MEMORIES PT6

Before I start reminiscing about our family’s years in Dorchester, there’s
one aspect of our life in Malden I want to talk about:school.

The first school was a nursery school and I don’t remember anything
about it except a dim memory of being picked up in a really old car
once and  that I rode in the rumble seat with some adult. After that I
attended the ABC Kindergarten and I have a few recollections of that,
one of which is significant in our family history. I remember that the lady
who ran the school had a brown cocker spaniel that nipped me once.

And there was the girl I had a crush on. I remember she had curly red
hair, but that’s all. What was important about her, though, was that when
my sister was born, my parents let me pick out a name for her, and I
named her Cheryl after my crush. My parents added my Mom’s name
and that’s why my sister is named Cheryl Anne.


My next school was the Linden School which was a fairly new building, I
have no memory of my first grade teacher. I know we were taught to read
using the “Dick & Jane” books and I believe the teacher was a middle-aged
lady whose name I can’t recall. But the second grade teacher was Miss
Murphy. My Mom told me later I had a crush on her too. One of the things
Mom saved of those years was a page of math problems that I’d accidentally
torn taking it out of my desk. The missing area looked like someone had
taken a bite off the corner and Miss Murphy drew an arrow on  the paper
pointing at it with the note “Hungry?”

It was also in Miss Murphy’s class that we learned to play the flutaphone.

We moved to Boston shortly after I started third grade. I was in for a bit of
educational culture shock.

((329 words))




Written for the Family History Writing Challenge