THE INSTITUTE

All my life people have told me I have very nice penmanship. The reason could be one of two: one may be I am artistically inclined, or two may be because of my early years of education at Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School on Aberdeen Street in Brooklyn. I like to believe that the later is true.

A whole morning was often dedicated to teaching each student the correct way to hold a pencil, with a pincer grasp, the slant of the paper on the desk, the posture and the correct formation of the letter being created. Up on the wall, surrounding the room, and under the pictures of Washington and Lincoln, who sat under the cross, was the famous alphabet with guidelines from ‘Aa’ to ‘Zz’. The pictures reminded us that we were American; the crucifix reminded us that we better pay attention or that would happen to us, and of course the alphabets gave us a clue.

The teacher would stroll the room overlooking your paper and try very hard to change the left-handers to right-handers, move the pencil from your middle finger to your index finger, straighten your posture and clearly and precisely as possible, form your letters correctly. Non-compliance meant that your ears might hurt.

TLW (The Little Woman) had the same kind of education as I did early on, with the same tools. Unfortunately, she was sick the day they taught penmanship, and so writes left-handed, and because of that, I’m not even sure that she legally signed the marriage license! As you know, I have to take her notes to me to the pharmacist to read back to me. I tried once to hold it up on a mirror, but the darn mirror cracked and she yelled at me to be more careful!

Aside from the penmanship lessons, the school taught me other things as well: deportment, God, and respect. It was a kind of Institute of higher learning. I learned that women were equal to any man, that respect for adults meant something, and that ‘Thank you’ had a meaning.

Mom and Dad also supplemented the institute, with rules such as: “If I hear that the teacher needed to discipline you at school, when you get home you will get the rest!”

It was an imposing building, three stories high and made of brick, which matched the church building and the rectory. There was a large multi-sectioned schoolyard and even a garden where the priests lived. The building had it’s own meaning aside from the classroom. It told me that there was where all I was going to be worth was learned. That was the place where they waited for me in the schoolyard and started to direct my education. They made me line up in a class, move by grade to my classroom, and like Pavlov’s dog, when to move and eat by the sound of a bell!

To Mom it was a happy place. For her! It was where she managed to maintain her sanity for a few precious hours a day, until I left the building and returned home. After a day with the brothers and nuns and frustrated lay-teachers, Mom’s wooden spoons seemed like a great place to be.