I wasn't going to write in response to the Silver's Bloggers prompt this week: "What do you remember feeling on your first day of school?" The essay would have been way too dark. Then I thought, I really had two first days, two dramatically different beginnings. I had the first day of the first grade, and I had the first day of high school. It takes a sense of irony to contrast my experience on each of these days. There is more than serendipity at play. There is the fickle finger of fate.
Here is a 1920 postcard of my high school, 45 years before I attended.
I'll start with the dark. I skipped kindergarten. That was often the case back in those days. I also skipped the first two weeks of the first grade. And, I skipped the first lessons in the morning, every day, in the first grade.
My father was busy. Why did that matter? Because I lived very far from school and the school bus stop. He was supposed to drive me.
Well, to be honest, he wasn't that busy. But he did like to sleep.
Here's a picture of my father, eight years before I was born. Fickle finger of fate that he met my mother when she was on vacation. There are no pictures of me when I was in the first grade.
Nobody ever called my father to account for his behavior. The teacher never said a word when I walked in late, in the middle of a lesson. The principal never called my parents. Why?
My father came from an influential family. His uncle was a sheriff. His brother was on the school board. My grandfather was a powerful landowner in that small community. And, not only did my father have a notoriously erratic temper, but he was a lawyer. Nobody wanted to tangle with him, or his family.
At home, my mother's hands were full. That year, the year I attended first grade, my mother was caring for two invalid children. One of my brothers was disabled by a birth-related brain injury (oh, there goes the fickle finger of fate), and another was bedridden with rheumatic fever.
I didn't relate to my classmates. I didn't learn to read. I didn't know what was going on. It's a miracle I advanced to the second grade, and subsequently to the third grade.
How did I feel the first day? First year? Embarrassed. Humiliated. Just wished I was invisible.
High School
Another first day. Another chance to have a good beginning. And wow was it good.
We had moved to New York City when I was in the sixth grade. My father was history at that point. So was the small town. We, my siblings and I, were free to forge our own paths.
Over the years I'd had some good teachers. I learned to read in the third grade (thank you, Mrs. Birdsall). My mother was the best, a devoted and attentive parent. With these gifts, and the New York City public library, I soared academically. By the time I entered high school, the humiliated little girl was fading into history, though she was not gone yet.
In high school, that little girl disappeared. Or at least she went underground.
On one of the first days of high school the principal called me down for a talk. She informed me I was going to be a school officer because I had the third highest GPA in the entering class.
A few weeks later, nominations for the school General Office were proposed. The General Office was synonymous with a Student Council. Someone from my history class (I spoke up a lot in history) nominated me for a position. I didn't know many people in that school, but my sister did. She was two years ahead of me. One of her friends was in the meeting when I was nominated. She recognized the name and seconded the nomination.
Fickle finger of fate. There I was, the little girl who prayed to be invisible in the first grade, suddenly running a campaign in a school with approximately 3000 students. I was a celebrity in my small high school universe. After that, everything fell into place. Just as I had been stigmatized in elementary school, I was highly regarded in high school.
What did I think about the turn of events? How did I feel in those first heady days of high school? I thought all of it was funny. I never took any of it seriously.
I was mature enough to know the wheel of fate was spinning and my good time had arrived by happenstance. The experience offered me a useful lesson on legitimacy. Easily gained and easily lost. Often superficial and based on little more than appearance, opinion.
In elementary school I had been damned. All my siblings were damned, because of our position in that narrow society. In high school, I could do no wrong. I walked in the sun.
Same person. One lucky, one unlucky.
When I started this blog I promised I would describe two first days, one dark and one light. The wheel turns and changes everything, decides on winners and losers.
Maybe this isn't the blog intended by the prompt, but it's the only way I know to write about my first day.
Thank you for reading my blog. Peace and health to all.