added nuts. (“Star Crunch” is actually made with puffed rice, duh.) I ate my dessert in shame those days, while continuing to  deny I’d done anything harmful to the other boys in my class.

At the end of the year a new girl joined our class. The evil boy also decided to terrorize her. He used to threaten to prank call our houses after he learned we didn’t have caller ID. The new girl and I became friends because of our mutual dislike for the boy that terrorized us and our interest on softball. It became much more bearable when there was someone to commiserate with. We later figured out that he was probably so mean to us because he liked us. I moved away after that school year but will never forget what happened.

The boys in Texas weren’t as bad. There was a boy in fifth grade that sent me letters through the school post office saying that he hated me. (After I didn’t respond to his “check yes or no” request to be my boyfriend, haha.) He drew pictures of me swinging a sword around trying to kill people. I just thought he was really strange. Boys continued to tease and embarrass me all the way through ninth grade. Finally in tenth grade a boy tried to get to know me without making a fool of himself and we dated for almost four years. Now, for the most part, I enjoy the company of males. But I had to put a lot behind me to get to this point.

Little boys are weird. It must be a law of nature.

In the full burn garb (and Dad's shoes). Had to wear a special stocking to keep everything in place.

Today I was telling someone the story of my burn. Quite honestly, there are a lot of holes in my version. I was one-year-old when it happened. I remember nothing. So, I called Mom for the rest of the details.

Where/When: I was 15 months old when I was burned, so it would probably be March of 1987. My parents and I were living in a little house in Oak Forest in Houston (no sister yet). My grandparents were visiting from New Jersey.

Background: We were all about to go out to dinner. Mom was in the kitchen cooking a pot of pasta sauce to prepare for the next day’s meal. She left me in the living room with Dad, Grandma and Grandpa who were waiting for her to finish.

The Moment: I snuck back into the kitchen with my Mom. Then I came up from behind her and tried to inch my way through her legs as she was putting the pot of pasta sauce in the refrigerator. She was taken by surprise. The pot of sauce fell and landed on us. It was not boiling but had come off the stove. My Mom was splattered and got minor burns. I received the majority of it. I am told there were some feelings of guilt since I no one noticed me wander off into the kitchen.

Months of regular bandages.

Hospital: Mom remained calm and told my Dad to leave my clothes on and get me under cold water. My grandparents were trying to rub butter on me but my Mom wouldn’t allow them, haha. She said the scariest part was in the car on the way to the hospital. There was a sheet draped over my body and when she lifted it up she could already see huge blisters forming on my legs. I had first, second and third degree burns that covered over 10% of my body. It was mainly the lower part of my left leg, both ankles and splatters on my upper legs, abdomen and elbow. The burns were so severe because I had weak baby skin. I had to stay in the hospital for a week. I was able to talk a little bit by this age, but my Mom claims I never told her I was in pain or cried. She says I was possibly too drugged to know that anything hurt or maybe it actually didn’t hurt that bad. When you have third degree burns it apparently burns off some of the nerve endings. The pediatric burn specialist, Dr. Basil (“Like the herb,” says Mom.) was considering a skin graft because some of the third degree burns were not healing fast enough. Miraculously the day before they were going to do the surgery the burn healed enough to call it off. By the way, the procedure of skin grafting, basically transplanting skin, looks terrifying.

Final stages of healing. Goat?

Aftermath: I went home after a week but had to return every day for two more weeks for hydrotherapy. I guess they want really deep burns to heal from the inside out so they try to slough off the top layer of skin in a big whirlpool. Gross. After hydrotherapy I had to wear a pressure stocking over the burns for many more months. They had to pay special attention to control the way the burns were scarring over my ankles because they were worried it could affect the joint movement.  After the pressure bandage I had to wear regular bandages until the end of autumn. Basically my left leg was all messed up for 1987.

Now: Growing up I was kinda conscious of the scars. There were times in elementary school that I wished my leg looked normal, but I knew worse problems existed. Plus, as I got older and grew the scar stretched out with my skin. You can still see where the tongue of my shoe met my leg and the ribbing in my socks. It’s all burned in to me! Overall it looks much better than it did when I was a kid. It’s still wrinkly and weird and no hair grows and it won’t get sunburned. I definitely got lucky that only part of my leg was burned. It could have been so much worse.