One day you wake up and you are not a teenager anymore. All of a sudden you look into the mirror at a woman with grey hair and wrinkles. I have aged, lost my figure, gained weight, walk slower, but fortunately I didn’t lose my memory. I remember, for instance, sitting in a high chair watching my dad sing to my mom who was serving me something to eat. The song was “If I had my way we would never grow old”. Willie Nelson has his version online, as a matter of fact, he may have been the original singer of that song.
I also remember my first day of kindergarten. I was four years old. I was walked to school by an older neighbor, she may have been in second grade. It was a Catholic school in Woonsocket, RI, where the first half of the day was taught in French and the afternoon taught in English. My grandmother raised me, my parents were in the restaurant business near our home, they worked seven days and nights a week. I hardly knew them.
There was very little French spoken in our home, actually it was only spoken when no one wanted me to understand what was being said. So that first half day of school was torture, so much so that when lunch time came, and we were marched past the outside door to the cafeteria, I opened the door and walked home. I must have been a sight to see. I was already small for my age, and I was a toehead, that is so blond my hair was almost white. I crossed two busy streets and entered my mom and dad’s restaurant to announc that I came for lunch. My mom almost passed out.
I was told to return to school. She didn’t find someone to walk me there, she just sent me there. I walked half a block and sat on the curb to give it all some thought. I didn’t want to go back to that school, how could I avoid it? And then my dad pulled up, in his police cruiser, and asked what I was doing there. My answer, ” I main’t going to that school”. I was always criticized for speaking with so many contractions, and I guess I still use them in my writing. So, he got me into the cruiser and took me back to St. Louis grade school in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It was a shock to the nuns that I walked out of the school and home for lunch, so I was watched by them all from then on, and always being referred to as the kindergartener who left the school and walked home for lunch. Smile.
The afternoon class was all in English, and for some reason, following that day, English was often thrown into the morning class as well. Maybe I created that change in their curriculum. My family was shocked again later that afternoon when the school Principal called to find out why she wasn’t told I could read and write. My grandmother didn’t know what to say, she didn’t know either. So they asked her if they had her permission to bump be up to first grade. My grandmother being the perfect grandparent, turned to me, told me what they asked, and wanted to know if that was something I wanted to do. My answer was “No. I will learn how to read a clock and a calendar in kindergarten”, and I wanted to stay for that. So they bumped me up to second grade following my kindergarten year. I spent no time in first grade.
JUST THINKING 