I am on my way to second grade, early in the fall when the weather is still summery and the sky is blue. The sun lights up everything along Main Street in Beech Grove, Indiana: the gas station with the wooden bay doors, the dime store with its wood plant floors visible through the big picture window, and the small building which is the public library.
I have crossed two crosswalks to get from the road which leads to my street to Main Street, and I am now in what passes for downtown in Beech Grove. Once the intersection is behind me, I am safely away from the convent on the south side of Main, which scares me as I don’t know the schedule on which the torrent of silent nuns in penguin-style “Sound of Music” habits come marching out single file. It makes me nervous when the wooden door opens and they come out in complete silence, walking in a perfect column.
I am not yet at Beech Grove Elementary, with all its rules and the gang of bully boys who chase us girls on the walk home. I still have a couple of blocks of morning freedom. The sun is shining on me and on all the world, and I have matching red plastic barettes (shaped like ribbon bows) holding my hair back over my ears. I swing my red plaid metal lunchbox (slightly rusty inside, smelling of peanut butter and celery), and I sing “I Want To Hold Your Hand” at the top of my lungs.
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