As You Like It: Lone Star State of Mind

I was in the airport, getting redressed in my shoes, jacket, belt and whatnot, remarking to the guy beside me that in my wildest dreams I never thought I’d be undressing in public and I never wanted to do it again. I was also thinking,

“Why are you struggling to grab your belongings from plastic bins rolling off a conveyor belt — trying to get a guilty look off your face in case one of your liquid bottles is 3.1 ounces — here at 6 a.m. when you could be home asleep with your husband?”

Why, to get to the other side of the country — San Antonio, Texas, to be specific. I never thought I’d go back there.

And why was a northern girl going to the Lone Star state? For business, the siren call of work, or, more specifically, STAR. Last year I was trained to teach this new reading method and now I’d been chosen to train other teachers. So I was off to the Student Achievement in Reading Training of Trainers, or “STAR TOT” for short. I felt like I was going to a small fried potato convention.

The DOE, in its infinite wisdom, had chosen four of us — Merilee, Carey, Elaine and me — to be trained, and so that is how I found myself standing in Logan in semi-undress. I was grateful that I was at least given the choice of stepping through a regular scanner or the new full body one because I don’t like the idea of a stranger inspecting my middle-aged body x-ray. And I know I don’t ever want to be patted down by anyone with a TSA badge, but that’s a whole other column.

My flight was short so I thought I could stand anything for four hours until I saw the plane. I don’t know how they did it, but they took a full-sized plane and turned it into a miniature sardine can. They must have added at least 20 extra rows of seats. I could barely fit into the bathroom and couldn’t help but wonder how the taller, healthier riders were going to manage. That was a visual that wouldn’t leave me.

Griping aside, the flight was fine and I made it to my hotel in downtown San Antonio in time to enjoy the hot, humid air. I settled in and waited for Carey, Merilee and Elaine to arrive. That evening we went down to the Riverwalk, which is located about two stair landings down from the sidewalk and meanders through the city, and had a celebratory Mexican dinner. Afterwards Merilee and I joined one of the barges for a tour. We ended the evening by getting completely lost, but thankfully a pair of mariachi players got us back to our hotel. We fell asleep totally unprepared for the deluge that would hit us the next morning.

The next day we learned what the year ahead would be like. From 8 to 5 we stayed in the same conference room (with an adjoining room for a quick lunch), wistfully gazing out the windows at the happy people outside, while we were fed information. We learned that there were only 30 STAR trainers in the U.S. and that our cohort only had 10 applicants. We learned that we had so much to read, remember and organize that we might as well give up now. We learned that the certification period was a year and that it would be “rigorous.” We already knew that our first training would be in January, so Merilee and I would have only about two months to get it all together. But I was never going to do this, never! It was reassuring that our former STAR trainers, Jane and Becky, understood and appreciated the crazy people from Boston. They had confidence in us and that helped, but we were still scared silly at what was ahead of us.

We also learned that the Massachusetts contingent was the rowdiest cohort there (we couldn’t shut up if we tried), and Merilee and I were sisters separated at birth. Those three days we also discovered how much coffee we could consume before we got killer heartburn. We also learned that Elaine’s daughter-in-law was expecting a baby at any second and that she was having a rough time. For two and a half days we jumped each time her cell phone beeped. We thought she would never have that baby!

But it was the final evening that gave me chills. Merilee had never been to San Antonio and she was determined to see the Alamo. Unfortunately, it closed before we got out of each day’s training. But on the last night Merilee, Elaine and I decided to walk over to at least see the outside walls. As I stood alone before the gate and gazed into the gardens beyond I felt a soft whisper at my shoulder. It was Mark, my first husband, with whom I had visited this Texas shrine over 30 years ago.

“I came back Mark,” I said. “How about that, after 35 years I came back to Texas, and I have the feeling that you never really left. Isn’t life funny?”

I could feel him smile and hear his twang answering, “I’m glad y’all came back after all. I somehow thought you might.”

Yeah, I keep learning over and over again: never say never.

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Posted by Joan Florek Schottenfeld on Nov 25 2010. Filed under As You Like It, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.