My first engagement with St. William was as a first grade student. And while I can't remember the names of all my nuns and lay teachers, it must be true that you never forget your first. And that was Sister Clarelle.
Looking back, I remember her as being young,relatively new to the order and a wonderful starting point.
In those days we started in what was referred to as "the old school", the one of the two school buildings that had been there quite a long time. The relatively recently built "new school" might as well have been a different country to us. That was where the higher grades,the older kids, learned.They had the newer accomodations with actual coat rooms behind the blackboard. We had a closet with big old wooden doors that swung open all at once and came off the track often making it impossible to close. We got to know the custodians well .
Such was life in the old building where urinals flushed automatically. Rumor had it that in the new school, the urinals had a lever you could pull to flush those things. Talk about high living. And hand dryers! No rough brown paper towels! I imagined that scholastic wonderland as a place that probably even had that new school smell. In our building the school bell rang so loud it might still be effecting my hearing. In the new school, a chime and muffled bell was much less startling,less like an alarm sending a firefighter to a roaring blaze.
I was a nervous first grader,a condition that has followed me through life. There was no kindergarten at St William so most of us went to nearby Locke School, part of the Chicago public school system. It was there where I became a championship level gagger. I didn't like it there and I "got sick" so often, my kiddie classmates would imitate me by putting their hands over their mouths in mock nauseation.
On day one of my school days at Locke,already suffering separation anxiety, it was no help when my kindergarten teacher,Mrs Trodol, used this as an opening line as she threw her arms open and proudly announced : "Welcome to your new home!" That is NOT what a child already wanting to go home wants to hear. I freaked out immediately. I hope she changed her opening line for the kids that came after me and may have thought Locke was their new address . St.William today has had kindergarten for decades with outstanding teachers. If only I could've started my learning life there.
But I digress.
I've come into St.William with those same anxieties ,buffered by the fact that I was closer to home, knew a kid or two in my class,and Sister Clarelle gave no indication we were not going to be able to return home,which was now nearby.
Whatever nervousness I had was trumped by a new classmate in shorts who asked for permission to use the washroom. He requested that permission a little too late and he was wearing shorts, remember. So let's leave it at that. I still remember this unfortunate first grader's name but I will never divulge it. No St. William tell alls here. My first day of grammar school I witnessed my first "accident".
More on my student experiences next time including a life changing incident, a couple of interesting priests from those days and my first memory of getting a laugh, which hooked me on trying to get them forever.
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