Lady Bird

Lady Bird Johnson has died at the age of 94.

Lady Bird Johnson. Her name rings with nostaglia and strikes fear in me all at the same time.

You see, Lady Bird and I have quite a connection, other than our names both start with the same letter.

She was the start of my writing career (wherever that may have gone) and the source of all anxiety my 5th grade year in school.

In 5th grade my life fell apart.

I know, what can really happen to a safe, little, homeschool, Christian girl in 5th grade that could be so traumatic?

I'll tell you what was traumatic. I had to write my first full-fledged research paper. And, at this point in my life I hated writing. I loved to read, but I detested writing. It required thought.

I also hated math. So, I'm currently trying to remember what I did like about school.

Back up to 2nd grade. Picture me and my mom sitting in the office with the easel and a math book out. Mom looks at me in congratulations and tells me I've finished the 2nd grade math book.

Now, at this point in my life I had learned to add and subtract. I could successfully play house, ride big wheels, and check out books from the library, and according to my 6 year old mind, that was more than enough math to function in life.

So, you can imagine my utter SHOCK when Mom pulls out a 3rd grade math book.

In all honesty, I looked at her incredulously and gasped, "THERE'S MORE! I THOUGHT I WAS DONE!"

So, that was just a side-note from my years as a drama queen to prove to you that math was not the love of my life.

Back to Lady Bird Johnson.

Somehow she ended up the topic of my 5th grade research paper that turned so many of my 5th grade moments into horrible, no-good, very bad moments.

I can still remember sitting in the dining room, turning page after page and staring blankly at the white pages and black letters as I pretended to read books about Lady Bird and her beautification program.

I would then transfer a few sentences into notecards - because that is how good researchers organize their research - and then mark them with a Roman Numeral to correspond with my outline.

And, then, would you believe I had to start writing something. And, do you know that instead of writing I cried on my bedroom floor because for the life of me I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE!

This is what made my 5th grade year so traumatic. I was a little slow in developing the creative side of my brain. I liked it when answers were obviously, when I could get an "A" by sheer will power; I didn't want to have to "think." For goodness sake, that was work.

And this was why keyboarding was my favorite subject in school. I'm not talking about keyboarding as playing the piano (although I loved that too), I am talking about punching letters on a keyboard at the computer. I could do it lightening fast, there was a right and wrong key to hit, and if I could type those letters faster than the little rock climber could scale the wall in my keyboarding computer tutor program then I WON! I loved winning.

And so I cried on my bedroom floor until Mom came in and said that I still had to write that research paper or I wouldn't pass 5th grade. GASP. Wouldn't pass 5th grade? I would have to stay back another year in the same bedroom and repeat 5th grade. I would have none of that.

So, I picked up myself up off the floor, went to the computer and began typing. I am pretty sure that if we dug up that report today we would find that it is AT LEAST 50 percent quotes I pulled from those oh-so-interesting books I pretended to read. I enlarged it to 22 pt. font to fill out those pages, printed it off, and left it triumphantly on Mom's desk. I was done. My life could return to normal. I could get back to keyboarding and increasing my WPM. What kind of kid talks about WPM?

And then I woke up the next morning, and there was the darn report sitting on my desk with red all over it. Something about having to insert paragraph breaks. WHAT?! What did paragraphs have to do with ANYTHING? I had assembled a few pages of semi-coherent 5th grade verbage into a four-page paragraph.

So you know what I did? I just know my Mom is snickering at her computer at this point. I went through that darn paper, plopped my cursor down at a point that looked good to me (I distinctly remember counting every 3-4 sentences, because that seemed like the right "size" for a paragraph) and defiantly hit "enter." That was how I created paragraphs in my Lady Bird Johnson research paper.

And so, for the rest of that 5th grade year I learned about introductory/closing sentences and more research paper necessities. I think I cried a few more times. I think I detested Lady Bird Johnson a little more than should have been allowed for simply being famous enough to be the subject of a research paper. And I think that if I had known in 5th grade that I was going to major in English and spend FOUR YEARS writing papers, I would have cried myself silly on the floor of my little bedroom on Laurel Lane. Thank goodness for keyboarding to keep my 5th grade mind sane.