Threads Come Undone
Does The Past Ever Hold?
I was reminded recently of a four-year old memory of my elementary school being torn down and I thought it was worth revisiting since I didn’t have this forum back then to share my thoughts about it.
In the piece, I mention that I didn’t feel nostalgic about that school, and that much is true. But the idea of the physical manifestations of past events just disappearing has been on my mind lately. Maybe the kids are just getting older. Maybe my connections to my hometown and home neighborhood are fading.
On a recent trip to my hometown, all I could do was point to a big empty lot when telling Little Bean where I went to school, and that felt, I don’t know, disconcerting.
Anyway, as you’ll read near the end of the piece, I still own a book given to me by my sixth grade teacher. I posted picture of the book below. I guess that will have to remain my anchor. What do you all think? Is there a physical place in your background, your memory, that no longer exists that leaves you feeling a bit empty? Tell us about it. Till then, here’s the piece as originally published.
I just learned today that my Catholic elementary school in my hometown is being torn down. Huh. They posted some pictures of what the school looks like these days.
I don't feel nostalgic, exactly, though it's a curious thing when a place so embedded in your psyche just disappears off a map. Being taught by strict nuns for the first six grades of my life was a mixed bag, for sure.
In the second grade, there was a part time nun that went by the menacing name of Sister Emerencia. Just walking into the classroom in the morning to discover our regular teacher was out would cause some children to burst out in tears at the thought of Sister Emerencia's imminent appearance.
In another grade, maybe 4th, our teacher would line up the class into boys and girls for spelling quizzes. The girls would get words like cat and run, while the boys received skeleton and anteater. By the end of class, the girls would be admiring their gold stars while the boys sat like defeated dunces.
And yet, this was the same place where Sister Mary would sit us in a circle and lay out a map of the world at our feet and we'd repeat all those mysterious wonderful place names out loud; Hong Kong, Wales, Nepal, and even then I'd think, I'm going to all of them someday. And I have.
And it's the place where Miss Janet, my sixth grade teacher and the first lay teacher of my life, gave me a book upon graduation, about mythology. She signed it, Keep Dreaming. I still have that book. Maybe she saw something in me.
Anyway, no tears. Just thoughts.
We are what we were, we try to be better than we are.
In the 1970s, my grandfather was president of the first bank here in town. When the single-story building was constructed, a time capsule was placed in a corner stone, with the intention that it would be open after 100 years. Unfortunately, the bank itself lasted only a couple years before it was sold to another bank out of state, my grandfather resigned, and went on to other jobs. All of this happened before I was born, but I was told about it many times, especially when my family drove by the building. It housed other banks over the years, most recently a Citizens Bank. Just a few years ago, I was on the way to Market Basket and, as I passed that corner, I almost drove off the road: the building has been demolition. After pulling into the grocery store parking lot, I stared off through the windshield. Although I had never set foot in the building, it loomed large iny mind.
That spelling Bee - she sure was not doing the girls justice.
In the 80's I lived in a great apartment and have fond memories of my time there (even though I worked two jobs at the time). It was on the top floor of a very old building with some businesses below, but in a small town near the Jersey Shore. (Manahawkin - Land of Tall Corn). Behind it was a real Diner (which I worked in briefly before I had the apartment). Anyway - the building is still there but is revamped for all businesses (one day it will be torn down as the area is "growing")) and the diner has been redone into a restaurant. Memories-every breath makes a memory - it is a wonder we do not explode.