Today is a day to stay close to hearth and home. At times the wind is blowing fiercely and flailing branches back and forth. It is only 36° but feels much colder. When I went for the papers, there was a snow shower which lasted about two minutes. I almost missed it. Winter is back.

I must be bored. Yesterday I watered plants, cleaned Jack’s room, swept the kitchen and hall and rearranged corners in the den, not because they offended my eyes but because I wanted stuff out of Nala’s reach. I watched her case the room yesterday looking for something or anything to take. She left empty pawed.

When I was a kid, the walk to school could be freezing cold. The wind whipped across the field at the bottom of my street. We often turned around away from the wind and walked backwards but kept an eye behind us which was usually in front of us. Sometimes the wind blew right up the sleeves of my jacket. I remember arriving at school and waiting outside for the bell to ring, but mostly I remember walking into the warm school and hearing the hissing of the steam through the tall radiators.

My classrooms were always crowded. Our desks were so close together we had to , e sideways up the aisles. The parish had to add a second class to each grade to accommodate all of us. I have my eighth grade graduation class picture. We are all in front of the statue on the lawn of the convent. In the middle of us, the pastor of our parish, Father Sexton, was seated. I counted and found there were 90 of us in the picture which meant each class had about 45 students.

The nuns scared us. We were trained to fear starting in the first grade with Sister Redempta. That I still remember her means the experience of being in school for the first time coupled with a nun in a black habit and a permanent scowl on her face kept us in line. I don’t think we even dared whisper. Nuns had supersonic hearing. Our only advantage was the sides of her wimple blocked her vision. She had to turn to catch us. A few years later, we were shocked to see the sides of the wimples had disappeared. We were stuck, even doomed.

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This entry was posted on February 24, 2023 at 1:34 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.