Reflections by Linda Dyanne Bolden (read e book .txt) 📖

of the entire class. After hearing her mom’s comments the little girl dreaded ever having to contribute to her mother's actual threats to visit the classroom again, she immediately became closed mouth, well behaved until she entered into another grade. She learned quickly to listen and learned. Her teacher stated continually to them, if you guys don’t learn this now you will never be able to learn it later on in life. They were the last classmates her teacher taught she retired after that year. The little girls next two years in school went very smoothly.


Boiling Water
The little girls short stories

It was a little cold in the house and her sister asked her to boil her some water for coffee, in order to take the chill away. So she went into the kitchen and put on a pot of water on the burner. She had become distracted by something that she was doing at the time and forgot that the water was still boiling. When she looked up and saw that the pot was at an extreme boiling point. She instantly turned the burner off.

Remember she said that it was cold in the house; nevertheless she didn’t see a towel within her reach, so naturally she grab hold of the handle of the pot with the hem of her sweater she was wearing, still not focusing on what she was doing but trying to hurry along anyway. As she reached for the pot to lift it up off the burner with her sweater, the heat escaped through the fabric, and the pot somehow slipped from her grip. She was only 11 years old at the time. The pot hit the floor and the scorching water, landed on top of her right foot scalding her, instantaneously turning into a blister. She screamed out so loud you could‘ve heard her from a block away. Her aunt Nina, her mother’s sister was staying with them at the time, her mom, her aunt Nina, and her sister ran to her aid right away to help her take off of her soaked socks, without breaking any skin. Boy did she feel like her skin was being torn from its flesh.

The burning in her foot was torrid. She was crying so hard, her mother couldn’t concentrate on what to apply to the burn. She grabbed some burn cream from the medicine cabinet, but her aunt intervened, she said that baking soda would be best for the burning. Her right foot had turned a red color. As she fell off to sleep the burning had subsided, and throughout the night, she had forgotten that she had been burn to such degree.

Anyhow the next morning she had a huge blister on her foot. Her mother told her that she could not go to school because she would not be able to put a sock on. Her mother said that later she would drain the blister and wrap it with bandages. However she never got the opportunity to do what she had plan to do, because her brother accidentally step on her foot, while he was playing with his cars in the house. She yelled out in pain again, the blister had been busted, which the pain had become unbearable. The blister was very dark in color, but after her brother stepped on her foot, you could see her flesh.
Her mom took her to Cook County Hospital, which was a long ride from where they lived. They were sent up to the burn unit, and the smell of the medicine and burnt flesh instantly made her sick to the stomach. After a long wait, the nurse came out and usher them to a room. The doctor came in shortly after, he introduce himself and then pulled up a stool for her to rest her foot on. He examines the burn, which he reported that it was very infected.

He told the nurse to put some warm water in a plastic bowl with some form of cleaning solution. He placed her foot in it and with a white sterilized towel he washed her foot, removing all of the burned skin away. The scar was completely white. He put some yellowish/green color cream on the burn and he wrapped her foot, moving up to her ankle with white bandages. He told her mother to take her down to another room where she should get crèches because he did not want her to walk on it or cover it with a sock or shoe. The nurse gave her mother an appointment slip for her to return, to have her dressings changed a week later.

She missed over a month out of school and that was torture for her. Her mother went to school to see her teacher Mr. Elle, explaining to him what had happen; he gave her home work assignments for her and told her mother to tell Tiara that he would miss her a lot and to get better. She was miserable sitting at home everyday, she actually missed her classmates and Mr. Elle, who was a gentleman at best; he referred to all the girls as Miss. So and so, which in her case was Miss. Winters and she like that a lot. Now for the boys he would just address them as their last names.

Some of the students thought that Mr. Elle name was very suitable for his looks, she sort of agreed with the association with him and the eel, he had those fish-like eyes and a long pointy nose, he was very tall, dark skinned, very slim, extremely strong; yet he was a nice man all the same. One thing she could say about Mr. Elle he demanded order from the boys and would not allow them to disrespect any girls in his classroom. After her third grade teacher, the witch of the west, she felt very blessed to land two male teachers after leaving her third grade classroom. He always treated the girls like ladies and he was very hard on the boys.

One of the bad boys in their class would always try to challenge him, and one day he grabbed him up, slamming his entire body hard against the blackboard, which left a crack across it. Any way’s she had to go to the Cook County Hospital every week to get her bandages changed. She dreaded every appointment, the long ride there, the awful smell of medicines and wounded flesh, having the doctor cut off her bandages, snatching off the last layer with a piecing force, while she clinched in pain, then washing the scared foot with cleaning solution, to reapply more cream and bandages.

This procedure continue for over six weeks, however, before she was completely healed she was standing beside a radiator one day trying to warm up, she heard the steam coming on within the radiator, so she stood beside it to get heat. She didn’t realize that someone had removed the cap from the radiator, as the steam reach its peck the steam gusted out, lo and behold it hit her right thigh burning her once again; consequently she had to get treated for her right foot and her right thigh at the same time. Good thing the doctor wasn't of the suspicious nature because he probably would have reported her mother to D.C.F.S.

Nonetheless, she eventually made it back to school, just in time for her to join Mr. Elle’s fifth grade class trip. He planned for the class to accompany him to the Orchestra Hall, located at the Chicago Symphony Center, on a Thursday evening, wearing their best attire, very honored to see an orchestral performance. This was a fascinating night for the 11 years old classmates.


CHAPTER FIVE

What bird can’t fly?

Pamela and Tiara were 18 years old when they were invited to their high school friends eighteenth birthday party, her name was Cathy Robinson, and after she graduated from high school she had became a mother of two kids, she was only sixteen years old when she had her first baby and two months before her eighteenth birthday she gave birth to another baby girl. She had moved out of her mother’s apartment and moved in with her 22 year old boyfriend who was the father of her second child. They were living in the Prairie Gardens Projects on the 6th floor of the building. However Cathy was a very sweet young lady, although very naive and everything someone told her she believed it.

She was very excite about her party and hounded Pam about coming to it. Tia was very uncomfortable about attending the party, however it wasn’t because of the fact she lived in the projects it was because of her boyfriends life style, he was dealing drugs and she did not like the way he treated Cathy. He was very disrespectful towards her and was a very unreliable person. Most often than not he was in and out of jail and it was Cathy who took her aide check to bail his sorry ass out of jail. Some days her kids didn’t have food because he would sell her stamps, then lie about it. He would lie around the house all day drinking and smoking weed right there in front of the babies.

Tia was dating this guy name Roy and he had introduced his friend to Pam and they all decided to check out Cathy party. When they arrived at the party it was a lot of females there and very few males, weed was being passed around from one person to another and the music was extremely loud. The reefer was so thick in the air you could get an instant contact without even smoking it. The few guys that Tia saw kept motioning each other to come to a back room where they were apparently doing cocaine. Beer cans and cups filled with alcoholic drinks were scatter all over the living room table.

After an hour had passed Roy and his friend Mike asked Tia and Pam if they wanted to leave the party. Of course Tia was game for that one. Roy was the driver and Mike and Pam were in the back seats of the car. Roy decided that he wanted to go to the beach on the Lake front. No one decline on his decision. They sat in the car talking to each other dates and occasionally kissing their dates. Tia thought Roy was a nice guy but she was not into him like she originally thought. Time passed them by and they did not notice that it was 11:30 p.m. when the police drove up into the parking lot.

A white male officer got out of his vehicle and tapped on the window seal on the driver’s side. “May I have your license and registration for this vehicle young man?” The officer asked. The black officer in the car was running the license plates on the car they were in. Roy reached in his pants pocket for his wallet to obtain his license out of it. “Is there a problem s—“Roy was asking the police but he cut him off and said “do you know that you are trespassing, this area is close after 11 O’clock.” Then he add “everyone step out of the vehicle.”
By the time everyone was out of the car the other officer approached them. He called both Roy and Mike over to him and told them to lean against the police car and he padded them down. Meanwhile the white officer was searching the car with his splash light. Then the black officer told Tia and Pam to come over to his car. He asked Tia to open her