I still have a concert tomorrow, the sixth one this week, so I decided to post tonight. The week has been hectic. It started with my toothache last weekend. Today my shower rod fell and hit me in the head. I couldn’t get it hung back up so it is on the side of the tub. I need a new shower curtain rod or I have to start taking baths.

When I was a kid, I went to a dentist who used gas. I loved it. I’d drift off then when I woke up, everything was done. My father was horrified at the cost so he decided to take me to his childhood dentist whose office was in East Boston. First of all, the guy was ancient. I think he shuffled when he walked. He used no Novocain, no gas, nothing numbing. I think he was smiling as his hand moved the drill to my mouth. The pain was horrific. My fingers dug into the chair arms and left permanent impressions of my fingerprints. I cried silently. Tears fell down my cheeks. I jumped out of the chair when he was finished. I barely survived. I developed a healthy hatred of dentists. When I saw Little Shop of Horrors, I swear the dentist, Orin Scrivello, was based on that dentist in East Boston. Next came Marathon Man. Even now I get the chills thinking about the dentist who wanted information from Dustin Hoffman and kept drilling his teeth hoping to extract the information by inflicting pain.

Before I left for Ghana, I had to have a physical and a dental check. I found a dentist near my college and explained what I needed. He was fine with everything. I told him I was not a fan of dentists and why. He told me not to worry. He was excellent. He filled even a hint of a cavity. The only thing he didn’t have time to do was clean my teeth. During staging, before we left for Ghana, we each had to have a dentist check our teeth. Mine told me I needed a cleaning which he did. I didn’t even mind.

Now, I no longer leave finger imprints on the dentist’s chair. I visit my dentist religiously. I even like him, but I won’t ever watch Marathon Man again.

Mother Nature is running amok. The rain started last night and hasn’t stopped. Rain and, yes, even snow have been predicted. It is in the 30’s now, and the temperature will stay right there all night. It is an ugly day.

When I was a kid, my grammar school, St. Patrick’s, had one building opened in 1910. It was across from the convent and beside the rectory. We outgrew the school so a new school was going to be built. I attended the old school for my first, second and fourth grades. My third grade was in the rectory’s garage. In my fourth grade we had double sessions. The start of my fifth grade was in the next town. I loved that old school. It was brick and had two doors, but mostly we used only one. We walked through that door into the school two by two by grade level, maybe a throwback to Noah’s ark. The seldom used door faced houses. I figured out early on that if I exited by that door I could bypass the wait at the main door.

My favorite classroom was when I was in the fourth grade. The room had windows on two sides. They were long windows which could only be opened and closed using a wooden rod with a hook at the top to catch the lock. The lights hung down from the ceiling. On a day like today, a rainy day, despite the lights, the room was dark. The rain drops would hit the windows and would slide down on the glass. I’d watch the drops hit the windows. We were quiet, subdued by the rain. The only sounds were of pages turning and chairs squeaking. It always felt as if we were protected somehow.

My classrooms in Ghana had windows with no glass. Each desk seated two students. There were four classroom blocks with two classes in each. I taught the T2’s, the second years. Because the roofs were metal, heavy rain drowned out any teaching; instead, I assigned reading or writing and just walked around to check progress.

The bathrooms were in a separate building close to the classrooms. I remember the first time a student raised her hand and said, “Please, madam, I have to urinate.”During the mid morning there was break for tea and rolls. I went home and had coffee. One day, when I was returning after the break and was close to the classroom block, I could see my students throwing rocks at some bushes right outside my classroom. I stopped and asked why, “Madam, we are killing the snake.” I nodded and walked into my classroom to wait. It was just an ordinary day.