Three Years in Three Hours

     "You ready?"

     "If I get caught, my parents are gonna kill me." I had never done anything illegal before. Actually, that's a lie. Technically, speeding is illegal. So is drinking before you turn twenty-one. Alright, so is smoking pot, but not for long.

     "It's no big deal. I did it last year in Detroit, and I never got caught." 

     "Oh, of course. That means here in Miami, I'll never get caught." Great logic. I looked at my roommate and saw the face of John Bender in Breakfast Club. "Being bad, feels pretty good, huh?" But I was not Molly Ringwald, and nothing about this felt good. As a teenager I did a pretty good job staying out of trouble, avoiding peer pressure. Why now? Why less than a year before my twenty-first birthday had I decided this was it?

     Allison turned the engine off, I took a deep breath, and we got out of the car prepared to spend a couple of hours at the DMV. With a crackdown on fake ID's around the college bars, this was the only way to guarantee full access. Gone was the old school art of peeling back the melted plastic layers of drivers licenses and altering the date of birth to make the holder legal. No longer was it good enough to find someone legal who kinda looked like you, and beg them to lose their license so you could find it. It was go big or go home. 

***

     By the second week of sophomore year, Allison was bragging to everyone around campus how she got her unchallengeable fake, but not-so-fake ID. She took the papers of a relative, went down to the DMV and convinced them she lost her license. She got her picture taken, they gave her a new license, and she walked out the door. No biggie. "It was easy," she insisted. Back before digital photos and ID cards, there was no permanent record of what people looked like at the DMV. As long as you had the right documents there was no disputing you were who you said you were. At least that's what my roommate told me.

     There was only one person I could ask to let me do this, and if I got caught there would be a world of hurt brought down on both of us. If I was going to take a risk this big, it had to be someone who was as close to me and I could get, someone whose persona I could wear believably. I called my sister, Jamie, and asked her to help me commit fraud. That's not actually what I asked. It was more like pleading a case. I repeated all the things my roommate said to me. "It's foolproof!" 

     "What are you stupid? You don't even really drink." She was right. I hated beer, and I needed control. Staying sober while out with my friends helped me stay away from the bloated feeling of barley and hops, and insured we all had a safe ride home. "So what the hell do you need a fake ID for? You'll be twenty-one in less than a year." She thought I was nuts. Heck, I thought I was nuts. But I pressed on.

     "I don't even need it to drink, I just want to be able to get in. All the best bars are 21 and over." I said it so matter-of-factly as though it was actually a good argument. I really never did drink much. I would stand around talking to my friends, smoke a half a pack of Marlboro Lights, and watch everyone get drunk. But dammit, I needed the ID to do it. It was simple. All she had to do was give me her Social Security Card and birth certificate, and then run down a list of anything and everything that might appear on her driving record. "And you have to swear you'll never tell mom and dad. Even if you're pissed at me for something." Somehow she agreed, maybe because she doubted I could pull it off and wanted to see what would happen. Who knows. But she gave in, with one caveat:

     "If you get caught, I'm playing dumb and you have to tell mom and dad you stole my stuff."

     "Deal." 

     I spent about a week memorizing her social security number, and learning all the things on her driving record. Her tickets, Dad doesn't call her leadfoot for nothing. The fact that she held a license in three different states, that she's had this car and that registered in her name. I was ready.

***

     If I could suppress the rising vomit in my throat and the guilty look in my eye, I would be 21 in a couple of hours. I took a last studious glance at my sister's Social Security card and gripped the documents in one hand. Allison opened the door and a chilling gust of air blew over my face. The Florida air conditioning would guarantee I stayed chilled and on edge. I took a number and we sat down. I continued to repeat the social security number in my head and tried not to think about what would happen if I got caught. I'm not sure I had ever been more nervous in my life, except maybe the night I lost my virginity. But at least that wasn't illegal. I thought about leaving, but I was too scared to move. My number was finally called, and I stepped up to the counter trying to act nonchalant. 

     "Hi. Um. I need a new license."

     "What happened to your license?"

     "I lost it."

     "Do you have any photo ID?"

     "No, all I had was my license." I swallowed. The lump in my throat continued to rise. I tried not to look nervous. "But I have this." I showed her the birth certificate and Social Security card. She had really long, dark, brick red nails. She placed her hand over my papers and slid them over to her side of the counter. She clicked around, flipped through the papers, and never made eye contact. For this I was grateful.

     "Have you ever had a vehicle registered in your name?" I was relieved because I knew the answer. 

     "Yes. A Nissan Sentra hatchback." I let out some of the breath I had been holding.

     "What color?"

     "Blue."

     "Was it ever in an accident?" Shit! I didn't study that, but I remembered. 

     "Yes." This was the reason my sister was a good choice for identity sharing. Many of her memories were also my own. The inquisition continued.

     "Have you ever been licensed to drive in another state?"

     "Yes, in New York and New Jersey." The questions continued and I banged them out one by one. My confidence rose and I was pretty sure I had gotten through the toughest part of this ordeal. She gave me my papers back, and pointed with her long red nail across the room.

     "Take a seat over there and wait to be called for your photo." I waved over my friend and we sat waiting to be called for my photo. I was almost finished. It's funny how guilty you feel when you know you're doing something wrong. I was relieved because at this point I had passed for my sister. I had recalled the important facts of her identity and her driving record. 

     As soon as I saw them, I thought I was caught. They would have no way of knowing what I was up to, but they walked in and I froze. Three uniformed police officers came in talking and laughing. They stepped up to the same counter I was waiting to be called to. Here they are, I thought. I didn't fool the lady with the long nails, like I thought I had. She called them and they're here for me. I could feel the fear and the flush in my cheeks. I looked at Allison and we looked like two stoned teenagers running into cops at midnight in Dunkin Donuts. Like two deer in the headlights. My number was called and we stepped into line right behind them. The lump in my throat was back, and I thought I was going to puke.

     "Go ahead." One of the officers waved me in front of them. I didn't dare say no. I nodded and proceeded to the counter in front of them, wondering why they had waved me on. It turns out they were there getting their photos retaken for new police ID badges. I took another deep breath, and I handed another woman my papers. She pointed me toward one of those background screens. I stood as calmly as I could and fixed my eyes on the spot where she directed me to look. Click. Flash. Done. I walked in Sharon Daniels, 20 and walked out Jamie Daniels, 23, Stone Cold Outlaw.

Earliest Memories

Forever on my journey as writer, teacher of writing, and professional development consultant in teaching writing, I am reading a book in preparation for my work this summer with graduate students. We selected this book, one of two texts for the course, on recommendation from the NWP site director at Morehead in Kentucky. Writing Alone and with Others by Pat Schneider is absolutely wonderful, and I am enjoying interacting with it and getting to know the content. Throughout the book, there are several writing and thinking exercises, and the first one I found a bit challenging. Schneider suggests writing with as many details as you can recall, about your earliest memory- your recollection of being an individual person. This can be difficult because so many of our early childhood memories are those given to us by our parents, implanted on our brains through stories of "Remember that time?" or "I remember the first time you..." I really had to go back.

I know I used to scare the crap out of my mom as an infant, by holding by breath when I didn't want to eat something (I was a picky eater from the get go), but that I loved plums. I know that my sister used to call me Wawie, and my parents would say, "No, Lau-rie," and she would respond, "Yeah, Wawie," and they'd laugh. I know that I attended playgroup (in home daycare) with a group of neighborhood kids who became my buddies in elementary school. I know my mom met my best friend's mom in the hospital because we were a week apart and my mom had to stay in the hospital because she had a C-section (that used to be a major thing). But all of these are memories given to me by my family. I don't actually have any memory of any of it. My husband on the otherhand recalls lying on a changing table at daycare and looking out the window to see his parents coming in to pick him up. Wow, that is a very early childhood memory!

What stuck with me as I rewound the days of my early childhood, was the part when Schneider asked, Can you remember when you were first aware of yourself as an individual person? Wow. When do I recall thinking of myself as an individual person. That's more than a vague memory, more than a story your parents tell about when you were little. I tried to get back there, and the earliest clear memory I could pull up with details, was when I was three or four years old and attending Beth HaGan nursery school at Temple Israel in Great Neck, Long Island where I grew up.

    Temple Israel, Great Neck, NY

The building was large. Not like a school, dfferent. Wide space when you walked in the school side entrance, there were early childhood classrooms forward and all the way to the right before continuing through a threshhold into an open lobby area. That was where the grand entrance (shown above) was, and where the sanctuaries and ballrooms were. Religious school classrooms were immediately to the left. The doors were the way many of us remember old school doors to be, wooden with a glass window opening almost the entire top half of the door to glances from passersby.

The classroom in my memory is big, though this may be due to how small I was at the time. The wall opposite the door was mostly windows, maybe to the parking lot or a playground. This part I do not recollect. But the room, ah the room was filled from one end to the other with what might now be considered toys and play areas to the modern pre-school. But they were important parts of child development and learning to the nursery school of the 1970's (I'll make no commentary here about what was and what should be). An entire play kitchen equipped with miniature wooden appliances, cabinets, and counters- yes wood. Ne'er do I remember a single injury, not even a splinter. We somehow survived. There were dolls and puppets, dress-up costumes, hats, shoes, and jewelry. There were lots and lots of blocks, solid wood blocks.

The rugs were colorful, and they provided the perfect area to lay your blanket out at rest hour- it was never called naptime. Though I am unable to recall anything about the way she looked or sounded, I do remember an endearing Morah Doris (Morah, pronounced mo-rah, means teacher in Hebrew. Most preschool age children in the 70's who went out of the home for "school" did so at their church or temple. I went to my temple). I have many vague memories of my experience there, but two things stand out to me most about Beth HaGan (loosely translated, beth hagan means the youth house or home to the youth). The first is a phase my Morah went through, when almost daily during rest hour she would play a record of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. I cannot remember whether she read along with the record. 

    This version of Peter and the Wolf was very popular during the time period. 

To be honest, she didn't need to read the story, the music said it all. Even as a three or four year old, I knew the sound of the French horns. It was the intimidating and ominous sound of the wolf coming in and out of the story, and it terrified me! I would bury my head in my satiny ice blue blanket squeezing my eyes tight, waiting for it to end. Waiting for the flute to indicate the birds were back, or the violins that played when Peter was strolling along. I never told anyone. I never cried. I cannot recall if I would eventually doze into a nap or just ride it out, lying there awake and uncomfortable. But I can picture the record player. It was common in schools up through the 80's. It was a dark gray box-like model, where all of the parts were contained in the bottom, and a shallow lid would be taken off in order to play the records. The lid could be placed back on and secured with a buckle snap lock, and moved around from one outlet to another because the speaker was contained in the box. I miss the sound of crackling records, maybe not Peter and the Wolf specifically, but records in general. Even today though, hearing that piece even from a world renowned symphony, demonstrates for me the power of music to transcend space and time and place you back into a memory. It brings a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes.

The second memory I have of Beth HaGan is Friday mornings. Friday at sundown is Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath. Every Friday morning in nursery school we would each braid and make our very own individual challahs. Golden challah, egg bread, a staple at Jewish holiday and Sabbath dinner tables (except during Passover). At Beth HaGan we got to make our own. Morah would issue each of us a sheet of wax paper on which she would then place a blob of dough about the size of an adult fist. We would divide our dough into three parts and roll each part into snakes, equal in length. Then we would lay two snakes out from a point like sides of a triangle, one tip pressed on top of the other, and add the third one down the center with the tip pressed over the other two. The memory is so clear, I can smell the yeasty dough. FInally, we would braid the three pieces, over and under, all the way down to create the traditional Jewish challah. Morah Doris would then take them away on a tray and bake them. Before we were picked up from school at about noon, we were given our tiny loaves of challah to take home for Shabbat, some smaller than others because kids would always nip at the dough for tiny tastes.

         A full-size traditional challah.

Beth HaGan at temple Israel was the place I started so many things-my education both secular and religious, an understanding of my culture, friendships that would be an important part of my childhood. I remember attending children's services on Shabbat and during holidays. I also remember all kinds of special musical programs and events. I became a Bat Mitzvah at this same temple about 10 years after this memory, just before my 13th birthday.

My mom, sister, and me at a children's Shabbat service. Mom is lighting the Shabbat candles.