The Day I Started My Period

The day I started my period I was 13 years old and had recently moved to Florida from Michigan.  I was in the eighth grade attending Wm J Bryan junior high in North Miami.   

I had been told by my older sister when I was eight or nine that someday something like this would happen to me.  But that was the extent of my education in these matters.  At school one morning,  I spotted blood in my panties during a bathroom break.  I didn't know what to do. 

 I solved my dilemma by stuffing toilet paper into my panties.  Wearing a dress as girls did in those days made this a less than desirable solution as my panties did not have very secure elastic around the legs.  But what else was a girl to do?  I know what you are thinking.  Why did I not go to the school nurse?  Because I was entirely too shy and embarrassed, that is why. 

But after losing my bloody wad of toilet paper in the hallway while changing classes, I was totally humiliated.  I decided I must tell the teacher I was sick and needed to go home. 

The fact that I lived nearly two miles away and had to walk a very long lonely road by myself in the hottest part of the day did not deter me.  I wanted to go home.  So off I went. 

I trudged along the secluded road that had a railroad track bordered by acres of very tall grasses on one side and a dense jungle on the other.  The sun beat hotly down on the top of my head.  The heat and humidity formed beads of sweat on my forehead and neck. I passed a chain gang that was working on the railroad track.  The chain gang consisted of colored (this was 1950) men in sweat-stained black and white striped pajamas laboring under the broiling sun.  Their ankles were chained to each other to keep them from escaping.  There were two white armed guards intently watching them from the shade of their brimmed hats while they toiled.  It was a common sight on the walk home from school but it always made me sad and being alone made it scary.  So I walked a good deal faster while trying not to look. 

About five minutes before I came to the Arch Creek Natural Bridge, I noticed a car parked in a small clearing in the jungle on my right.  The engine was running and there was a man in the driver's seat.  I had slowed my walk because of fatigue and heat but now I increased my pace and quickly crossed the bridge into the trailer park.  I later found out the guy had a hose connected to his exhaust pipe and into the car.  He was in the process of committing suicide.

I hurried to the small trailer where our family was living at the time.  I opened the trailer door and found myself staring at two naked people standing in a close embrace just inside the door.  They stared back at me.  It was my mother and a male "family friend".  I quickly closed the door and walked away. 

I wandered the park for awhile.  Then I walked back over to the natural bridge.  There were now police cars parked there and a few spectators watching while the police pulled one of my girlfriend's mother out of the creek.  She was on the far side where one could walk into the deep water and she supposedly had been trying to commit suicide. 

This poor woman had seemed to be mentally ill ever since she had her last baby.  Whenever I went to visit my girlfriend, her gaunt-looking mother would be sitting in a dark corner of the screened porch, holding her blanket-wrapped baby.   When she saw me come in the door, she appeared to be terrified and clutched the baby tighter to her chest.  My friend would whisper, don't mind her, and hurry me into the trailer.  

But on this day her arms were empty.  I suspect she had placed the baby into the murky black water.  I watched them drag her limp wet form up the embankment.   Her eyes and mouth were open wide.  Her arms were outstretched.  She was at once wailing and whimpering.  The small crowd was mute.  The family moved away shortly after that.  That was one thing about living in a trailer park.  A family could disappear overnight and never be heard from again. 

I sat on the bridge for awhile and then walked over to another girlfriend's trailer.  I was happy to see that Shirley was home alone.  Shirley was actually a few months younger than I.  I told her about my bloody panties and asked her what I should do.  She said I needed to tell my mother.  I cried (it had been a long day) and said I was too scared. 

Shirley took me by the hand and led me back to my trailer.  We found my mother clothed and sitting at the table.  We both sat down opposite of my mother and Shirley told her I had started my period, while I looked at the floor.  My mother said nothing as she tore off a sheet of paper and wrote something on it.  She handed it to me with a dollar and said to give it to the man at the Golden Beach grocery store.  I read it on the way and it said, 1 box Kotex, 1 sanitary belt. 

Later in a dark cement toilet stall in the large dank community bathhouse, I figured out how to wear the contraption and nothing else was ever said about this day in my life.