SCHOOL
Thinking back about school: one
building originally held the kindergarten through twelfth grade, but as the
town got bigger, the school became over-crowded, and we started going to the
firehouse for fifth grade, the church basement for sixth grade, back up to the
big school for seventh grade, and then into the new school. Our school had
been up the hill, kindergarten through 12th grade, until 1959 when Valley
Central School opened, combining Maybrook, Walden, and Montgomery.
I started at Valley Central in 1962
in eighth grade. It was different: there were dances, basketball games, and
many new friends.
When we were in the
old school, and had no car, the school bookkeeper-nurse
would bring us home if we were sick. Even the town doctor would come to the
school to give us shots. That was a scary day for all of us.
Mom must have had something with hair
and us, because for probably three years each summer, we had to go uptown to
Theresa Falcon’s for poodle perms.
We both went for a whole Saturday afternoon. These old-fashioned perms stank
awfully, and you couldn't wash your hair for weeks.
After one of these perms, I entered
fourth grade. My hair grew a little before school, but photos still show it
to be curly.
In line waiting my
turn to have my picture taken, I had stood right next to the water fountain,
and a sudden idea entered my head, so I stuck my head under the faucet and
wetted it, using no comb just my fingers, and then it became my turn. Some
weeks later, the photos came back for us to take home. As they were passed out,
our teacher, Mrs. Resiert, decided to hold mine up as an example of what not to
do. I was so embarrassed, I never forgot this.
Other than this incident, we loved
elementary school. Every Christmas we had a school program, the Nutcracker
and Christmas Around the World. We always had the proper outfits. One
mother we knew would sew these for us, or Mom would get us what we needed. We
would get a ride with another family to and from the play because we had no
car.
We had this head
of the school (Mr. Farren) who was so loud and mean he scared you to
death. On sunny days we were stuck in
the gym after lunch, no talking. Mr.
Farren would yell, “I don’t want to hear a pin drop.” He didn’t last long.
For a few months we had a school bus
driver, Earl, who had a sick sense of humor. One rainy spring day, I wore a
white wrap-around skirt, and---being the last ones to get on the bus---there
were no seats left. This day it was raining, so I had an umbrella, and in the
aisle there were Elizabeth, me, Artie, and---right by the driver--- Barbara.
Earl started the bus moving, sped up, and then slammed on the brakes, so down
we all went: Barbara, Artie, and I, with Elizabeth on top of me. My skirt was
mired and my umbrella was bent in half. Earl must have thought that this was
funny, but he must have also known that his career as a driver was over. It
was.
A boy who lived across the street from
us, Charlie De Angeles, decided at least two times a week who was his new
girlfriend, so in tenth grade---in between Kenny and Tom--- Charlie said to
me as we passed in the hall, "Now, you are my girlfriend." Of course,
this was the same guy who growing up was a big brat. He had shot my pet pigeon
and done a few more horrible things to Nancy and me.
We had a few bullies in class: Billy Mays, Charlie, and Billy Edmonton. They were the bane of
the teacher's workday. In seventh grade we had an English teacher, Mrs. Vargas,
who lasted a very short time because of Billy and Charlie. One morning she was
calling names for attendance when theirs were called, they stood up and dropped
their pants. She quit right after that, and they were expelled. During her
short time, she did make Doreen a pretty mohair sweater; this was one thing I
got to put on for a school day by racing to the closet ahead of her.
One thing we hated were the photos from
the yearbook in high school. I made it to maybe
one out of three. Being short, I was always up front. The other thing we
hated were those gym suits we had to wear, mostly if we went outside for
baseball or running. It felt like all eyes were on you from the classrooms.
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We are serializing here Kathleen Blake Shields's recently published book, Home is Where the Story Begins: Memoir of a Happy Childhood. Published by Outskirts Press and available from OP and from online booksellers like amazon.com and bn.com, this memoir is exceptional in that it presents an upbeat story of a working-class family successfully bringing up three girls in the 1950s and 1960s in a tiny town in central New York State.
I am proud to have coached Kathy and edited her book. My web site is http://WriteYourBookWithMe.com.
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