Life in a "Foreign" Land
I am working on a post to record my youth in 15 blog posts. To find the beginning of my story, click here. Then part 2, part 3, and part 4 are also available. To participate in Mommy's Piggie Tales, click the button at the bottom of this post. Last week I mentioned how I went to public school then homeschooled for the remainder of second grade when we first moved to Massachusetts. Pepper said she was curious if we continued to homeschool after that. It was an excellent question. Massachusetts was a time of schooling upheaval for me, and no, we did not continue to homeschool.
Third grade was the only year from second until fifth grade that I went to one school for the entire year. My parents found a Christian school called Christian Day School. It was a good school, but if I recall correctly was about 40 minutes from our house. We carpooled with another family. We would meet in a mall parking lot to swap kids – one week my parents would drive, and the next the other family would drive. I remember distinctly one time when my dad dropped me off at the mall, and our car started smoking. I found out when I got home that not long after my dad put me in the other car, it burst into flames. I am thankful that we were protected and in a safe environment, the parking lot, instead of the road. I always got a kick out of the story of the firefighters. When they came to put out the fire, apparently the tires exploded and scared them half to death.
Third grade was the only year from second until fifth grade that I went to one school for the entire year. My parents found a Christian school called Christian Day School. It was a good school, but if I recall correctly was about 40 minutes from our house. We carpooled with another family. We would meet in a mall parking lot to swap kids – one week my parents would drive, and the next the other family would drive. I remember distinctly one time when my dad dropped me off at the mall, and our car started smoking. I found out when I got home that not long after my dad put me in the other car, it burst into flames. I am thankful that we were protected and in a safe environment, the parking lot, instead of the road. I always got a kick out of the story of the firefighters. When they came to put out the fire, apparently the tires exploded and scared them half to death.
That classroom was also where I got introduced to the magical world of C.S. Lewis and the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe series. These are still some of my favorite books. I cannot WAIT to read them with my children. It was “The Horse and His Boy” that I read first, because I thought it was book primarily about a horse. It wasn’t. But I was hooked. I was horse crazy, and remained that way into my adult life. In third grade my parents started me on horseback riding lessons. Being in New England, I learned English style riding, which was interesting to try to find when we moved to the Midwest later in life. Horseback riding lessons were one of the best gifts my parents could have given me.
These days my mom always read to me, even though I was a competent reader. We always had a chapter book that we were reading together. When she put me to bed (they would take turns one night and then the next) we would read a chapter. Sometimes I would read, but usually she read. Some books I remember are “Black Beauty,” “The Secret Garden,” and “In Grandma’s Attic.” I’m sure there were more.
In third grade we also toured New York City, being that we lived so close to it. I remember being so upset that we couldn’t climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty. If it has an elevator, it was broken, and apparently my parents did not think that my two-year-old or so brother could climb all of those stairs. I thought they were sooooo unreasonable. I think we also toured Washington DC on that same trip, or we did shortly thereafter. I always thought that subway tokens were very cool. Using a coin to get on a special train was very, very cool.
Every year when we lived there our main vacation would be to go home to California. I always was thrilled to meet back up with Klaire from across the street. Since my grandparents lived on that same street still, I always got to see her. California always felt like home to us. Incidentally, I just found Klaire on Facebook this week. Going through my youth for this project made me think to look her up. What an interesting medium. But that’s a rabbit trail. Here we are playing in my grandparent's living room.
Life in Massachusetts was culture shock, for sure. Growing up on tex-mex cooking, it was a shock to find that there were NO tortillas in the grocery stores. Not one. I remember my mom crying in the isles of the store when she couldn’t find them to make tacos, one of our staple meals. We had my grandparents mail us some regularly or bring us some in their suitcases when they visited.
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