Twenty years ago, one of my community college students wrote an essay about a day so busy that she forgot to pick up her seven-year-old daughter at school.
All tagged childhood
Twenty years ago, one of my community college students wrote an essay about a day so busy that she forgot to pick up her seven-year-old daughter at school.
The stray black kitten, known to neighborhood kids as Silky, climbs up the screen door to peer into our living room.
We sat close on the lunch table bench and passed the pencil between us, writing quickly into a notebook, filling two columns with our invented words and their translations.
With tightly squeezed fists, she extends her arms. One, two, three steps forward.
“A lion, a goat, and a bundle of grass,” said my teacher, her face like a shut gate. “A person has to ferry them across the river in a boat.”
Our family was polenta poor but our dentist, Dr. Fusco, had a father-in-law who was big with White Owl Cigars, one of the Yankees’ sponsors.
They weren’t Lees with the wave of stitching on the back pocket that the coolest girls wore. But as I checked out my backside in the mirror on my closet door, I didn’t care.
We’re scared of waves slinking up the shore, with each salty breath gasping and spitting foam …
My seven-year-old and I arrive at our traditional pumpkin patch. She picks out a huge, tall monstrosity.
I climb aboard the giant orange pillow, socks sliding on the rubber, and find my spot in the jostling hordes.
My dad rented out part of a resort. Loot bags, each waiting to be taken home by a party guest, stand neatly arranged in rows, like soldiers on a training field.
Father motions her behind the steering wheel. We’re on the field he graded with a landing strip in mind, so where’s the harm?
Miss Harvey announced that Bobby’s parents wanted to dedicate a tree for him. He was in our class before he died.
“First,” I say, “we need to beat the cream cheese until it's smooth.”
I had been sitting at the front of the school bus when it happened.
Mom buttoned me into my best pink dress, a ribbon tied in my hair, and sent us off to the restaurant where a famous pianist was booked.
When I turned twelve and began to struggle with the higher notes, I faked it, lip-synching the words.
When I was eleven years old, my Dad took me to a meeting in a smoky, crowded union hall.
Nervous and timid at my new job at the chain pharmacy, I was not prepared for conflict.
I’m two, maybe three, wearing a baggy diaper and standing in shin-deep puddle water. Leah’s here too, all pigtails and chubby legs and chubby cheeks.