Random Thoughts

Thoughts in my head. They're all out of order.

Can't get the image of my eighth grade English teacher out of my head. Mrs. Curtis, Ma Curtis as she was also known. She was a big, farm woman that took on boarders as well as teaching at The Helen E. James School, the old Burgy High as it was affectionately known.

Ma Curtis was a large lady with gray hair in a bun, floral, rayon dresses, probably bought mail order from Sears and Roebuck or Montgomery Ward. Can still see her at the board, huge arms with what my mother used to call dewlaps, hanging out. Diagramming sentences on the chalkboard trying to make some order out of English for us after she'd gotten up and fixed breakfast for all the lumberjacks or whatever they were that boarded at her house.

That was the year I knew I was really in trouble with writing and the English language. I'd go to her desk for extra help and she'd just end up shaking her head at my results.

My reading level was consistently four years ahead of my grade level but I always tested average for comprehension and retention. I wasn't surprised. I had a father that couldn't spell for beans. He once asked my younger brother how to spell table.

Spelling and reading came easy to me. Books kept me alive as a child.
I spent a lot of my time retreating into the other worlds of books. As I know I've mentioned earlier, I almost flunked English in the fourth grade for not writing my book reports because I was too busy reading every bio that our school library held.

I faked it through that 8th grade English class. I'm not sure how.

What I do recall was that I spent almost all my time in that class reading the New York Times that I got at student discount. Reading the paper and copying the fashion illustrations from Saks, Bonwit Teller and Henri Bendel. I didn't learn much about grammatically correct writing.

I still can recall Mrs Curtis' arms, her shaking head, the blackboard and the old, oak trim around the walls. I remember also, exactly where my desk was in relation to hers and how I sat and read and drew my way through that class.