An Obituary for the King of Pop in 100 Words. By Jemina.

Michael was born into the Jackson 5 with a song in his heart and a two-step jive in his feet. He was Off the Wall, Thriller and We Are the World. He tried to seduce a 12 year old Tatum O’Neal. Then he turned white and almost burned off his head for Pepsi. Neverland Ranch was built, a lot of creepy stuff went down, and he started popping painkillers like Pez with a Jesus Juice chaser. Michael married and divorced Lisa Marie, artificially inseminated a handsome looking surrogate, and went bankrupt. Then his heart stopped and he died. The End.

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When Bad Hair Happens to Good People. By Joy.

This is me, age 18. Check out my hair. It’s awful, I know. Unfortunately, this is not my natural hair (actually, that is somewhat fortunate); this cluster of curls was the result of a perm. And a poorly timed one at that. Allow me to explain (to the extent possible). The Boyds are not “hair people.” Some girls grow up with cool moms who unlock their daughters’ hairstyling creativity at an early age and said daughters grow up into lovely young women who instinctively know how to manage their manes. Said cool moms set their daughters up for hair success at an early age by ensuring that they get the cutest haircuts in the latest styles, or braiding their locks into the fanciest of all hairstyles- The French Braid. As is clearly evidenced by the “About Me” picture of me with a mullet, Syl was not one of those people.

I can count on one hand the number of “real” haircuts I got during my childhood (this excludes Syl putting a bowl on my head and cutting around it, or, worse, letting her friend in beauty school cut my bangs). My first haircut was a doozy. When I was in kindergarten, I had hair down to my derriere. It was long and luxuriously thick. Syl called me “horse hair,” which, at the time, I believed to be a term of endearment, but have since realized was really a sardonic statement of fact. Like any tomboyish five-year old, I did not care what I looked like. I never brushed my hair and I hated washing it. Every other day or so, Syl would take notice of my wild banshee-like appearance and spend an hour or so vigorously working the snarls and tangles out of my hair.

One night, I went to sleep whilst chewing gum (disobeying Syl’s strict orders to the contrary) and woke up with the gum thoroughly entangled in my hair. This act of defiance not only resulted in an unpleasant encounter with the Board of Education, it also resulted in Syl seizing a golden opportunity to chop my locks (again, see Mullet Joy in picture to the left). Having been shorn like a sheep in spring, I felt exposed and embarrassed and was a little wary of salons (and I use that term loosely) after that. While I, like the rest of my siblings, had bargain-basement cuts, every six (6) months or so Syl would go to the salon (a real one, I think) and get a new perm. Throughout my childhood, Syl had various permutations of the perm, and I loved and admired them all. Every six months, I would beg to accompany Syl to the real salon so I could get a perm, too. While I am sure Syl would have loved for us to have matching perms, the fact is that there was just not enough money in the Boyd Bank to buy me a perm…until I turned 18.

Though I quit asking for a perm after elementary school (doubtless having concluded that this dream would never be realized), I had renewed interest in the elusive perm towards the end of high school. Much to my inexplicable delight, Syl offered to buy me a perm for my 18th birthday, just before I left for college. To this day, I have no idea what I was thinking. Perhaps my motivation was not aesthetics (clearly), but rather laziness. At this point in my life, I had not yet been introduced to the almighty straightener; every morning I tried to wrestle my horse hair into some semblance of a hairdo and, having recently seen some high school photos, I was wildly unsuccessful at it. Having sensed on some level that I was fighting a losing battle, then, I must have thought a perm was the perfect solution for my hairstyling ineptness. What could be better than taking a shower and letting the ole curls air dry? Just a little gel! No more blowdryer! No more crazy hair! Or so I thought. Not only did the smell send everyone in a 5 mile radius running, I looked like a cross between Weird Al Yankovic and the Soul Glo commercial from “Coming to America.”

As you can see from this picture, my jheri curl didn’t do me any favors in the looks department. Turns out I was not any better at managing the perm than I was my old hair, so I eventually let the curls out, and discovered a straightener, thanks to my sorority sisters. I think the moral of this story is clear: you can get away with a perm you’re seventy or if your mom makes you get one, but not if you’re old enough to know better!

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The Green Bean Incident. By Jemina

I have an announcement to make that should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me- I hate green beans. Loathe them. If I come over to your house for a dinner party, please know I will put green beans on my plate, but will shove them around in an effort to look like I ate some of what you probably assume to be the best vegetable on the planet. I’m not proud of my bean-hating ways, but I feel like one particular incident cemented my distaste for them when I was at the young age of five.

On a balmy Sunday afternoon, we were invited to dine at a friend of the family’s home, who had air conditioning (yay!) and toys for their grandchildren which we promptly commandeered as our own for the day. Since it was so delightful outside, we were told that dinner would be served on the patio under the guise of enjoying the fresh air, although I think the real reason for al fresco dining was that having six additional messy eaters inside would have called for heavy-duty clean up that nary a Merry Maid could have handled. As I ran from the basement to the kitchen to load up my plate full of deviled eggs, potato salad, chicken, and corn, I saw them- the abominable beans. Unfortunately for me, since Syl knew I hated them she made sure I took a heaping portion and gave me the Stink Eye which meant “if you don’t eat every single one of these, we’ll be having a chat (precursor to the Board of Education, see below)”.

As I morosely made my way to the children’s table on the patio, I began to look around for the family dog to try and tempt it into eating the green beans, but he was having none of it. Then, inspiration struck! I would take several green beans at a time in my hand, pretend to drop my napkin, and would stick the beans through the cracks of the patio to avoid the gagging reflex that would most assuredly come if I actually tried eating them. The plan worked- not only was I happy to clean my plate (much to the suspicious eye of Syl), I felt almost smug at my cleverness.
Dinner was over, and I was happily playing downstairs with my new toys for the day, when Syl came stomping down the stairs. She took one look at me and said “Come with me. NOW.” I followed her with trembling knees to the bathroom where she pointed to the wastebasket beside the toilet and gave me the ultimate Stink Eye. As I peered inside, I gasped at what I saw- a napkin BULGING with green beans. Now as an adult, I could have clearly defended myself in stating that there was no way that any amount of patio green beans could have made its way into the wastebasket in the downstairs bathroom, but my obvious guilt was already written on my face. Five year old me just assumed that Syl was right when she said God told her when we did something wrong, and He planted the green beans in the bathroom because He knew she would never find them under the patio. Sneaky bugger.

My butt stung for days. It wasn’t until we were in our teenage years that Joy finally admitted her similar distaste for green beans, and that she had been the one to shove her guilty load of sin into the wastebasket. Apparently when Syl came stomping down the stairs she thought she was done for, but when Syl grabbed me instead her, self-preservation kicked in and let me take the fall. However, even though it happened ever so many years ago I demand retribution.

Lesson of the day: if you’re smart enough to devise a plan, be smart enough to realize you got away with it. Most importantly, eat your veggies!

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Butt vs. Board of Education, by Joy

This is “The Rod,” commonly referred to in the Boyd Household as “The Board of Education.” Though perhaps not awe-inspiring on this web page, if you were staring down the barrel of this paddle at 5 or 6 years old, you’d be terrified (I speak from personal experience). As you can see from this picture, one side of the Board of Education has “The Rod” bored into the wood; the other side, however, featured a Bible verse: Proverbs 22:6. This verse is an oldie but a goody: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Trust me, the verse side of The Rod is quite worn and faded, as Phil and Syl trained us a whole lot. And if you think that The Rod is a paddle Phil and Syl just swung by and picked up at the church bookstore, you’d be wrong. This wooden piece of art was specially designed and commissioned by Phil and Syl, who doubtless envisioned molding and shaping their growing brood into little Christian soldiers, two cheeks at a time.

Some of us were on the receiving end of the Board of Education more than others. Phil and Syl beat James so early and often that he did not commit a sin after the age of three. Jemina got beat early, often, and late into her childhood. I don’t think the bruises on her bottom ever healed—if they did, they were quickly replaced with new bruises. Ironically, Josh (aka “the black sheep”) saw the least of the The Rod (he did not really get into sinning a whole lot until his teens), and I fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between Jemina and Josh.

When we committed an offense worthy of corporal punishment, Phil or Syl let us know that we would be facing the Board of Education. Justice was not swift in the Boyd Household, however. Upon witnessing the corporal offense (or learning of it from a tattler), Phil or Syl would pronounce sentence and send us upstairs to their room to await our fate. Some of my siblings would trudge up the stairs (aka the Green Mile) and sit patiently on Phil or Syl’s hope chest awaiting their arrival. Not me! By the time I reached kindergarten, I had devised a plan to make my encounters with The Rod less painful. I saw the five-minute delay between the infraction and the imposition of punishment as an opportunity to shore up my line of defense—to protect my most precious asset, if you will. I sprinted up the stairs and made a beeline for my room, grabbed every pair of underwear I owned and put each pair on, one over the other. When I head Phil or Syl coming up the stairs, I’d scamper over to their room, take my licks, muster up some crocodile-sized tears to signify pain and regret for my actions, and skip back to my room, satisfied that I’d pulled one over on the ‘rents.

You’d think the fact that I haven’t been on the losing end of Butt v. Board of Education in a couple of decades would make me less fearful of The Rod. Not so. To this day, I can hardly bear to look at The Rod, much less talk about it, so I hope you can appreciate the courage it took for me to stare at this picture of the Rod and write about it. While my siblings and I still tiptoe around The Rod as if it were the Ark of the Covenant, Phil and Syl continue to take great pride in their creation. They will seize any opportunity to show The Rod off to their friends and fellow parents whenever the issue of children and/or discipline arises in conversation. “I just can’t seem to get little Suzy to eat her peas and carrots,” their friends might say. “Give her the Board of Education and see how she likes her veggies after that,” Phil and Syl would reply, exchanging knowing glances at one another and smiling at their friends’ child-raising incompetence.

If any of you parent-readers out there have a particularly unruly kid or kids in need of an attitude adjustment, I’m sure Phil and Syl will gladly loan you their precious paddle for a small fee (so far, both James and Josh have declined to use The Rod for their disciplinary needs). Heck, Syl will come down and whup your child for you if you want—I think she kind of misses it!

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School Bus Education Series: Part 3 by Josh

Since my 3 siblings have all written blogs about our childhood, I figured I’d guest blog, too. I be Josh, the involuntarily labeled yet self-actualized black sheep of the Boyd offspring. Second oldest but last in charge. My 4th grade teacher Mrs. Carlson once asked me, “Why can’t you be like your brother James?” This single question started my path down the wide road that leadeth to destruction according to the Good Book. Thanks for that, Mrs. Carlson. This single question also sparked my lifelong disdain for the Red Sox (Mrs. Carlson was a fan). However, I digress.

As my sisters alluded to in earlier blogs, we all endured our fair share of trials and tribulations on the bus. Twice a day, one or more of us interacted with kids of the sordid type: girls that wore fake nails, makeup and short skirts and guys who listened to Rock-n-Roll and Roll, cursed at every opportunity, gambled with their lunch money and looked at their dads’ porn. Needless to say, I knew all of these abominations were strictly forbidden inside the hallowed walls of the Boyd Compound of Fundamental Christianity. When I first set foot on the bus I felt like Pinocchio must have felt when he arrived on Pleasure Island (but before he started turning into a donkey). I had access to all of the forbidden fruit and I could eat—as long as James didn’t find out. The bus was a mobile Sodom and Gomorrah, a Pleasure Island on wheels, and I sampled almost all of the fruit the Island had to offer.

Of all the forbidden fruits I tasted on the bus, the most delicious by far was Rock-n-Roll. Not just any sort of Rock-n-Roll, mind you, Heavy Metal Rock-n-Roll. Unfortunately, I had to keep my newfound snack a secret. Notwithstanding Phil and Syl’s deafness, their fundamentalist Baptist leanings made them hyper-aware of sins of an auditory origin. These auditory sins were things that their hearing church brethren informed them were sinful. Chief among these sins was Rock-n-Roll. In Phil and Syl’s minds, all music fell into one of two categories: Rock-n-Roll and Christian. If music was deemed to be Rock-n-Roll, it was forbidden on the Compound.

Phil and Syl devised a three-prong test to determine which category the proposed music fell into: (1.) Do we sing it in church?; (2.) Is it sold it in the church bookstore?; and (3.) Does James approve? If the answer to any of these questions was “no,” it was Rock-n-Roll and tantamount to Satan worship, according to Phil and Syl. Period. Sadly, this three-prong test weeded out all of what I considered to be enjoyable music. Anything with electric instruments or drums (the core of Rock-n-Roll according to Phil) was quickly disapproved and labeled as ungodly. This was true even if the artist was a self-proclaimed Christian musician. What made matters worse was the fact that we didn’t have a lot of money so I wasn’t able to purchase my own heavy metal cassette tapes. Even if I could, I wouldn’t dare try to smuggle home a cassette. Where would I hide it? What would happen if Phil and Syl found it? Or James the narc for that matter… too risky. Eventually I enlisted the help of my friend Tim.

Tim and I were in the same grade and lived only blocks apart. We rode the same bus and sat together most of the time. Tim, though labeled by most adults as a “bad apple,” was an awesome friend because he came with a walkman. Walkmans were also forbidden in on the Compound as they provided access to… wait for it…. Rock-n-Roll radio stations (insert collective gasp here). At some point I discovered a small, easily concealed and inexpensive piece of technology called a “double jack.” The double jack enabled the walkman headphone port to support two (2) sets of headphones. Armed with this discovery and several weeks’ allowance (I received a small wage for my slave labor at the Compound), I purchased a double jack and a pair of ear buds for my listening pleasure. Being the good friend that he was, Tim agreed to allow me to plug in my double jack as long as I sat next to the window and supplied an occasional battery. I remember listening to Tim’s heavy metal mixed tape for the first time with my new ear buds. I had never heard such melodious sounds. The drums, guitars and screaming vocals were almost too much. It was like a drug and I wanted more. Tim exposed me to bands like Motley Crüe, Poison, Skid Row, Iron Maiden, Metallica and my personal favorite, Guns and Roses. In 7th grade, I bought my own walkman. Because the walkman led to auditory sin, I had to endure an intense Spanish Inquisition-esque screening process before Phil and Syl eventually approved the purchase.

From then on, whenever I wanted to add music to my growing collection of contraband, all I had to do was take one of James’s Christian cassette tapes, put a little piece of tape over one of the holes and copy over it with the Heavy Metal artist of my choice.

I guess if there’s a moral to this story, it’s that… umm… well there’s no moral. Drive your kids to school. The bus is a cradle of filth and a den of iniquity that I will never let my kids ride. The End.

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Left Behind: By Jemina.

As adults, we all have certain fears we’d like to conquer--fear of heights, fear of failure, fear of clowns, and whatnot. One of my fears is the fear of being left behind. This fear has been rooted deep within my soul due to several instances as a child that at left me paralyzed with fear. You see, being the baby of the family had its pros and cons. I was more spoiled, it’s true, but that’s more because the novelty of child rearing had worn off by the time I arrived, and Syl just didn’t have it in her to tell me “no” most of the time. Syl’s child-rearing fatigue syndrome also led her to delegate. A lot. In fact, Syl delegated my supervision to my sister Joy much of the time. Unfortunately, this usually resulted in my being wholly unsupervised whenever an imaginary game of “Pioneers” was started (see Davy Crockett entry below). Joy would tear up the stairs to her bedroom like a bat out of hell, grab her rifle and jam that coonskin hat on her greasy mullet so fast, I was alone before I knew what had happened. Over time, I grew used to Joy leaving me alone at home, but the problems started when her absenteeism in public created some unfavorable situations for me.

Although church services on Sunday began at 8:30 in the morning and lasted until noon, we were often forced to remain on hallowed ground as the deaf congregation all clamored for Phil and Syl’s attention. It was not uncommon for a disgruntled parishioner to, in a flurry of hand movements, demand to know something relatively trivial, such as why so and so brought deviled eggs for the potluck and not jello salad like requested? Or why so and so kept their stinky baby in the service instead of leaving and changing their kid’s turd-filled diaper? While Phil and Syl were putting out fires indoors, we kids were usually outside playing tag or running amuck in some form or fashion. We’d play until we heard Syl screaming our names in rapid succession (she refused to actually go and look outside for us) and we’d all load up in our 1985 Ford Club Wagon van and drive home. However, since I was the youngest and most persecuted, I would often go and play by my lonesome to avoid the ridicule that was most assuredly waiting for me wherever Joy and Josh were. Consequently, there were times when I wouldn’t hear Syl’s roll call and everyone would clamber into the van, Joy would fail to mention I wasn’t in the vehicle, and off everyone went back to the house without me.

Sometimes Syl did not realize I was missing until we approached the house. Sometimes, though, it wasn’t until everyone sat down to eat lunch that she discovered I had yet to make an appearance. However, no matter the time of said discovery, there was no effort made to go and retrieve me. Phil and Syl, ever the pragmatists, figured that the bus that took the inner-city kids to and from church would also take me home. This happened so often that it almost became a routine for me to seek out the cluster of poorly-dressed children (a category in which I fit myself), tell the bus driver my plight, and ride along, a beacon of paleness amongst the Caucasian, Hispanic, and African- American masses.

My agony doesn’t end there, my friends. Due to the fact that I was raised in a strict Independent Baptist household (re: compound), we were constantly reminded that “THE END WAS NIGH.” This meant that the Rapture was sure to happen any day or hour. If you were sinful, of course, you wouldn’t be Rapturetized and would be left on earth to suffer the pestilence, flames, and famine of the Tribulation. One of Joy’s greatest pleasures in life was to tell me that I wouldn’t be Rapturetized because I was a snotty-nosed kid who often disobeyed my parents, even though my disobedience was, more often than not, at her suggestion (an evil ploy to keep me out of heaven? I sincerely wonder). As I was far too simple-minded to figure out Joy was a pathological liar, I tended to believe that I’d better shape up or else I wouldn’t be shipped up to heaven. Now, readers, place yourself in my already overgrown feet as a 6 year old--you’re minding your own business outside of church on a Sunday afternoon, trying to avoid the bullies who happen to be your own brother and sister, and all of a sudden BAM! Everyone around you is gone. Panic sets in as you conclude everyone’s been Rapturetized, and who, exactly, is going to take care of you? Scary, isn’t it? Welcome to my childhood.

I eventually realized that being left everywhere was not attributable to The Rapture, nor to the fact that my parents hated me, but merely to the combination of a large family and an older sister who wished she were the youngest. But don’t think that just because I’m old enough to drive myself places, I don’t have my oldest brother (still the most devout person I know) on speed dial just in case I have a Rapture-related panic attack. I may be older, but I still am terrified of being left behind.

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