Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.

My first day of school is burned in my memory. I was so excited I couldn’t get to sleep the night before. Mother dressed me in a red plaid, pleated, suspender skirt, a white blouse, red cotton socks and brown two strap shoes. The red cotton socks had no elastic so they slid down on my heels. I took them off and was going to throw them away but Miss Crow made me put them in my red plaid book satchel. My brown leather two strap shoes were Mother’s solution to my not being able to tie my shoes.

The first thing I noticed was a girl wearing glasses with red plaid frames. I had never seen a child in glasses, much less red plaid frames. How I coveted those glasses.

Miss Crow seated us according to her alphabetical chart, then had us stand up and tell our names. I was horrified to find myself seated between Virginia and Peter. My sister had secretly fed me the misinformation that Virginia was the proper name of a girl’s genitalia. I wanted nothing to do with Virginia, a girl with a name so shocking I’d never even said it out loud. Peter was even worse, the name for a boys genitalia.

I didn’t know what kind of mess I had gotten into.