the discomfort of 1984

Third and fourth grade I was in the same class, a third-fourth combination, and had the same teacher. He was a man. His wife taught second grade and directed school plays.

The school was private and christian, and I went for almost two years. The last quarter of fourth grade, I transferred to public school for the first time, Alice Shaw, where I went only that one quarter because then some lines on a map were redrawn, and I was suddenly in the district of Patterson Road, where I went fifth and sixth grade.

Mr Fakename I don't remember too well--I remember being intimidated, being told I was wrong about gravity, and a strange speech he gave us one day when he was angry.

I'll bend over backwards for you. But I won't fall. Because I'll only go so far.

This was an interesting extended metaphor that dazzled my little eight year old brain. Mr Fakename was pretty angry. At what, I couldn't tell you. And he later became the principal, didn't he?

The school was bordered by a mortuary, cemetery, and hospital, which wasn't lost on me. Every few days, out to play on the playground, I smelled bodies being cremated, and which unnerved me, to say the least, and I didn't discuss it with anyone at the time.

But a few years ago, I called up the Dudley-Hoffman Mortuary and asked them about it. Yes, the nice gentleman told me, they did burn bodies there every few days, around 1984. Yes, there was a distinctive smell.

So that's how I spent third and fourth grade. Later the school was bought by the hospital, so hospital stuff now occurs in the room where I learned the concept of fractions.

I was in after school care since my mom worked at the preschool, which was downstairs. When it was hot lunch day, if I forgot my money, Mr Fakename let me go to the preschool and ask my mom for it.

Sometimes the brighter girls were pulled out of after school care by teachers who wanted help grading papers or putting corrugated cardboard borders on the bulletin boards, and I was often chosen.

Sometimes I was chosen by Mr Fakename, and one day, he gave me a Lifesavers lollipop, cherry with a white swirl in it, and told me not to tell anyone. I knew there was something creepy about a "don't tell anyone" request made by a man to a little girl. This didn't sit well with me either.