Parents(Martha Hume) I was in the 7th grade and eager to try new things, things not previously offered in the lower and upper elementary schools. This was the night the parents were to meet with the band director, Mr. waite. The purpose was to select a payment option to the student's band instrument.

I was pre selected to play the clarinet. It wasn't my first or even my second choice. I couldn't see myself playing clarinet in a rock band or in some country band. Mr.Waite made the assignment. I was stuck playing the instrument of his choice or I could leave band class all together. Leaving the band was. An option that I wasn't going to consider. I would suck up my broken dreams and desires. I would learn to play the stupid clarinet.

I had signed up for the beginner band before I had graduated from Poplarville upper elementary school. I had briefly discussed my decision to be in the band with my mother. Initially she thought my decision to learn a musical instrument was a good idea. Neither one of us had any idea where the instrument would come from. I think we both. Thought the school would provide the instrument like they did the textbooks. Anyway, I signed the form and mother seconded my choice. We were here. And I wasn't turning back.

It wasn't time for the meeting to begin I was standing outside the school cafeteria talking to Mr. Waite. I forget what we were discussing.the conversation was interrupted by my mother. She shouted loud enough to wake the dead " Martha, get away from that boy.you're not old enough to date. And never will you date an upper class man. '' As she used my arm to pull me back inside the cafeteria and demanded that I sit beside her and " Don't you dare move"

Humiliated, I tried once more to explain that the gentleman I was talking to was Mr. Waite,the band teacher. Mother insisted she knew what teachers look like and the young man was no teacher.

I sat there humiliated to a point where I wanted to melt through the steel chair and through the floor beneath it. Maybe the ground beneath the cafeteria held a hole big enough to swallow me.

My mother went back outside to have a word with the band director. I don't know what she said. However, I imagine it wasn't lady-like. I imagine her conversation was another display of parental insanity. And something her parents wouldn't have approved of.

Mother returned just as the meeting started. She whispered," what is the educational system coming to? They're allowing students to teach students." I stared at the floor as I whispered," Mr. Waite is no student, he's an adult.`` The band hasn't got any student directors.

When the price for the instrument came up. Mother loudly said, " that's absurd. No parent, in their right mind, is going to shell out those bucks for a toy the child will abandon in less than a week. No parent will obligate themselves with a payment plan.children are indecisive."

I prayed " let this nightmare end."

Tomorrow at school I'd be bullied by every student on campus even the students who weren't normally bullies. The teachers, the teachers would have another reason to question my home life and ask sympathetically " would you like to live with me? Or they'd ask " How would you like to spend a weekend with me in my home?

The answer to being with any teacher beyond 3pm was out of the question.

---