Last writing I told you about the soft and lazy summer days of our childhood, during the great depression, when cousin Carrie and I pretended we were adults and doing what we dreamed we wanted to become, she, a nurse that she did become. The other half of that duo, when we played, wanted to become a teacher. Not just any teacher, but I wanted to be an English teacher. Carrie was my pupil during those play times.
Especially in rainy weather, when we could not play outside, "doctoring" butterflies and houseflies and, subsequently, having their funerals, we played teacher/pupil, with my cousin the pupil and I the teacher. We used every scrap of paper we could find. Paper to write on was not as plentiful in our households as it later became. We wrote "papers," not yet knowing the word "essay." Mostly, we wrote letters and notes to anyone, our "pretend" people, and we also did some adding and subtracting.
My dad had a tiny book that he usually kept in a shirt pocket. The book contained calculations such as determining area, square feet, board feet, acreage, and other measurements. He drilled into Carrie and me these mathematical calculations when we played school. So, by the time she and I were first graders, we knew quite a bit about simple arithmetic and note-writing.
As a "pretend" teacher, with my "pretend" student, I was as much of a taskmaster as my dad was when he drilled her and me. But she and I didn't care as much about accuracy as my dad cared about it. So, when left on our own, we may have had some "pretend" answers to certain questions.
My life took many turns and detours before I realized what I have regarded as my true calling: becoming a high school English teacher. However, I felt blessed to have had the other training before teaching school, as I feel the other experiences equipped me to be a better teacher, especially of Business English. The other experiences also equipped me, I feel, to have more empathy for my students and to have a better understanding that each one learned somewhat differently and that each had a unique perspective.
In my life, those soft, lazy summer days of dreaming and pretending came to have a special bearing on my entire life.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Soft, lazy summer days