Sally Harrold

Paper 3: "Phonics"

1997 Oregon Writing Project

Sound has always been slippery for me. I struggled to hear the distinctions in vowel sounds in first grade, but I always pretended, guessed. I couldn't really hear the rich depth of my Mother's southern accent or the nasal twang common in Southeastern Ohio where we lived . But Mother did hear the difference between those two accents. It was a matter of identity for her as a transplanted Southerner in a small Ohio town; her children needed to sound right. So in high school--at Mother's persistent coaching-- I excised the local "r" from "wash" and changed the "ch" in "rinch" to an "se", making "rinch", "rinse". She even managed to train me away from the local "oo" in "push" to a short "u". Thereafter, at football games when my classmates yelled, "P.-o-o-o-o-o-o-s h them back," I'd yell, "Push," my "u" short and soft.

But after I left home, I blissfully forgot these phonics lessons. I married (ironically someone superb at phonics and languages). Shortly thereafter my mother died. In the following years, I focused my energies elsewhere. I learned to cook, had my first full time job, became a potter, had my first English teaching job, and moved with my husband from Ohio to Illinois to Missouri to Texas.

I also had my first (and only) child, Sarah, a beautiful girl but an indiscriminate language sponge. She reveled in sounds, in language itself. To my consternation, at four she made up her own language and refused to speak any other, despite my talks about "communication" being the purpose of language. Mainly, though, sounds didn't figure in my life, so I was unprepared for my response that June day when Sarah and I arrived home from her last morning of preschool.

It was hot, as it can only be hot in Texas--a steady, sustained heat that hovered over the house at night, lifting only in the hour before dawn. Sarah had never been an enthusiast for either the outdoors or other kids. She much preferred to play in her air conditioned room, imagining a world of her own. She lived pretty much within the family. We were in the kitchen, its maroon tin ceiling making the room a cool cave despite the noon glare outside. But we were still frazzled from the hot drive from preschool in our unairconditioned Oldsmobile boat.

Sarah, her brown pony tails bobbing, slid off the chair opposite me. As usual, she'd "forgotten" to drink her milk; she picked up the glass and directed a dazzling smile at me, a diversionary tactic. Just then our dog Ragamuffin dashed through the doorway, intent on snaring a dropped morsel. She karoomed into Sarah, toppling both Sarah and the milk. The milk hit the floor first, but Sarah landed a mere second later, a direct plop into the milk puddle. As I sat in my chair, I heard Sarah's voice rise from the floor quite clearly, "Sh-e-e-e-e-a-a-t!"

With a speed that rivaled her fall, I leaped to my feet, picked Sarah up, and held her in front of me, milk running down her chest. "It's 'shit," I said firmly, "shit, not sh-e-e-e-e-a-a-t, shit."

Dazedly she repeated the word, "Shit, shit, shit," her i's short and crisp.

"Good," I said, without even thinking. "Now let's clean this up." Mother would have been proud of me.