I left SMU to follow a boyfriend. I left pre-med to spite my dad. One thing I can say about my father is he was not a chauvinist by any stretch of the imagination. Melisse and I were expected to achieve to his lofty expectations no less than David. We didn’t have to decide what we wanted to be when we grew up. He did that for us. We were all going to be doctors.
When I ditched SMU in favor of a boy (dumb idea), I ditched medicine and even my parents for a while. We eventually made up. I never went back to medicine. I taught English of all things. Dad was disappointed (desired effect). I didn’t stick with teaching either but I made some wonderful memories.
It was 1979 and I was sort of a freak show in this all black high school. It was a learning experience for both me and the students, and at 21, I wasn’t much older than the tenth graders I was teaching. One boy in my class, Tony Wilson, would come up to my desk every day and recite some sort of poetry. It was very rhythmic and catchy. I liked it.
One day I asked, “Tony, what is it that you keep saying to me? Is it something you made up?” He said, “No, Mizz Slow, ain’t no nigga don’t know the words to that song.” “Oh, really, it’s a song. I’ve never heard of it”. I went straight out to Pop Tunes on Summer Avenue and bought the LP and became the first white chick in Memphis to listen to rap. Hip Hop Hippie to the the Hippie.
It was 1979 and I was sort of a freak show in this all black high school. It was a learning experience for both me and the students, and at 21, I wasn’t much older than the tenth graders I was teaching. One boy in my class, Tony Wilson, would come up to my desk every day and recite some sort of poetry. It was very rhythmic and catchy. I liked it.
One day I asked, “Tony, what is it that you keep saying to me? Is it something you made up?” He said, “No, Mizz Slow, ain’t no nigga don’t know the words to that song.” “Oh, really, it’s a song. I’ve never heard of it”. I went straight out to Pop Tunes on Summer Avenue and bought the LP and became the first white chick in Memphis to listen to rap. Hip Hop Hippie to the the Hippie.
Just Passing Through 