Read Online Mennonite in a Little Black Dress (Memoir) (2010) by Rhoda Janzen - Free Book Online
Authors: Rhoda Janzen
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us! Somewhere, somehow, the Mennonite culture had taught us that all non-Mennonite men were would-be rapists. Thus whenever we stepped outside the protective shield of our Mennonite community, we moved in a terrifyingly unfamiliar world. Scared of school events, horrified by what would happen if I let my guard down to have a beer, terrified whenever a boy asked me out, I was as skittery as one of those squirrels that freeze as your vehicle approaches. Even when your gay husband rolls down the window and shouts, "Make your move, junior!" these squirrels seem profoundly indecisive. I always felt bad for those squirrels. I too had faced doom. And, like the squirrels, I had closed my eyes and hoped the doom would just go away.
Hannah and I inferred that non-Mennonites were capable of anything. The world seemed especially hospitable to serial killers in unmarked white vans. For instance, when Hannah and I walked to the Thrifty Drug Store for contraband Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers, we'd always rehearse a Plan A and a Plan B for what we'd do if a serial killer offered us a ride or attempted to thrust us into his unmarked white van. I am happy to report that this never happened to us. However, because our adolescence coincided with the last years before political correctness, we did hear some graphic things about our anatomy. I, who still thought that you could get pregnant from kissing, spent many an evening puzzling over the possible meaning of titfuck .
This fear lingered into my adult years. Once in grad school I returned to my apartment to find a note taped to the front door. In scary printed capital letters it read
FOR ALL THE DONUTS YOU CAN SCARF
COME TO MY PLACE FRI 7:00 PM,
I WANT TO GET TO KNOW YOU RODA.
JIMMY
Jimmy was a sad guy I had met once while doing laundry, and as a dating overture, this gesture strikes me as funny after a distance of twenty-three years. But back then I experienced a complex response whose crescendos came rolling like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's stages of grief and dying. First there was revulsion: Scarf? Scarf?!? Next, confusion: What kind of a person eats donuts on a Friday night? Then fear: Why does this Jimmy know where I live? And, finally, panic: Do I look like a scarfer of donuts? Ohmygod, does this outfit make me look like Agnes Ollenburger, the biggie Mennonite of our youth who had liposuction on her upper arms and then asked the church for forgiveness?
Jimmy was clearly a serial killer or a pervert. That Friday night I went to the library as usual, but I propped the note in a prominent position on my coffee table for police use, in case my body showed up dismembered in a dumpster.
Now at forty-three, on the long drive up to Bend with both my parents, I sat quietly contorted in the crowded backseat, remembering the car trips of my youth, remembering fear like a high-pitched cloud of mosquitoes. And I couldn't think of anything that explained why Hannah and I had always been so afraid. Sure, Mennonite culture mistrusted public images of sex; that was a given. On the few occasions when we kids were allowed to watch TV, a parent had to be present. My father monitored the proceedings like a stern prison guard. If any character on any television show, married or single, made a move toward an on-screen kiss, there was Dad, wielding the remote like a Taser. Quick to change the channel, he'd sometimes mutter in dark disapproval, "Smut!" Sex, it was clear, was a sinful scourge.
But my folks themselves were unafraid. They moved confidently through the world, taking risks, opening their home to strangers, traveling like fearless cosmopolites. My father's leadership position in the global Mennonite church required a lot of traveling, and my mother happily trailed along. When my father retired, the travel habit stuck-flourished, even, as they began to sign up for monthlong tours with other Mennonite couples.
Geography was important in our family, as demonstrated by the persistence of the tin garbage
Hannah and I inferred that non-Mennonites were capable of anything. The world seemed especially hospitable to serial killers in unmarked white vans. For instance, when Hannah and I walked to the Thrifty Drug Store for contraband Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers, we'd always rehearse a Plan A and a Plan B for what we'd do if a serial killer offered us a ride or attempted to thrust us into his unmarked white van. I am happy to report that this never happened to us. However, because our adolescence coincided with the last years before political correctness, we did hear some graphic things about our anatomy. I, who still thought that you could get pregnant from kissing, spent many an evening puzzling over the possible meaning of titfuck .
This fear lingered into my adult years. Once in grad school I returned to my apartment to find a note taped to the front door. In scary printed capital letters it read
FOR ALL THE DONUTS YOU CAN SCARF
COME TO MY PLACE FRI 7:00 PM,
I WANT TO GET TO KNOW YOU RODA.
JIMMY
Jimmy was a sad guy I had met once while doing laundry, and as a dating overture, this gesture strikes me as funny after a distance of twenty-three years. But back then I experienced a complex response whose crescendos came rolling like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's stages of grief and dying. First there was revulsion: Scarf? Scarf?!? Next, confusion: What kind of a person eats donuts on a Friday night? Then fear: Why does this Jimmy know where I live? And, finally, panic: Do I look like a scarfer of donuts? Ohmygod, does this outfit make me look like Agnes Ollenburger, the biggie Mennonite of our youth who had liposuction on her upper arms and then asked the church for forgiveness?
Jimmy was clearly a serial killer or a pervert. That Friday night I went to the library as usual, but I propped the note in a prominent position on my coffee table for police use, in case my body showed up dismembered in a dumpster.
Now at forty-three, on the long drive up to Bend with both my parents, I sat quietly contorted in the crowded backseat, remembering the car trips of my youth, remembering fear like a high-pitched cloud of mosquitoes. And I couldn't think of anything that explained why Hannah and I had always been so afraid. Sure, Mennonite culture mistrusted public images of sex; that was a given. On the few occasions when we kids were allowed to watch TV, a parent had to be present. My father monitored the proceedings like a stern prison guard. If any character on any television show, married or single, made a move toward an on-screen kiss, there was Dad, wielding the remote like a Taser. Quick to change the channel, he'd sometimes mutter in dark disapproval, "Smut!" Sex, it was clear, was a sinful scourge.
But my folks themselves were unafraid. They moved confidently through the world, taking risks, opening their home to strangers, traveling like fearless cosmopolites. My father's leadership position in the global Mennonite church required a lot of traveling, and my mother happily trailed along. When my father retired, the travel habit stuck-flourished, even, as they began to sign up for monthlong tours with other Mennonite couples.
Geography was important in our family, as demonstrated by the persistence of the tin garbage
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