Moments in Montclair Part 3

The Palmer Method

I was informed, after a solemn kindergarten graduation ceremony, that I would be bidding my pals Tommy and Robert adieu and heading to Immaculate Conception Grammar School for the remainder of my elementary school years.  Excited at the prospect of joining my brothers who were already there, I was fitted for a blue plaid jumper and a pair of brand new black and white saddle shoes. Early one brisk September morning, I set off with a baloney and cheese sandwich in my new book bag, behind David, Timmy and Todd, and walked the 1.2 miles to my new school.  Because they had been taking this trek for a few years now, my brothers ignored my mother’s suggested route to school and took me down back roads and across the train tracks at Walnut St. Station where undesirables gathered from time to time.  My education of the world outside my previous five block radius had begun. I found myself in a classroom with freshly varnished floors and wooden desks in straight rows.  I found myself taking a seat and staring into the darting black eyes of Sr. Kenneth Mary.  She was a marvel to behold. A creamy bespectacled face, gripped by a white wimple, that floated above a mountain of navy material that fell in mysterious folds to the floor.  I was used to my mother’s face, dazed and floating above mounds of laundry that she carried up and down the stairs, but she at least she had legs to anchor her. This creature seemed to hover an inch above the floor.  And she scared me to death. As she called roll, I tried to figure out how she could have the first name of a man. And then I noticed a shadow of darker hair above her lip. For all I knew Sr. Kenneth Mary was a Kenneth.  I decided then and there to leave that mystery unsolved. I swore on my heart that I would not make the same mistakes on the playground that I did in kindergarten.  I was turning over a new leaf. As we were read the inexhaustible list of rules for the classroom, I knew I’d have no wiggle room for anything but  holy behavior. Sr. Kenneth taught us to sit up straight and fold our hands. She taught us how to stand still in parallel lines, to ignore hunger and fatigue and urges to go to the bathroom until bells rang. She showed us the proper way to genuflect in church, and how to fill our mite boxes with pennies during Lent. But, her greatest joy, the moments when she was most animated and excited, was when she was teaching us perfect penmanship. She had a thing about it. The pronunciation of the letter “p” gave her a certain thrill. I can still hear that forced puff of air projected through her pursed lips. “Please, children, take your Palmer Methods and place them on your desks,” she’d instruct as she inserted five pieces of white chalk into a brace-like object that she would use to draw straight lines across the chalkboard.  As she was lining those boards we’d scramble to find the correct page and unzip our pencil cases in search of a no.2 pencil with a sharp tip. Then, she’d call five or six lucky students to the board and show them how to correctly hold chalk, four fingers on one side, thumb on the other, so that the arm would be free to move about in a wide circle. (If you had the unfortunate “condition” of being a lefty, you were asked to take your seat. Bumping elbows or opposite motions were not allowed.) The rest of us at our seats would practice in our Palmer books. “Okay people, place the point of your pencil on the black line and proceed,” she would say, a tiny spray of saliva visible with each P. As she floated up and down the rows, she’d chant a three beat rhythm to which we were supposed to draw perfect circles with tops and bottoms that just barely touched the black lines above and below them. “One, two, three.  One, two, three. One, two, three.” The kids at the board, like happy window washers, would draw circles upon circles that would eventually resemble Slinkies stretched to the limit. We, at our seats, would fill page after page as Sr. Kenneth would stop here and there to lightly press our pinkies to the paper (Pinkies were made by God to anchor and guide the hand!) or wonder aloud if perhaps poor Paul would end up repeating first grade if his penmanship did not improve. (Poor Paul being one of those leftys who never got to stand at the board.) Weeks turned into months and practiced these circles endlessly until poor Paul had the nerve, one Tuesday morning, to ask (without raising his hand first!) when we might possibly be able to advance to an actual letter.  The room fell to a dead quiet as we collectively held our breaths to see what Sr. Kenneth would do.  A bit shocked, herself, at the audacity of such a break in our routine, she strode over to Paul, rosary beads jangling somewhere in the navy folds, and peered down at him over her rimless glasses. “And what letter do you propose?”  she asked plainly. “Well,” thought Paul as he chewed on his pencil and pondered. “I can write my name real well. How about a "P"?” Sr. Kenneth actually smiled a half-smile, and the rest of us exhaled when it was apparent that Paul would would live to see another day. She picked up Paul’s Palmer book, thumbed through a few pages, sighed, and then replaced it on his desk slanted to the right to suit his left-handed technique and said, “We’ll start with "A" next Monday. Now, please, pupils, pick up your pencils and proceed with your practice.”  

2 Comments

• 

  By Lynne, August 7, 2012 @ 6:13 pm

  always enjoy your stories, keep them coming

• 

  By Susan, August 7, 2012 @ 9:53 pm

  Thanks, Lynne! I have a few more up my sleeve

Other Links to this Post

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

*Name

*Email (not published)

Website