Written almost 40 years before the novel’s title, George Orwell’s “1984” predicted a future where countries were perpetually at war, where every aspect of life and thought were controlled, and where children betrayed their nonconformist parents to a brutal “Big Brother.” The novel became a staple in many high school classes, including some I taught in the late ’70s. Even though my sophomores might have experienced teenage/parent conflicts, few believed that anyone could turn a child against her mom and dad.
From personal experience, I knew differently.
It was 1928, and the first sound movie was playing at the Aladdin, the Charleston was the latest craze, flappers were shortening their hair and their skirts, Coolidge was president, and prohibition was the law of the land. I was in sixth grade at old Emerson Elementary School. Miss White taught the usual subjects – and a little more. Sometime during every day, she would discourse on the evils of liquor and the lawbreakers who made it and consumed it. After her diatribes, I began to feel that every horrible thing that had ever happened, from slavery to war, was caused by alcohol’s evil influence.
While she lectured, I dared not look at her, fearing that she would read my guilty secret: In my family’s kitchen was a gray, 50-gallon ceramic crock concealed by a large cardboard box topped with a crocheted doily on which stood a vase of flowers. Inside the vat was an odoriferous batch of fermenting beer, my German father’s homebrew for his own use and to serve to friends. Unlike Miss White’s nemeses, Dad didn’t sell it nor did he drink to excess or mistreat his wife and children.
Even so, I became increasingly mad at him and ashamed because I had a role in the beer’s production. As part of my dishwashing chore, I often had to wash a few bottles. Sometimes when the beer was ready to be capped, I had to put a spoonful of sugar in each brown bottle.
After many weeks, Miss White had finally convinced me: My father was a criminal, breaking the law with illegal behavior and making me an accomplice. By not telling the authorities, I was helping him ruin America. Day after day, I tried to think of a way to notify the police – maybe with an anonymous letter or by disguising my voice in a quick phone call. I gave myself a deadline – the end of the school year.
And then, one Friday night, the matter was resolved. I was babysitting my 4-year-old sister and dog-sitting a friend’s German shepherd. The neighborhood kids were playing kick-the- can. Their yelling and running excited Baldo, and he began to chase after them, causing one of the younger ones to trip. I yelled, “Baldo, come here!” He raced toward me, growling, his teeth bared. He jumped on me, his paws against my chest. I threw my arms up, shielding my throat and face. He bit me again and again until I broke free and ran inside the house.
Neighbors sitting on their porches had seen the encounter. One called the police; others rushed to help me. While one woman washed my bleeding arms, others milled around. All I could think of was the smell of the fermenting beer. I knew the crocheted doily and the flowers in the vase would fool no one.
And then the police arrived, coming directly into the kitchen. I thought they would take one sniff and immediately arrest me. Just then, someone opened the front door and Baldo barreled in, tail wagging and friendly. I screamed. My little sister grabbed the dog’s collar and dragged him out the back door. The police followed. But in a few minutes, they were back, asking questions and filling out papers.
I began to shake, so afraid of what the next question might be. While a neighbor hugged me, the policemen went to use the living-room phone – and, I feared, to call the paddy wagon to take me to jail. Then I heard the screen door slam and the men were gone. I started to cry, relieved that I had not betrayed my father in spite of Miss White’s attempted indoctrination.
Much later, I learned that my dad’s “crime” was so commonplace that it was universally ignored. Miss White’s manipulation of her young students’ minds was also disregarded. She had given us our first lesson in being brainwashed, a term none of us would have recognized until years later. After all, we were just sixth-graders living long before cults and telemarketers. Probably none of us could even spell “politicians.”
Louise Turnbull, a Denver native and retired teacher, dotes on her favorite dozen: four children and eight grandchildren.
