What can you remember about your last day at school/college?

It was graduation and stupid hot for a day in May. I remember leaving my house with several friends to walk to the graduation site. About two blocks away I realized I’d forgotten something — what that was I have no idea but it ended with me hustling back to the house then off again to graduation. Pretty sure by the time I got to the lawn I was dripping sweat inside my polyester graduation gown. Genteelly, of course, seeing as I was matriculating from a southern university. (Guffaws silently seeing as I’ve never been considered genteel in my entire life.)

Were you close enough to walk to school or did you need transport?

I don’t remember walking to any of my schools but there were a number of them over the years so that’s just my best recollection. There was whatever preschool may have happened in California then Fairfax, New Jersey, Virginia Beach, and Massachusetts. I do have the faintest memory of spending a couple of months with my grandma, and that school would have been walking distance from her house. I think. Can’t for the life of me picture it.

Did you have a favourite teacher?

I did. My third grade teacher was Mrs. Hildebrand. She took such good care of me as I adjusted to being the new kid in yet another school. I remember her being compassionate but also a really good teacher. My twelfth grade English teacher was Mr. Emmons. He was the first to call me a writer. He let me use the computer in the teacher’s lounge during my study hall so I could work on my play and spent countless hours outside of class helping me edit. Mr. Emmons is the reason I believed I was good enough to be published.

Would you like to go back to school?

Sometimes I think I would. Back in the day I was interested in writing classes but creative writing wasn’t considered a respectable major. Not that English majors were raking in the dough but I guess by comparison it was the more “responsible” choice. Studying in a creative writing program could be a neat twist at this point in my life.

Gratitude:

Dry socks, spring temps in wintertime, Gracie’s happy tail, when Differin actually kills off my random zit overnight, and this remarkably extensive resource from SunnyDaeJones for book recommendations.

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