Tuesday, March 27, 2007

In A Nutshell
L

In a Nutshell

A place set aside to answer 201 autobiographical questions
from a mother for her daughter. This may take awhile...join us if you like.


50. This is how I got to school each morning in my early years:

Well, the first school I went to was for a very short period of time, while Mama, Aunt Flo, Forry, and I lived in the trailer in Stockton. We left Forry with a woman in the trailer park and rode a bus (with two transfers) to the school, then Mama and Aunt Flo caught another bus, with one transfer, to work. By chance, they worked within a couple of blocks of each other.

Then Aunt Flo got engaged to her boss, and he bought a house with a mother-in-law cottage, and until they got married, he lived in the cottage and we were supposed to live in the house. Mama sold the trailer to buy furniture for that house. I walked a couple of blocks to school from there. That was where we were living when I Stalked the Tootsie Roll. I don't remember how long I went to that school, but what with coloring up the wall on the staircase and tempting seven year old son of one of Uncle Wes' customer's to climb out on the grape arbor and pick grapes for me, which resulted in his falling through the arbor and breaking his arm, I was soon packed off to St. Mary's of the Palms School for Girls, in Mission San Jose (which small town has since been incorporated into Freemont). And there, I lived at the school, so we got up, dressed, went to Mass (yes, every day. Yes, even me the nominal protestant child), had breakfast, and then walked to our classroom.

And then Mama married Daddy and we lived in the country outside of Stockton, and I walked to school, and on the first day wasn't used to going home from school and was so late that Mama insisted Daddy spank me as soon as he got home.

Then we moved to Puerto Rico, where I rode the school bus. And Denver and El Paso and Roswell, where I walked. And San Mateo, California where I walked until we moved and then I rode the bus. And, finally, to Modesto to live with Auntie, where I walked.

1 comment:

joared said...

Walking is certainly something I can recall doing a lot of in order to get to school in both city and country settings with our moves. This activity is pretty colorful stuff for young people today, with many shaking their heads they really don't want to hear about it, in my experience. Of course, they don't always get what they want. ;-)