Had to be tough early on..

by Sherry Ginger Murphy
(Houston, Texas.)

My name is Ginger Murphy and I currently live in Houston, Texas. I was born with Auburn hair and blue eyes. As a young schoolgirl I was teased terribly and on a few occasions even assaulted due to being a redhead. I was very shy and all of the cruelty just crushed my spirit.

Finally when a daily ritual of teasing took place I retaliated by stabbing a boy in the hand with a number two pencil to keep him from grabbing my hair and yanking my head back while calling me names. This had been a daily occurence for quite a while. We were both sent to Mother Superior's office for reprimand. I was sent back to class without punishment for I never was in trouble ever, while my not-so-fortunate blonde classman was sent to the infirmary and had to stay after school writing a hundred times on the blackboard, "I will not yank girls hair and I will not call names." So in short, I had to learn to be tough and to fight as a survival mode. As the famous quote goes, "As all school children must learn those to whom evil is done do evil in return."