I grew up in a small narrow-minded little South Texas town and, you know, it is still small and narrow-minded today. It’s in a part of the country that will never change. When I was in junior high, I carried a real leather red purse to school. Every year my parents took my brother and me to San Antonio to buy our clothes and things. I was very happy with that red purse and I will not forget it.

Our parents never wanted my brother or me to be without money so we always carried quite a bit of money with us. Mother insisted. Both my parents grew up poor and they wanted us to have money in our pockets. We may have carried as much as $20 and that was a lot in those days. Even though we weren’t wealthy by most standards, we had more than most kids in town.

Several times a year, something will remind me of that red purse and I remember what I did to a girl in school that year. She was a girl who was quite alone, different from the rest of us and she had no friends. Her mother was divorced in a time when divorce was practically unheard of and I am sure they struggled to make ends meet. Her mother ran a little day-care center called Bo-Bo Baby Bank and to this day, I never go by that house that I don’t remember what I did.

During school when we had to go to the bathroom, we’d leave our purses on a shelf. Several times that year, I’d come out of the toilet and my purse was gone. The janitor always found my purse in the trashcan. I always got it back without any money in it. A few weeks would go by and then I’d leave my purse on the shelf – and again it would end up empty of money and in the trash.

I finally told the principal and we set a trap. I left my purse on the shelf and they sent someone in to watch during class break when there was always quite a bit of commotion. And they caught this girl who had no friends and I watched as they escorted her to the principal’s office where they called her mother. Can you imagine what she felt? Given the kind of person she was, I’m sure she owned up to it.

I remember so wanting to take it all back, that’s for sure. I felt horrible, horrible, horrible for what I’d done to her. I know she needed the money and sometimes, even today, I cry when I think of that red purse and what I did.

Of course, everyone had suspected it was a Mexican girl who’d stolen my purse. But it was an Anglo girl. We all went to school together, but the Mexicans lived on the other side of Harrison Street. That street was the dividing line. As I said, we lived in a small narrow-minded South Texas town.