Country cousins

So, I was reading Nathan's blog this morning and it really inspired me to do something similar. Of course, not as well written as Nathan's is, but an attempt at least.

I had a rather strange childhood. We moved to Plano when I was five-years-old in 1990. Kindergarten had already started, so my mom whisked me away to school, a couple months late. I came home at the end of the day upset. My mom asked me what was wrong? I said,

"They only go half a day and some of them can't even read!"

(I kind of sounded like Tweetie Bird back then, so read that quote with that accent.)

Turns out my preschool in Memphis, Tennessee was a full day and I felt these new Texas kids were inferior for only going half the day. So, my mom met with my teacher and they decided to take me out of kindergarten, because, well I had already learned everything they were going to teach there. Yay for Texas public schooling! Nonetheless, I, in essence, skipped kindergarten while my parents took me around with relatives, traveling. Not many kids can say they went around the world with their parents at age 5 while other kids FINALLY learned their ABCs.

But, then I'd go visit my country cousins. My mom is one of six children. Her two older siblings, Cathey and Robin were hard acts to follow in school. Her younger brother, Mark, was really the start of the deviation in the family. He picks and nags and is probably annoying if you don't understand his humor. He and my mom's two younger sisters, Angela and Mickie, have accents. Accents no one is really sure where they formed, seeing as neither parent had one.

The fifth child, Angela, had two boys. Bradley and Bryan. I love them so very much and they really helped my childhood. Growing up in the Plano bubble, you assume it's normal to have AP classes for everything, and you assume everyone will be going to college, even if it's just a community college. You assume that everyone got a car when they turned 16, even if it's a piece of crap. You ASSUME a lot of things. But, my "country cousins," as I would come to call them, really turned that assumption on its head.

Their schooling system was awful. They hadn't read To Kill A Mockingbird or Heart of Darkness or Brave New World or any Shakespeare. None. They didn't know schools HAD AP, much less IB programs. One had a car and since it was such a small town in Tennessee, they just drove each other around. A truck, of course. Many of their friends couldn't afford to go to college. Most had to join the military if they wanted to get anywhere or out of the town they lived in. One of my cousins had a Confederate flag over his bed, something I always made him take down whenever I would come in town.

When I saw their friends, I would feel alien, spoiled. I would downplay my education. I would downplay all the places I had been. I think I did this because I didn't want to seem like I was bragging in a town where a valedictorian didn't have the guarantee of going to college. I would use "them big words" as they would refer to them, and I'd turn bright red because I didn't know they were difficult terms.

Overall, they gave me a slice of life. A slice of life that I definitely wouldn't have seen if I wasn't related to them. If I had just met them on the corner, maybe I would have felt sorry for them, knowing how lucky I am. But instead, it made me want to take action. It made me want to make sure that every child has the same chance another has, no matter how much taxes their parents pay. It made me want to make higher education affordable because I've seen my cousin go on tours to Iraq when all he wanted to do originally was get a education cheaper. It makes me want to require languages much earlier in the educational process so when I say words like "foyer" they not only know what that is, but know it's French-derived. It made me want to take action. Maybe that's why I wanted to be a journalist. In a way, you are trying to educate people, even if all they have is a television.