Middle Years
Copyright© 2012 by JPM
Chapter 1
In the fall of 1969 we found ourselves living in our grandparents' home. They had 4 bedrooms, a couple of full bathrooms, and a wondrous basement. I say that with a chuckle as how many young boys, or even men who want to act like young boys, have a full train diorama taking up half of their basement? They did, and we fell in love with model trains before we started our new school year.
This would be my fourth school and I was still 10 years old!
Another memory visit has just taken place. I know I only gave information on three schools so far. There were actually two schools I attended in Springfield, Virginia. Before we could get into St. Bernadette's we attended a public school. I had blocked it out as I now recall a horrible incident there.
I mentioned having a flurry of upper respiratory infections that winter. And one of them caused me to get quite ill in that public school.
Embarrassment? How many other people can recall their sudden loss of lunch on top of their desk? Only to have all the kids in the general vicinity scrambling to move themselves, and their desks, away from that kind of nasty thing. Well, it happened to me. And then poor mom had to come collect me at school and rescue me from the glares and comments of those oh, so lovely children.
I can even now recall the teacher asking me why I couldn't ask to go the the lavatory? It just hit me so suddenly that I couldn't even think of making it to the trash can in her room. I know I apologized. What else could I do?
Life moved on. I thankfully was able to get into St. B's and never had to visit that "other" school again. Thank you so much. Someone was looking over me!
Anyway, back to the grandparents. We settled into a routine. Met and made friends in the neighborhood. Ran around playing outside until the sun would go down.
There was a lot of kick-the-can and hide and seek.
We created our own game of "best-dying-moments."
We would flip, odds and evens, and the winner would be the "enemy". This person would then tell the others, as their turn came up, what he was going to use to make them die.
Sorry, I had a laughing out loud moment. Heck we were kids and the Vietnam war was going on. We were sometimes in the room when the news was on.
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