Sneak Previews of Forthcoming Books of Special Interest to Southern Californians : Baez Family Memories

‘Joanie made Mimi laugh by waddling around the room. “Mimi, here’s Sister Rose,” she said’.

From “A Year in Baghdad” to be published in October by John Daniel & Co., Santa Barbara. In the early ‘50s, Dr. Baez accepted a professorship in Iraq. He and his wife, Joan, and their young daughters, Joan (the folk singer), Mimi and Pauline, had been living in Redlands, Calif.

WE HAD BEEN in Baghdad for six weeks, and it was time for our three girls to enter the classroom. Al and I found only one school where English was spoken. We enrolled the girls with Mother Gabriel. Starched white to the feet, she was efficient, cantankerous and practically blind. Her lips puckered into what was probably meant for a smile as she handed the girls some books and a list of the rules. Then she handed Al the bill.

When the girls came home from school, the stories were stabbed with sarcasm. “Old pink-cheeks almost got me when she threw the eraser, but I ducked,” Pauline said.

Mimi sobbed: “And she threw my writing book on the floor because I didn’t know what dictation meant.” Joanie made Mimi laugh by waddling around the room elbows flapping and making a fish face. I didn’t encourage their behavior, but I let them talk. Secretly I hoped they’d all be expelled.

One day the phone rang. “Mrs. Baze, you and your husband are to be in this office in one hour!” It was the Mother Superior. I called Al, and we Klaxoned our way by taxi to school. The girls sat in Mother Gabriel’s office. They looked submissive but dangerously giggly. “What does this disgusting note mean?” she crackled. “Who honks like a goose and has a face like a moose? If that’s what you teach your children in the name of poetry, Dr. Baze, then I’ll have none of it! And,” Mother Gabriel rasped out, “what is a woofie?”

Is there a child in the world who doesn’t rally to the sound of a good burp or a healthy gastronomic breaking of wind? In fact, it was Al who invented a substitute for the controversial verb.

“Well?” Mother demanded. I saw the back of Al’s neck and watched his ears rise half an inch. “Mother Gabriel, children have their own language, and I’m not interested in what you think about it. I am withdrawing my children from your school as of today.”

Mother Gabriel’s face turned to stone. She needed our good dollars. She smiled plastically: “We’ll turn over a new leaf, won’t we, girls?”

By Christmas, Pauline had studied enough about the old British kings. Mimi had shed too many tears over her red-marked notebooks. Joanie gave way to a severe case of hepatitis. And so, to their happiness and mine, we withdrew them from school for good.

Copyright 1988 by Joan Bridge Baez and Albert V. Baez.