homeschooled

the older i got, the more i realized that homeschoolers were wierd. socially awkward, prone to frizzy, wavy hair, white stirrup pants and large glasses, they frightened me with their pessimistic social commentary and a lack of knowledge of everyday things like pogs and teenage mutant ninja turtles. but the truth was, me and my sisters were also homeschooled, and in many ways we blended in seamlessly.
we too had lots of free time for various activities. i didn't have a childhood bursting with extra activities or lessons or sports, although we did all of those things. our typical days consisted of this:
wake up time.
doing our chores while mom went on a walk time.
bible time.
school work time.
lunch time.
a little bit of school work time.
whatever we wanted to do time.
dad coming home and dinner time.
family time.

depending on where we were living and how much money we had, sometimes there would be an activity in the afternoons like gymnastics or tai kwon do or ice skating or softball, or sometimes at nights we would learn how to make apple dolls at the library. wednesday was always awana night at the big baptist church, where we went and memorized verses to get jewels in our crowns and run around on different colors of tape, shrieking when some boy popped a balloon on purpose, which was annoying and exhilerating.
saturdays were do whatever we wanted days, and sundays were church days all day long.

homeschoolers were very religious, like us, and they were smart, like us. but they were afraid of things, and we weren't. they were political from young ages, but we never knew what they were talking about, really. most of them only knew other homsechoolers who were extremely similar to them. we knew lots of people because our mom and dad knew lots of people, and we were always with them. also, we were allowed to watch cartoons.

sometimes, all the homeschoolers in cody wyoming would get together and rent out the local roller skate rink. i think it must have been during a weekday morning, because everybody else would be in school and we would be assured of privacy and cheap prices. the roller skating rink had carpet everywhere, on the cubbys and the seats and the floor, except for on the rink, of course. on a good day, the shoes fit fine and didn't make my ankles hurt, and it felt so, so exotic to be on a smooth floor with loud music and flashing lights, my long hair blowing in the breeze that i was creating because i was going so fast. all of those ice skating lessons were worth it, because i was one of the best.

sometimes the guy who owned the rink would stop the music and come out on the floor with a big stick and two poles, and we would play the limbo. on skates. it was so, so hard, but i always thought i might be able to win. one time i was in the last four, but i wasn't good at gymnastics at all and so i always fell on my bottom near the end. my friend ashley, who was homeschooled but not totally homeschooled because she did gymnastics, was really good. she could do it so that her body was parallel to her skates, and she would slide through, holding on the ankles of her roller skates. i felt like i was friends with a celebrity. she was also one of the prettiest homeschool girls, and her hair was long and brown and shiny.

the guy who owned the rink and the lady who worked there with him charged us five cents to get a cup of water, which kind of outraged us. me and my sisters never really drank soda when we were kids, unless we were on vacation or had saved up allowance money or people came over for dinner and we had pizza, and so we always asked for water. skating fast is hard work, and the roller rink people took advantage of us. but there was nothing we could do, we had to work with the system, and we had to ask our mom for five cents, which was ridiculous. she didn't seem to mind, though.

one time during homeschool skate they played a song by geoff moore and the distance called "i believe in evolution". it was a popular song for contemporary christians, with a catchy beat and positive lyrics: "i believe in evolution, the changing of the heart, the renewing of the mind." i think it was about how god changes people, and other good things like that. some of the homeschool moms didn't hear all of the words, however, and obviously weren't contemporary enough to know that geoff moore and his band were christians, evangelical ones, and so they got really upset and had the song turned off, right in the middle. me and my sisters were singing along and we felt so cool because we could skate fast and knew the words to a good song. but the song turned off and the moms murmered to each other about "songs that talk about evolution", and we were annoyed because we knew it wasn't talking about monkeys, in fact the song made fun of people who believed in monkeys being related to humans.

but what could we do? they were homeschoolers, and so were we. we had to work with the system.