I don’t know about you...but for me it seems that I learn from my mistakes. I have read that it is a great way to learn. Here are a few innocent childhood mistakes of mine.
The first one I remember is (I was about 8) this. My family was at my grandmother’s home. I apparently had done something wrong, was chastised by parents? Grandmother? (Doubtful.) So I wandered solo into her front yard, crying, feeling sorry for myself, and I absently-mindedly carved my name, CAROL, with my fingernail into the brown sheath of a magnolia bud.
After a bit, I went back inside and forgot about it. A full three weeks later (exactly how long it takes for a magnolia bud to bloom fully into the magnificent 12-inch flower), I was walking in her front yard again, when lo and behold, a huge white magnolia blossom spelled out CAROL in full-blown, etched letters, about three inches high. I was SO shocked, I fell to my knees, thinking, “This is a sign from GOD! He is speaking to me in a sign! He wants me to be a NUN!” …Even though I was not thrilled about the idea, TBH! But if God wants it, I have to obey! But then slowly I started rethinking it…Whoa, wait a minute, this is the same bud that I carved my name in!... Weeks ago…and it opened into a bloom, and my carved name appeared. Whew!!!!! A simple explanation, Thank God! Not a NUN!
Another ‘as-an-eight-year-old’ mistake. I had a baby brother at the time, and I remember asking my mother, “Where do babies come from?” If you knew my mother (Bless her Soul), she was a lovely southern lady, but a tad puritanical; she hesitated, and replied, ‘’A seed.” Not a complex answer, but just getting an answer satisfied me for the moment, and I forgot about it. My dad was a doctor, but I had not asked him, because he had never had a baby. Weeks later, we were having supper at our dining table, which was a picnic table in the den. Mommy and Daddy on one side, my brother and I opposite them. I had on a yellow dress, and we were eating supper. One food item on the plate was yellow squash, and I had eaten most of it, when I noticed with horror a few seeds still on my plate. It hit me like a bombshell, I had consumed at least 50 squash seeds, and I felt ill, and put my hand on my belly, and yelled out, “OH NO, I am Pregnant!” and maybe started crying. I thought my life was over, and my mind was whirring as I tried to comprehend the magnanimity of the situation. To my surprise, the parents did not laugh, but they were bemused, and calmly asked me, “How did that happen?” I thought, “Are you blind? Don’t you see my plate! I ate ALL those seeds! That’s when they laughed and assured me that I was not pregnant, Thank God!
Another story at my grandmother’s home. I may have been eight, and I was the oldest grandchild. My aunt was 33 and never married. She met a nice man and wanted to marry him, but the family opposed a marriage. Why? He was born and raised in Atlanta, albeit a Catholic (touchy subject), but he worked in New York City, which somehow disqualified him from being a Southerner? There was a family conference at my grandmother’s home, with parents, aunts and uncles, Grandmother, all children present. The discussions got heated and the kids were sent to the hall behind a closed door. I put my ear to the door, could hear screaming!!!!! Arguments, then the loudest voice of all, “You can’t marry him, because he is a g*****n Yankee!!! We kids heard that, not knowing what it meant, never heard those words. But in my little mind, I remembered those words. It must be something AWFUL! I would never repeat it, but I filed it away, in case I ever had to use it. Despite the objections they did end up getting married, a lovely wedding. I was a flower girl, along with my cousin. Maybe a year later, in the spring, I was in the fourth grade, aged nine, in Mrs. Johnson’s classroom. It was Girl Scout Day, so I had worn my uniform to school, a green dress, with a yellow scarf, with the initials G and S on the tips of the scarf. I was seated on the front row, far right, near the door. The guy behind me, Scott Harper, was relentlessly poking me in the back, taunting “Georgia Skunk” “Georgia Skunk” over and over. I was silently fuming, and could not think of a retort. A few minutes of his shaming drug on: what can I say???
I searched in the recesses of my mind when DING! I remembered that awful word, so I gathered my nerve, stood up in front of the ENTIRE class, put my hands on my hips, and said in a loud voice, “Well, Scott Harper, I may be a Georgia skunk but YOU are a g*****n Yankee!” As if to add drama, the bell rang for class to start. The teacher shouted my name, “Come to my desk RIGHT now!” … “WHAT did you say?” I knew I was in trouble then, and started thinking of an excuse as I walked up to her desk, a half a mile away. “Oh Mrs. Johnson, that’s NOT what I meant, I meant Scott lived in Connecticut (the first Yankee state I could think of), and he did construction work on dams!” She did not buy that, and I was sent to the principal’s office. FIRST time, but not the last!
What is the expression “out of the mouths of babes comes wisdom”?
Carol Veliotis is a local columnist for The Covington News. She can be reached at carol.veliotis@gmail.com.
