My "home" was school for many years. My school was not in an imposing or landmark building, but rather a square, four-storied, mixed-brick edifice at the foot of Beacon Hill in Boston. The only home-like feature of the place was an Oriental rug in the modest office of the principal on the second floor. The remainder was a sea of brown corridors, classrooms, an assembly hall (with a huge inglenook stone fireplace), a gym, and a drafty, noisy, enclosed roof where we could run and let off steam as elementary students.
School meant rules, written and unwritten. Be on time. Do your homework. Show respect. It was a private day school, all-girls, college preparatory. Recess at eleven provided the upperclass students with a chance to herd themselves down a lot of stairs and enjoy juice and cookies put out by the kitchen staff every day at one end of the gym. A hot lunch, served family-style later in the day, took place at tables of eight. Usually, there was a teacher at the head of each, and if it was one of the French Teachers, one was supposed to speak at least a little French.
We had music, art, gym and dance classes. In the latter two, we sported hideous dark green, four-piece tunic gym suits with bloomers. In the fine weather of fall and spring, we students were bused out of the city to the airy suburb of Brookline where we played field hockey in our awful green gym suits, our legs shielded in shin guards.
I loved the rules. The order. The expectation of accomplishment. The kindness and the intellect of the teachers. The school motto was “De Mieux en Mieux” (Better and Better). You were watched and encouraged to excel. You were valued.
At my real home, the order was crumbling during my school years. My mother was in her second unhappy marriage to a man sixteen years her senior who did not do well bringing up children. While I was studying hard to master math and Latin, my mother was busy learning how to become an alcoholic. Warmth and encouragement were not in abundance in a house so divided. The adults were always in turmoil.
My escape every day was to the haven of my school – my "home" until I graduated in 1953 and went out into a world where cookies were no longer served to me at 11:00am.
School meant rules, written and unwritten. Be on time. Do your homework. Show respect. It was a private day school, all-girls, college preparatory. Recess at eleven provided the upperclass students with a chance to herd themselves down a lot of stairs and enjoy juice and cookies put out by the kitchen staff every day at one end of the gym. A hot lunch, served family-style later in the day, took place at tables of eight. Usually, there was a teacher at the head of each, and if it was one of the French Teachers, one was supposed to speak at least a little French.
We had music, art, gym and dance classes. In the latter two, we sported hideous dark green, four-piece tunic gym suits with bloomers. In the fine weather of fall and spring, we students were bused out of the city to the airy suburb of Brookline where we played field hockey in our awful green gym suits, our legs shielded in shin guards.
I loved the rules. The order. The expectation of accomplishment. The kindness and the intellect of the teachers. The school motto was “De Mieux en Mieux” (Better and Better). You were watched and encouraged to excel. You were valued.
At my real home, the order was crumbling during my school years. My mother was in her second unhappy marriage to a man sixteen years her senior who did not do well bringing up children. While I was studying hard to master math and Latin, my mother was busy learning how to become an alcoholic. Warmth and encouragement were not in abundance in a house so divided. The adults were always in turmoil.
My escape every day was to the haven of my school – my "home" until I graduated in 1953 and went out into a world where cookies were no longer served to me at 11:00am.
Header photo by T. Guzzio.
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This is Wendy Gifford's second piece in Prodigal's Chair. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, Gerald. Her email address is [email protected].
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