READING IS FUNDAMENTAL /or/ LEARNING TO FLY THE OLD SCHOOL BFF

I was never much for school after about 4th grade. To be honest, I found it boring.

Now we lived in the South quadrant in Parkchester, I guess that’s why St. Helena's

was our parish. Church and grade school all in one compound. If you didn't grow

up Catholic I don't think any description I or anyone else could give would be

adequate. In my early years it was mostly nuns who taught at or school. Often the nuns

seemed brutal, and other times compassionate saints. Yard sticks were common still

in those days, but slowly fading away.

As time passed there were more and more lay teachers. There are several I remember 

and even some I've seen on Facebook. One in particular who I'm glad we had now was

Miss Swain. I'm thinking 4th or 5th grade. The thing that makes me thankful was

that, she, somehow, through this thick skull of mine made reading exciting, which

later became a very important and exciting part of my life.

It was during her class that each day, I'm really not sure when, or how long it was,

that she would read a portion from a book to us. And the one I remember most

was Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. There have been several movies made of it,

but none compared to the times sitting in Miss Swains class with my eyes half

closed thinking about that golden ticket, and what a wondrous and amazing place

this chocolate factories was. You see for me this was the time when I learned how a

good story could draw you in and make you feel like you are apart of it, like

you are actually standing where the characters are and in fact it's as if I became a

character in the story right there with the others. We had many teachers

throughout our time there at St. Helena's, and honestly I had a bigger crush on Miss

Foley, but without Miss Swain and her reading to us, my life would have been completely

different. (Of course St. Catherine’s math phonograph records and her antics up and down

the rows of desks was beyond compare. But that was math, and this is nouns, if you will.)

I would have never known the feeling of standing on the deck of the Pequad as Capt. Ahab

reached out and grabbed St. Elmo's Fire, or the fear and uneasiness of waiting to see what

would happen to us, when the police find out Johnny stabbed the soch, who was holding

Ponyboy under the water, or seeing the police shoot Dally whose gun wasn't even loaded. I

mean, I was there, at all those events, and you probably were too. I was sitting in that

balcony with Scout as Atticus defended Tom Robinson, and I was there when Ralph breaks

down over over the death of "Piggy". Like some sorta cross between Little Big Man and Forest

Gump, I was always there at the crucial moments in history. 

Thank you, Miss Swain and St. Helena's and authors everywhere who shaped my life and love for stories fictitious and real, and for memories that I carry around in my mind of good times

and bad times, good friends and former enemies. So next time you are reminiscing

about those good old days, stop for a moment, listen for that distant wind, and 

meet me at the flagpole to talk over those events that shaped our lives and made

us friends forever regardless how often we talk or see each other. or fought. The

original, BFF's if you will, old school style! From about 4th grade until our early

twenties, the people that I knew, hung with, fought with, embarrassed my self in

front of will always be a part of me, just like those characters in those novels will be.