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(This is an excerpt from Flirting With Stupid)

It was my first day at St. Francis de Sales and I was terrified.  It was September 1960, and I had just turned six.  The year before, I attended kindergarten at Fitzgerald public school.  Mom would walk me to school with my little brother Tim in the stroller.  Back then, mom didn’t drive.  Kindergarten was fun!  It was art, and play-doh and stories and songs and playing on the monkey bars.  It was having a sweet older teacher named Mrs. Rickles, whom we’d call Mrs. Freckles, which was high hilarity to a five-year old.  But this was daunting and serious.  No more fun and games.  Instead of wearing play clothes to school, I had to don a uniform, consisting of a navy jumper with a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar (yep, that’s what they were called).  My ensemble was completed with knee socks and the worst part…shoes that looked like boy shoes!  Yep, I was scared shitless, in uniform, wearing boy shoes, oh, and did I mention I was unusually tall for my age?  Not too easy to blend into the crowd.  And if I did try to slouch, mom would put her knuckle in my spine and say, “Stand up straight.  There’s nothing worse than a tall girl that slouches.”  I could think of many things worse, but I would throw my shoulders back and straighten up.

So, back to the boy shoes.  They were actually corrective shoes which doesn’t sound much better.  Apparently, I walked on the outside edge of my feet, causing me to destroy shoes at a fast rate.  The doctor’s recommended solution?  Sturdy, corrective shoes!  One style, two colors:  Red and black.  I guess they thought girls would like red better?  Mom encouraged me to get the red shoes, she probably thought they were slightly more feminine.  But when I looked at them, I thought, “why don’t we just put flashing lights on my feet so everyone can see that I have to wear these stupid boy shoes!”  I chose the black shoes as marginally better.

Now my older brother, Dan, was already going to St. Francis: he started the year before.  When mom walked him into his classroom on his first day of school, a nun hurried over to take his hand and show him to his seat.  Dan, who had never seen a nun before, and I imagine felt some of the trepidation I was feeling now, punched the nun in the stomach.  I hoped she wasn’t going to be my teacher this year.  So, also began the adventure of following a grade behind Dan, St Francis de Sales’ very own rebel without a cause.

At SFDS, there were nuns and what they called lay teachers, who were regular teachers dressed in regular clothes, instead of habits.  My first-grade teacher was a nun, and not the nun Dan punched.  Whew! Her name was Sister David Michael.  I never knew why so many of them had men names, maybe it made them feel tougher?  Maybe they wished they were men?  But, then why the long dresses?

Our nuns were of the IMS variety.  There were different orders, kind of like birds, with each order having their own colors and headdresses.  The IMS wore long navy dresses with floor length black capes and what looked like a small cape on their heads with white starched bands on their foreheads and large white curved collars and neck bands.  These costumes were ominous and uncomfortable looking, giving most nuns a more menacing look.  Maybe these women had been bad and this was their punishment.  Dealing with these women was often ours.

Mom walked me into the classroom and I was directed to my seat in the back of the room.  I quickly learned that it was very Catholic to line you up from shortest to tallest and to seat you in the classroom accordingly.  Now, this part of the terrorizing day, I was okay with.  Maybe no one would notice me as much in the back of the room and hopefully no one would notice my shoes!

I felt anxious as I saw mom leave the room and so wanted to run after her, but I was frozen in my seat.  I prayed that the day would go quickly and that my feet would correct quickly.  I cautiously looked around the room at all of the uniformed strangers, also fidgeting in their seats.  I felt a sinking sensation.  As Dorothy Gale would say in one of my favorite movies, The Wizard of Oz, “I’m not in Kansas anymore”.  Maybe I should have chosen the red shoes.  Maybe they possessed powers like the ruby slippers in the movie.  I closed my eyes and said to myself, “There’s no place like home,” and clicked my heels three times.  I imagined my bedroom and my book lying on the bed.  I opened my eyes only to find that I was still in the classroom.

It was going to be a long day.  Sigh.

I’m learning that the world can be scary and I can’t do anything about it.