In the wall of my study hangs a black and white photograph
of my sixth-grade class. All of us are
there except one. He was the most popular boy in our class and easily the most
brilliant, becoming a professor of applied mathematics. I would often daydream that I’d save him from
a fire by carrying him out of a burning building. (At the time he was among the shorter boys
and I was among the taller.)
He is not the only person who has left this world. The cute girl in the second row, who lived
next door to my aunt and her family, died young. Since those of us who are still alive are 80
or 81, the gaps in our numbers are probably considerable by now. Next to her sits my first date, whom I took
to the circus when I was thirteen.
In the third row stands a tall girl who lived in the street
behind ours. When I told her, forty or
so years later, that I had had a crush on her then, she turned unsmiling away
from me.
We’re standing on the steps of our school building, with the
tallest standing on the top step and the shortest sitting on the ground. Some of the boys are wearing ties. Others are wearing knickers with long
socks. Most of the boys and girls are
fresh faced and smiling, with the notable exception of yours truly, who’s
scowling at the camera. My head is
topped by a mass of curls. I was tall
for my age so I was standing on the top step. Every time I look at myself
in that photograph, I’m struck by how very dark I was. This was no tan. This was me.
“Dark as the Ace of Spades,” my mother used to say of my father, and in
that regard I am his son.
Even now, about 70 years later, I can still recall the names
of about half the class. I’d be thrilled
to attend a reunion, but there’s almost no possibility of one’s being held. What’s been the fate of my classmates? My curiosity is almost great enough for me to
join Facebook. I’d enter the name of
our school, the John Ward School.
Perhaps that would reconnect me with some of my sixth-grade colleagues.
Looking at their youthful faces now, there’s no way of
knowing who will become distinguished, who will fail at their careers, who will
remain single and who will divorce, who will suffer more than average heartbreak,
and who will die young. No one looking at
that scowling, dark fellow with the mass of curls would ever predict that he’d amount to much. Considering that I was born into a prosperous family that could afford to give me a first-class education, perhaps I should have achieved more. But I'm satisfied with what I've done. In any case it's too late now to change the assessment, if anyone is keeping score.
2010-2012 Anchises - An
Old Man’s Journal All Rights Reserved
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