Thanks for your delightfully wonderful response, Annie Littlewolf . Yes, I was an army brat. For the first 11 years of my life I lived in 8 different places across two different continents. Thankfully, my dad retired from the military just before I entered 6th grade. I then spent the next 8 years in one place. And that place was El Paso, Texas.
(Go Beto O’Rourke! Kick Ted Cruz’s ass!)
I am very impressed with your command of languages, Annie. It is definitely not my forte. The foreign language part of my brain is seriously messed up — but I’m not sure it’s because of the jalapenos. Sadly, I lived in a large city where white people are a minority, a city where all the menus in restaurants are written in both English and Spanish, a city where almost half of the radio stations were in Spanish, a city full of incredibly gorgeous Hispanic women, three of which I dated. Yet I never bothered to learn Spanish. I am truly disgusted with myself.
When I was in high school I took Latin. My parents and siblings along with all my friends made fun of me for taking a language that no ones speaks anymore. I was a horrible, rotten, good-for-nothing student in high school but Latin was one of six classes I made straight A’s in. (The other 5 were Band, World History, Sociology, Typing, and Critical Film Viewing.)
While I made straight A’s in Latin I made straight D’s in English. And I had the audacity to say that I wanted to be a writer! Of course I argued so vehemently with all my English teachers that they all just barely passed me so that they would not get me again the following year. Don’t ever put me in an English class! I will fight like a bagged wildcat!
It was after high school and after college that I reluctantly took a CPR class simply because it was required in a certain endeavor I don’t care to mention. I never thought I would need to use the information I learned but when I did I was finally so glad that I had taken that course. It’s been a hundred years (approximately) since I took Latin in high school and never, not once, has the information I learned in Latin class ever enabled me to save a life. Maybe all my friends and family were right.
