TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 - The ME I See

Chapter 2 - Sneaking Out Stinks

Chapter 3 - Tenacious Tomboy

Chapter 4 - See Ya When I'm Forty

     Chapter 1

   "The ME I See"

      I will begin chapter 1 of this autobiography by filling you in on a little information about me, the author.  My name is Ann Bitter, and I am a 54 year old English Language Arts teacher at Kohler Middle School in Kohler, Wisconsin.  This is my 28th year teaching in this school district.  I teach 6th and 7th grade students focusing on reading, writing, and communicating.  Prior to joining the middle school three years ago, I taught elementary school in 4th and 5th grades for 25 years.  The reason that I am writing this autobiography is for two main reasons.  The first reason is because I have assigned this chapter book to all of my 6th and 7th grade students, and I want to provide a model for those students while they are writing their autobiographies.  The second and more important reason is because I LOVE TO WRITE!  I have always wanted to write a book, and this is my big chance!

     I was born Ann Marie Harteau on March 5th, 1970 in Marinette, Wisconsin.  My mother’s name is Yvonne Lantz, and she was born on June 5, 1953 in Iron Mountain, Michigan.  My father’s name is Thomas Myrl Harteau, and he was born on March 7, 1950 in Menominee, Michigan.  My parents had 5 other children besides me.  My sister, Sue, was born in 1971.  My brother, Tom, was born in 1977, but he unfortunately passed away 3 days later.  My brother, Joe, was born in 1978 along with his twin brother Bob.  Unfortunately, Bob passed away a few months after birth.  My youngest brother, Jim, was born in 1979.  That leaves me with one sister and 2 brothers right now.    

  After I was born, my family lived in Menominee, Michigan for 2 years before moving to Felch, Michigan.  I lived with my parents and siblings in Felch for all of my years growing up. 

 While living there, I went to North Dickinson County School from 1975 until my graduation in 1988.  In 1988, I left home to attend college at Lakeland College in Howards Grove, Wisconsin.  I attended Lakeland from 1988 until I graduated with my Education degree in 1993.  After graduating from college, I married Scott Bitter and moved to Howards Grove where we raised two children, Robyn Ann and Colton Kenneth.  

    The years after college have gone by very quickly with raising a family and managing a career.  From 1994 to 1997, I was a teacher at Holy Name School in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.  In 1997, I began working at Kohler Elementary School in Kohler, Wisconsin.  I have been a teacher at Kohler now for 28 years. 

    In 2018, after my children had graduated from high school, I moved out of Howards Grove and to the small town of Cascade, Wisconsin.  I lived in Cascade for 3 years.  In 2022, I sold my home in Cascade and moved to the Town of Sheboygan Falls which is where I currently live. 

    I live a very full and busy life, doing many things that bring me joy!  I love spending time with my family including my husband and children. Colton is now in his second year of teaching, and Robyn, who is married to a wonderful man named Aaron, is an educational director at a local garden conservatory. I also try to spend a lot of time with my family who lives in Upper Michigan as well.  My parents, siblings, and 92 year old grandfather all live in the Iron Mountain and Felch areas of the U.P.  While up there, I very much enjoy being outside in nature.  I love traveling to Florida to visit my mom who is a “snow bird” during the winter months.  We have a mutual love of the ocean and sunshine!

    Among my many hobbies are walking, organic gardening, cooking and baking.  I am proud that I make homemade salsa, jams, and sourdough bread.  I enjoy teaching my children how to garden, cook, and preserve their own food whenever I can.

    So that is my current life in a nutshell!  I am a 54 year old middle school ELA teacher who lives on the Sheboygan River in the Town of Sheboygan Falls with my husband, Scott and son, Colton.  While we don’t have any pets, my husband would tell you that we have “green” pets because we have a lot of plants that HE has to take care of!  Haha!  My hope with writing this chapter book is to inspire others to reflect upon their own lives and to create a legacy in writing for future generations to enjoy.  

 <<<<< Me in my classroom

   Chapter 2

  "Sneaking Out Stinks"

    “There’s nothing on,” complained my sister, Sue, a little too loudly for my liking.  She was nervously clicking through all the channels our satellite dish had to offer.  There wasn’t much to choose from at 11pm on a Tuesday night.

    “Would you be quiet?!  They’re never going to go to sleep with you making all that noise!”  I whisper-yelled to her as I wiped the sweat that was beginning to form from my brow.  It was one of those steamy July nights that made you want to empty all the ice cube trays from the freezer into the bathtub and hop in.  Or maybe I was sweating because we were planning to do something that I knew would get us grounded for the rest of the summer.  

    “Well excuse me!” she snapped back as quietly as she could. 

    “I just checked on Dad.  I think he is finally asleep, but we should probably wait another half hour or so to let him really get settled before we go.  Are you sure you rigged up the basement door?” I inquired for the third time that hour.

    “Yes.  Would you quit asking me the same questions over and over again?!  I left the screen door open a few inches past the squeaky part so it won’t make noise.  Everything is fine,” she assured me.  

    It was the summer of 1986 in the “middle of nowhere” in the U.P. of Michigan.  “Middle of Nowhere” is pretty much exactly where we grew up.  We didn’t live in a city or even a town or even a village for that matter.  The place where we lived didn’t even have one of those stupid signs you sometimes see when passing through some ghost-like town.  You know the ones that say “unincorporated” right underneath the name of the town that nobody has ever heard of.  We grew up in the Boondocks, literally.  The only neighbors within three miles were cousins or some other relative.  

    The only place that ever had any sort of action going on during the summer was the nearby lake which was a half mile from my parents’ house.  This particular night, my sister and I had gotten fed up with there never being anything to do.  We decided that we were going to wait until everyone in the house was fast asleep and sneak out through the basement door.  Then we would slip on down to the lake and see if there was any sort of night life there.  We didn’t know what

we would do if there was, but if there wasn’t, we figured we would just go for a swim in the moonlight and then make our way back home.    

    We surfed around the channels desperately trying to find something to help pass the HUGE amount of time until we could safely get out of our parents’ house.  We opted for reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.  We were soon taken away to the faraway town of Mayberry.  Barney was trying to issue a ticket to some poor stranger for...

    “What was that?”  I asked my sister who instinctively hopped up on the couch next to me from the floor.  

    “I didn’t hear anything,” she replied a little too quickly, her eyes large in the flickering light of the TV.

    CRASH!  

    “Did you not hear that either?”  I sarcastically responded.  

    It sounded as if someone was in our basement.  For a few seconds I tried to figure out how my mom or dad or one of my sleeping little brothers, Joe and Jim, could have gotten past us and down the basement steps to make those noises.  But I quickly dismissed this thought as I remembered that just minutes ago, I had checked on

each one of them, and they were all sound asleep and on the other side of the house away from the basement door.  

    We muted the TV sound and sat there on the couch for a few nerve-wracking minutes in silence straining to listen for any more mysterious crashes from beneath, desperately hoping not to.  We listened and stared at each other, scared to death in the dark and silence.  I am sure I heard my sister’s heart beating over my own.  

    CRASH!  

    There it was again, but this time I recognized the source of the crash.   It was the unmistakable sound of my dad’s collection of aluminum cans that he’d been saving to take back to the grocery store for the ten cents that each of them would fetch.  The cans were neatly piled up on the sides of the steps leading upstairs to the kitchen.  ‘What are we going to do?’ I thought to myself as I realized that the noises were getting closer. 

    “Go check and see what it was,” I demanded of my sister knowing full well that she was even more scared than I was.

    “No way!”  was her response.

    “Just go and open the basement door and flick on the light and look down the steps,” I urged.  “It’s no big deal,” I persuaded, trying

to sound sure of myself, “and be quiet.”    

    For some unknown reason, my sister, who never listened to what I had to say, went to check it out.  She got up from the couch and moved into the dark dining room and disappeared around the corner into the kitchen.  I could hear her shuffling toward the basement door.  She was moving slowly and quietly, choosing her steps very carefully.  I heard the faint creak of the door as she opened it ever so cautiously, the click of the light switch as she clicked it on, a strange gasp and thud, and then the slam of that basement door as she sent it back to its home.  She came bounding back around the corner into the living room and leaped onto the couch beside me.  Her eyes were as round and white as Grandma’s good china saucers.  She looked as if she had seen a ghost.

    “Are you crazy?!  What are you doing?  Are you trying to wake everyone up or what?”  

    “Th-th-th-there’s a...”

    “What?”  I wanted to know, but yet I didn’t.  My mind was racing.  ’Oh, my God.  There is really someone down there,’ was all I could think.  “What?  What is it?!”  I almost yelled.

    “It’s a skunk!  There’s a skunk in the basement!” blurted my sister

finally.  “It was half way up the steps when I opened the door so I threw one of Dad’s shoes at it!”  

    Relief seeped into my bones.  I took a deep breath and thanked God that the thing in our basement was not an axe murderer but only a harmless little skunk.   

    “What are we going to do?” Sue asked.

    “I don’t know—nothing, I guess.  I’m sure you scared it so maybe it ran back through the basement and back outside where it belongs,” I replied.  The truth was, I didn’t know what to do, but I was the big sister, albeit only by a year, and I’m sure she thought that I was supposed to fix this mess.  

    So we did nothing.  We sat there on the couch listening to sounds which could only have been that of the skunk scurrying and banging around the basement, knocking unknown objects over in its strange, dark surroundings. 

    We were sure that if we would just be patient long enough, the little critter would calm down and eventually find its way out the door that we had unknowingly left open for him, and then everything would be okay.  Then we would go to bed.  There was no way that we were going to sneak out of the house anymore this

evening.  We had had way too much excitement for one night already.  

    My nerves were beginning to calm from the nightmares that my mind had talked me into believing the skunk was.  That is until we caught a whiff of the skunk’s pungent stench wafting through the hot, breezeless living room air. You see, in that brief moment of relief that I had felt as my sister told me that it was only a skunk, I was so thankful that it wasn’t Jason from Friday the 13th lurking in our basement,  that I neglected to think about what happens when you scare the living bejezzus out of a skunk.  It sprays.  And what it sprays is not flower petal scented.  It is the absolute most offensive smell you can ever imagine in your entire life.  

    Most of us have been in a car when a skunk has been run over.  That usually smells pretty bad and for quite a few miles down the road, but because the skunk did not actually spray the inside of your car, eventually the stink soon fades away.  Imagine what it would be like if a skunk did spray inside of your car.  That would be nauseatingly awful, and this is just what our house smelled like.  

    A minute later, we could barely breathe, and our eyes were watering from the strong odor that the skunk polluted our oxygen

supply with.  Before long, I knew that we must do the unthinkable—something that which we had learned should never be done—wake up our sleeping father.  Waking him was our only choice, as surely he would arouse from sleep soon with burning nostrils and arise to see us huddled on the couch pretending that we knew and smelled nothing.  He would certainly be suspicious as he was not a simple man.  

    I marched down the hallway toward my parents’ bedroom knowing that this was not going to be pretty.  I opened their bedroom door.  I instantly noticed that the smell was not nearly as toxic in this room as in the others—yet.  But even as I stood there readying myself for the next scene, I could feel the unpleasant tingling in the uppermost fibers of my nose as the fumes drifted in through the open door.  

    “Dad,” I whispered, crouching next to my father’s side of the giant waterbed.

    No answer.

    “Dad,” I managed louder.

    “Uh!  Wha!” barked my dad.

    “Dad, there’s a skunk in the basement,” I forced out of my mouth.

    “What?!!  *&$%#!” ranted my dad quietly, getting up out of bed and

trying not to wake up my mom.  “What happened?  How did a skunk get into the basement?”   My dad wanted answers, and by golly someone was going to give them to him.  

    “I don’t know what could have happened, Dad.  Joe and Jim are always leaving the basement door open. Maybe that’s how it happened,” I quickly lied.  

    “Probably.  Darn kids!” he choked under his breath as he walked to the kitchen and opened the basement door.  He turned on the light and saw all of his cans in a heap at the bottom of the steps.  He went part of the way down the steps as my sister and I looked on, holding our hands over our mouths and noses.  The stench seemed to be getting worse and worse by the minute.  He came back up the steps and motioned to my sister to come over to him in the kitchen as he grabbed a dish rag from the kitchen counter to put over his mouth and nose to try to block some of the stinging smell.  

    Apparently, when Dad went down the steps he had seen that the creature was still in the basement and that it needed to be drawn out somehow.  

    “Sue, get that plate of left-over spaghetti from the frig, and bring it 

outside onto the deck,” commanded my dad as he went out the side

door onto the deck.  I was right behind him.  My sister came out a few seconds later looking rather nervous, sensing that she somehow had won a starring role in my dad’s plan to rid the house of the enemy skunk.      

    “Go down to the back of the house, and put the plate of spaghetti 

directly outside the back basement door that was left open,” said my dad. 

    “I don’t want to, Dad.  It’s dark,” she pleaded.

    “Just go!  I turned on the basement lights.  You will be able to see outside the door a little ways.  Make sure you put it just a few inches outside the door—not too far away,” added Dad. 

    Knowing there was no arguing with Dad, she descended the deck stairs and turned the corner of the back yard, heading for the back basement door.  Dad and I stood watch from the deck.  A full moon streaked with clouds lit up the back yard for our viewing pleasure.  A couple more steps and she would be there.  She was slowing down, and the plate shook in her grasp.  She steadied herself to make the deposit in the precise spot in front of the door.   She bent down low and placed the plate on the cement inches from the door which only hours earlier she had purposely left open.  As she began to remove

her fingers from under the plate, the infamous skunk appeared in the doorway apparently very interested in the spaghetti, and the two of them met for the second time that evening.  A blood curdling scream was heard from my sister still crouched there on the cement facing the basement door and the skunk.  And once more, my sister managed to evoke panic in the skunk.  The skunk wheeled around and went right back into the basement through the door that he had just been half way out.  

    One can only imagine the range of emotions that my father and I were feeling having watched this event unfold before our very eyes.  I can’t remember Dad ever being more irate as he was at that particular moment.  I won’t repeat the things that he had to say after his masterful spaghetti plan was foiled by my screaming sister.  Let’s just say he was mad.  I, on the other hand, wished I had had a video camera to record the scene, because I was sure that in all my life I would never see anything as hilarious as that.  But I didn’t dare to laugh out loud standing up on that deck with my fuming father.  Instead, I just stood and watched as my sister came back up to the deck shaking and sobbing.  

    Dad went back into the house through the kitchen door.  After

determining that—yes, indeed—the skunk did spray once again as it reentered the house after being startled by Sue, Dad resigned to the fact that it was time to wake everyone else up and get them out of the house.  There was no way we would be sleeping in our “skunk-ified” house that night.  

    “You two go wake up your brothers.  We can’t stay here tonight,” directed Dad.  “I’m going to wake up your Ma.”

    “Where are we going to go, Dad?  It’s almost midnight?” I questioned.

    “We’re just going to have to spend the night in the bus,” replied my dad.

    My sister and I were not ready for the incredible stench that hit us in the face as we reentered the kitchen door to awaken our brothers.  It had unquestionably intensified since the second house dousing.  

    We piled into my mom’s camper/ bus (story for a different day) and covered our ears as Dad started up the thunderous engine.  After a couple of sputtering back-fires, the bus lurched forward and down the road.  We didn’t go very far though.  Ironically, Dad pulled the bus into the parking lot of the lake.  It was empty, of course.  There wasn’t a soul to be seen—definitely nothing exciting going on until

we arrived in the big green bus.  

    It took a couple of months to finally rid the house (and ourselves) of the aroma of skunk.  Even weeks later, just when I thought that I couldn’t smell it anymore, I would walk in the front door and instantly get a hint of the essence of old skunk.      

    As for the skunk, he eventually wandered out of the basement to nibble on the spaghetti sometime during that night, and then he probably made his way home.  I’ll bet he had one heck of a story to tell his skunk friends.  

   Chapter 3

   "Tenacious Tomboy"

    It was a cloudy November morning in 1981.  I was a sixth grader at North Dickinson School in Upper Michigan.  We were ready to head out to morning recess, and I was also ready for the arguing to restart from the previous day.

    For the last couple of weeks, when recess time came, a group of my best friends, all very athletic and competitive girls, raced over to where the boys always played a spirited game of football.  We had decided in October when it started to get colder outside to give up playing our game of basketball because our fingers were getting too cold.  And shooting a basketball with gloves on was ridiculous.  Playing football with gloves on, however, was helpful.  So…we ventured over to the football field to take over the boys’ favorite fall game!

    “We’re playing!” I shouted at Matt and Jeff, the first boys out to the football field.  They were tossing the football back and forth while waiting for the other boys to hurry up and get outside.  They conveniently ignored me.  

    Suddenly John brushed past me, running towards Matt and Jeff.  As he passed, I shouted at him, “We’re playing today!”  

    He turned around and said, “No, you’re not. Do us all a favor and leave us alone and go play somewhere else!”

    Being that this felt like the bazillionth time that we have tried and failed to be included in their football game, we felt it was time to call in the big dog.  In other words, we went to “tell” on them.  Hey, don’t judge.  We tried to take care of things ourselves…for dayyyyys.  But that didn’t work, so it was time to recruit help.

    “Mrs. Baiel!” we yelled, running up to the 6th grade teacher in charge at recess time, “the boys won’t let us play football with them.”  

    She looked at us with her typical annoyed look.  It seemed like Mrs.

Baiel was always annoyed.  At least, that’s what her face usually showed.  Maybe that’s why it took us so long to ask for help since she was often the teacher outside at recess time.  “So go find something else to do,” she said, rolling her eyes. 

    My friends and I stood there with our mouths open, shocked that she reacted that way…and yet not really shocked at all.  

    Quickly, I replied, mostly talking to my friends but within earshot of Mrs. Baiel, “Fine.  Let’s just tell Mr. Lemin later.”  

    Mr. Lemin was our principal, and he was great.  He was very into kids who played sports, especially girls.  He was super loud and in your face but also very nice as long as you weren’t a troublemaker.  If you were a hooligan, he would make your life miserable.  All of us had seen him many times come into a classroom or the lunchroom and literally yank a kid outta their seat by the arm and haul them off to, well, somewhere.  He was strict but also really cool and fair, and we trusted him.  

    “Girls, why do you want to play football anyways?” Mrs. Baiel

suddenly yelled to us as we turned around to walk away.  I sensed that she was a little afraid of what we would tell Mr. Lemin, and I wondered if she thought that SHE would hear about it from Mr. Lemin if we told him that she wouldn’t let us play with them.   

    “Because we can’t play basketball anymore because it’s too cold now.  We want to play football with them,” my friend Donna replied in a semi-snotty way with her hands on her hips. 

    “Uh huh, well first of all, get rid of the attitude, little girl.”  She paused.  “Fine. Go tell them that I said they have to let you play.”

    “Yesssss!” we all yelled, as we immediately turned around and ran towards the boys who were busy choosing teams on the large open field next to the school building and sidewalk. 

    They looked at the large mob of loud girls running towards them with dread.  Matt muttered something to the other boys that we couldn’t hear.  Then he looked at us.  “Get outta here!” he yelled.  

    “She said that you have to let us play!” I hollered back. 

    “Tattlers!  What are you, a bunch of cry babies? Winers and cry babies!  You’re just gonna ruin our game,” said a boy named Sean, who none of us girls liked.  Sean was a large, blond bully with a big mouth.  

    “Shut up, jerk face,” I snarled at Sean.  “It’s me, Donna, Amy, Leslie, and Mickey.  Hurry up and pick teams so we can start,” I demanded.   

    He said nothing back and just glared at us.  ‘That’s what I thought,’ I said to myself.  He’s just a giant wimp with an extra large mouth who tries to intimidate people, but when you stand up to him, he backs off.  

    “Fine,” said Jeff.  Jeff was always a voice of reason.  One of the nicer boys in our class.  And a darn good athlete, so I was hoping to be on his team.  

    Matt and Jeff were the captains who were picking the teams.  Of course, they both picked all the boys first before any of us.  

    It was Matt’s turn, and there were only girls left.  “Ann,”  he said.  

    ‘Dang it,’ I thought to myself as I walked over to join his team of

boys. Matt was an okay boy in our class.  He was also a good athlete, so

that was good.  Honestly, I knew that Jeff would be more likely to throw me the ball than Matt would, which is mostly why I was hoping to be picked on the other team.  

    Also chosen on Matt’s team along with me were my friends Donna and Mickey.  Leslie and Amy were on Jeff’s team.  

    The two teams split up to meet on opposite sides of the field.  Of course, the boys wouldn’t let any of us girls be the quarterback.  Matt and Jeff were almost always opposing quarterbacks on the 2 teams. Running back?  Nope.  Wide Receiver?  Nope.  On offense, we were delegated to blocking mostly.  Ugh.  Boring.  On defense, we were either blockers again, or if they trusted us, they would allow us to be defensive backs.  I was a blocker on offense and a defensive back on defense.  I liked playing DB.  I was just as fast as most of the faster boys, and I wasn’t afraid to be aggressive.  In fact, it was in my nature to be aggressive.  I liked breaking up plays and making the boy playing wide receiver look silly because he always thought that

because he was against a girl that he could score at will.  I took a kind of sick joy in embarrassing any boy I played against whenever I could.  That’s how most of us girls played.  We were ruthless and determined to be respected by our male athlete classmates. We weren’t afraid to play dirty and were known to sometimes throw an elbow, give a big shove, or stick a foot out to trip an opponent, even though it was “supposed” to be touch football only.  No tackling.  No pushing or shoving.  Those were the rules that we were supposed to follow… except nobody ever did.  

    The game started with John's coin flip.  John always had a coin in his pocket for just this reason.  We would be on defense first.  Good.  I prefer that actually.  I wondered who I would be up against down-field.  The wide receivers on the other team were Kirk and Richard.  Right away, I yelled, “I got Kirk!”  Kirk was a super fast kid with good hands.  He could catch anything.  I wanted to guard Kirk because he was the better of the two receivers.

    “No!”  yelled Matt.  “You take Richard.  Eric, you take Kirk.”  

    “Okey, dokey,” replied Eric with a smile.  Eric always said that. Eric was nice and agreeable.   But Eric wasn’t the greatest DB.  He was slower than me.  I was irritated but went along with it, just wanting to get on with the game.  

    “Hut,” yelled quarterback Jeff.  “Hut.  Hike!” he yelled.  His running back, Mike, came from behind him and slipped through the hole that Donna, Mickey, and Mark tried to contain.  Mike got about 5 yards before he was shoved to the ground from behind.  After two more downs of Jeff trying to hand off to Mike without any yardage, it was 4th down.  Their punter, Kippy Joe, booted a high one that angled off to the side.  John caught the punt and ran it for about 10 yards until he was tripped by someone on Jeff’s team.  It was our turn for offense!

    We huddled up.  I always thought huddle up time was super cool.  The boys would give directions about what to do, and it always made me feel more part of the game that they really didn’t want us to be

playing with them.  They couldn’t ignore us in the huddle.  They needed us to play a role of some sort.  Matt told me, Donna, Mickey, and Danny to block and keep everyone in front of us.  He told Mark to go long, hoping that Jeff would put one of his girls on him.  

    “1, 2, 3, Break!” we yelled with a clap and set up on the line in front of Matt, our quarterback. He hiked the ball. Mark took off down the field towards the sidewalk, which was the end zone.  I blocked like I was told, giving big mouth Sean a huge shove as he came up to me.  He fell backwards…hehe.  Matt stepped back and let the ball fly.  It sailed over our heads and down the field towards Mark who was looking back.  The ball was heading right towards him, and he would have caught it…if he hadn’t tripped and fell flat on his face.  Unfortunately for us, Randy, the DB on the other team intercepted it, and suddenly the ball was heading back towards us.  Randy made it about 20 yards before being “touched” to down him.  (There was really never just a “touch”.  It was pretty much a shove, push, or shoulder.)

    Time for defense again.  It was a tie game at zeroes. I thought to myself that we better not let them score because it seemed like the bell was going to ring at any second.  Recess was almost over.  Jeff knew this too, and they went into hurry up offense, shouting to his receivers to go long.  I lined up opposite of Richard, one of Jeff’s wide receivers because I got to the DB position first.  

    “Hike!” yelled Jeff.  There was a mad scramble of everyone doing whatever they needed to do to win, or not lose at least, by the time the bell would ring.  Richard followed Jeff’s direction to “go long” and made a mad dash towards the end zone…which was that sidewalk next to the school building at the edge of the field.  And with that, it was GAME ON for me.  I was determined to at least not allow Richard to score a touchdown on what was likely the last play of recess.  

    Richard was faster than some of the other boys, and he had a look of determination in his face and gritted teeth as he sprinted down the field while also looking back at his quarterback.  I was right

behind him, sprinting equally as fast, also looking back to see what play would transpire.  I saw Jeff look down towards us and let his arm go fully back as he let loose a high and long pass that I thought was surely going to sail over our heads.  My adrenaline was peaking as I knew this was it, and I had better bare down and not allow Richard to get more than a step ahead of me.  I looked up to see Richard’s arms outstretched above and forward of his head, and the ball landed firmly into his hands as he raced on toward the end zone.  I knew I had only one chance to save my team from a hard, sudden death loss, so I let instinct and impulse take over.  Seeing Richard was so close to the sidewalk end zone, I lunged myself forward with a running leap and landed squarely on Richard’s back.  He went down like a ton of bricks!  

    “I stopped him! And he fumbled!” I exclaimed inside my own head with wild excitement.  Richard had fumbled the football in the rumble, and it bounced oddly away from us.  We were both lying on the hard ground.  When I picked myself up, I jumped up and down

and pumped my fist out of pure joy that I hadn’t allowed my team to lose! Just then the recess bell rang signaling time to go inside.

    Then I saw that Richard was still on the ground and everyone was running towards him.  I walked back over to him and heard him wailing as he rolled around on the ground and onto the sidewalk in the end zone.  He turned over and I was dismayed to see a pool of blood on the sidewalk near his head.  He was all out crying hysterically, and everyone was really freaked out.  I didn’t understand how there could have been blood on the sidewalk because I tackled him before the sidewalk to save the touchdown. As I walked closer towards the crowd of kids near him, my foot hit a fairly large rock.  There was some blood on it.  I realized then that Richard must have hit his head on that rock as he went down.  

    Instantly, Mrs. Baiel and an even bigger crowd of kids were rushing towards all of us.  

    Everyone was all, “What happened?”  I heard that question a dozen times in 10 seconds.  

    “Ann tackled him, and he hit his head!” I heard someone from the other team yell.  

    “What?!  There’s no tackling!!!  Well, let’s pick him up and help him inside!” Mrs. Baiel yelled to a few of the other boys.  Some of the boys helped pick Richard up off the ground, and Matt and Jeff each got under one of his arms and dragged him in though the doors leading inside.  Richard was crying so hard that he couldn’t talk and had tears mixing with the blood pouring out of his forehead and down his face.  He looked like a nightmare, and I suddenly felt very, very, very bad.  Making matters worse was the fact that all of the other boys were all yelling at me. 

    “What did you do that for?” yelled big mean Sean.  

    “It was an accident!” I snapped back.

    “Riiiight!” he replied sarcastically.

    Everyone was looking at me like I was apparently the worst person on the planet suddenly.  But it WAS an accident!  I mean, I didn’t intend to need to jump on Richard’s back to save our team from

losing, and I never intended for Richard to rip open his head and bleed all over the place and himself.  It was all an accidental circumstance of a heated game full of competitive kids!  

    I must have said that it was an accident a hundred times before I even got in the side door to go inside.  The angry faces and mean accusing words made me feel awful.  To make it all worse, it’s all anyone was talking and whispering about in the hallways and then inside the classroom too.  Even the other teachers were shaking their heads, like I’d done something unforgivable. I slumped into my seat, my face burning with shame. I kept my head down, wishing I could disappear. I hadn’t meant for Richard to get hurt, but it felt like no one cared about the ‘why.’ All they saw was what I’d done. I sat down at my desk and just put my head down.  It was too much, not to mention that Richard’s desk and seat sat empty and was yet another reminder that I was the reason.  I wondered where he was, and my wild imagination supplied the horrors for me.  I was sure that Richard was in the office bleeding to death, and that I would then be

accused of intentional murder at any minute.  Okay, I am being a little dramatic here, but I imagined him being whisked away on a stretcher in an ambulance at the very least which was horrifying enough. 

    “Come with me, young lady,” I heard a man’s voice say quietly, standing close to me.  I picked up my head and saw Mr. Lemin standing near me…and everyone else staring at us with wide eyes. Most kids were afraid of the wrath of Mr. Lemin.

    I reluctantly stood up and followed Mr. Lemin into the hallway.  He walked with me a little ways so that we were in a private area away from any other people.  I was super scared.  I figured that I was going to get detention or worse that he would call my parents.  I would rather get detention than that, to be perfectly honest.  

    Mr. Lemin stopped and turned towards me.  Then he asked, “So tell me what happened.”

    I burst into tears.  He stood there and just let me cry for a few seconds.  Then I stopped and just stood there in awkward silence.  

    “Well???” he said, trying to prompt me to answer.

    “We were playing football, and I was guarding Richard.  He was running long and Jeff threw the ball.  After he caught it, I accidentally tackled him to the ground, and I think he hit his head on a rock or something,” I said, trying not to make eye contact with him.  

    “How do you ‘accidentally’ tackle someone?  What exactly does that mean?”

    “I don’t know.”

    “Well, what did you do exactly?  Did you put your arms out around him and tackle him?” 

    “Not really.”

    “Then describe for me what you did.”

    “After he caught the ball, he was running and I was running right behind him.  I jumped forward towards him, and I think I might have landed on him,” I told him, deliberately trying to be vague.  

    “You think you landed on him?  Hmmm.  Interesting,” replied the

principal.  “Jumping forward towards a running person sounds like it wasn’t really an accident though.  It sounds like you jumped on him on purpose to stop him.”

    “Kind of,” I admittedly whispered.  “But I didn’t mean for him to get hurt.  That was an accident.  I just wanted him to stop running towards the end zone.”

    “You know that tackle football is not allowed at recess, right?” he asked pointedly.

    “Yes.”

    “Sounds like you accidentally tackled Richard on an impulse at the end of a competitive game.  Is that accurate?”

    “Yes.  I’m sorry.”

    “I am not the person who should be getting an apology.  I am the person who needs to hear that you know the rules of no tackle football and that it won’t happen again.  Richard deserves the apology.” 

    “I will be more careful next time,” I said, lifting my head.  “Is he

okay?” 

    “I was waiting for you to ask.  He is okay.  He will probably be getting a couple of stitches in his forehead.  He should be back to school tomorrow.  But this could have been much worse,” he added, sternly. “In the meantime, your punishment is that you may not play football for the rest of this week.

    “Will you be calling my dad?” I asked quickly.

    “No.  Should I?”

    “No,” I replied.

    Mr. Lemin snickered a little about that and told me to go back to the classroom.  I walked back towards the room, but as I was walking away, he said, “Harteau.”  That was my last name.  Mr. Lemin usually only used your last name if you were a boy.  He continued, “It’s good to see you girls playing sports and wanting to win.  Just be more careful.”  And then he walked through the doorway and back to his office. 

    I walked into the classroom and sat down at my desk.  Everyone

turned around again and stared at me.  

    “Did you get in trouble?” my friend Amy whispered to me.

    “Not really.  But I can’t play football this week anymore,” I replied, and then she turned back towards her science book.  The rest of the day, I kept getting asked if I got in trouble.  I just told most people to mind their own business.  

    Richard did come back to school the next day.  He had a fairly decent sized bandage on the side of his forehead, but he was in a good mood, all things considered.  I walked over to him right away in the morning before class started and not a lot of people were around and apologized to him for jumping on his back and causing him to hit his head.  He actually half-smiled and said that it was okay.  That was a very “Richard” thing to do.  He was a genuinely nice kid, and I appreciated that about him even more after this whole thing happened.  

    In the end, people quickly forgot about what happened and sixth grade life went on.  I found something different to do at recess for a

few days which was boring but earned.  I went back to playing football with the boys again once I was allowed.  There were only mild snickers and teasing briefly before that first game that I was allowed back.  

    Needless to say, I had to find a way to control my competitive impulses during subsequent football games which was hard sometimes, but I did it.  I learned a valuable lesson that day.  Being competitive is fine, but playing rough and not following the rules can cause serious problems for yourself and for other people. 

   Chapter 4

"See Ya When I'm Forty"

    Welcome to the final chapter of my autobiography…the first book that I have written out of many that I am certain to write in the future.  Not!  Well, maybe.  My name is Ann Marie Harteau just in case you fell down and hit your head since chapter one and can’t remember.  As of this writing, I am 12 years old and am a 7th grader at North Dickinson Junior High School.  I will turn 13 in March and am excited about that.  I would describe my current self as a fun loving and friendly person.  I love to hang out with my friends, especially Brenda and Christine.  I play a lot of basketball, and when I am not doing that, I like to read mysteries and horror stories.  My favorite class is Social Studies with Mr. Benzi, and I play clarinet in band.  

    Soon I will be in high school, and then my life will probably be a lot different.  I mean, I look around at the high schoolers everyday, and their lives look way different than mine.  Other things seem important to them.  I think being in high school will be really cool.  I think that I will take a lot of English classes since I am really good at that subject.  I will avoid as many Math classes as I can because I

don’t like Math nor am I very good at it unfortunately.  I wish I was.  I also like History, so I will take those classes too.  Since I love basketball, I will be playing that in high school which will be fun.  I will also be in track and any other sports that girls can do.  Of course, I will also still be in band because I get to see my friends and the trips are wild and crazy and fun times. When I am a senior, I hope that I am a good basketball player.  I will still be hanging out with my friends, but I wonder if we will get any new students who will end up being new friends.  I am sure that I will still be going to North Dickinson Schools, and I will graduate at the age of 18 in 1988.  That seems like a long way off from now!

    After I graduate from high school, I will go to Bay de Noc Community College in Escanaba, Michigan.  I will study Cosmetology (or Beauty School).  I think I will become a Beautician because I enjoy doing my friends' hair and experimenting with my own hair.  I already cut my brothers’ and my dad’s hair now!  They always like it and ask me to keep doing it, so I must be kind of good at it, right?

 Maybe my sister will let me dye her hair next, or maybe Grandma will let me give her a perm.  That would be cool!

    Once I am established as a Beautician and Hairdresser, I will be officially an adult and will probably move out of my parents’ house.  I will likely move to Iron Mountain and find a job.  Maybe someday I will even start my own business.  Life will probably go by really fast in my twenties and thirties.  At least, that’s what adults always say.  I will turn 40 years old on March 5, 2010.  That’s eons away, and I wonder what I will be like when I am old like that.  My prediction is that I will be a hairdresser, a wife, and a mother by that time.  I will be married to a very hot husband with sandy blonde hair and will have 3 kids: Amanda, Amelia, and Andrew.  They will be the smartest and most well behaved kids ever!  We will take lots of camping trips as a family, and I will travel to many foreign places with my husband.  My hairdressing business will be booming because I will be the coolest and most creative beautician in the area!

    Well, that about wraps it up for my first book on this, the 16th day

of January, 1982.  This is a relatively short book, but hey, I had to start somewhere, right?  I wrote this book because my teacher, Mrs. Adams, always wanted to write her own book, but she never did it.  Because of her laziness, she decided to make us write one.  Haha…just kidding.  She’s not lazy.  Maybe reading all of our books will inspire her to finally write her own book now.  Thinking about this book writing project, I actually really enjoyed doing this even though at first it seemed like it would just be a major pain.  The chapters were fun and easy to write because it was about me, and I know me better than anyone else!  I am really proud of my work and this book. Someday I might share this book with my kids.  Maybe they will think it is funny or maybe just plain weird.  That’s okay.  I will probably think the same thing at that point.  If I were to give them some advice as they

read this book, it would be this.  Make sure to have fun in elementary school because school will get harder and busier.  Don’t be afraid to try new things because you never know what you will like or are good at if you don’t try different things.  And just be a good human and an awesome weirdo!  That is all.  See ya when I’m 40!

      Me at 12 years old  >>>>>

            7th Grade 1982