Grade Primary is one of the easiest years to remember, even though it was quite long ago. The reason for that is mainly because it is the only year that I spent at the French school in Pubnico. There were two primary classes I think, but for some reason there were only 3 girls (including me) in my class. The other girls and I became fast friends (which didn’t last two days after I transferred).

Since it was so long ago, my memories are short little snapshots. But I have a lot of memories pertaining to the playground. (Who doesn’t? That where all the action was!) That year was the one they installed a new playground, one of the fancy schmancy all-plastic things. It had a tunnel slide, see-saws, and some Indiana-Jones-esque thing where you hung on to two handles suspended in the air and you could swing from one tower to another. I thought this particular part rather risky and I think I attempted it once and fell the two feet to the ground, and gave up. I wasn’t really an adventure-loving kid anyways. I remember this girl from the other primary class that I used to play with on the see-saws often, and the weird thing is that her cheeks looked like they were going to explode. They were really puffed out and veiny. Lucky for her, she grew out of it. There was an eighth grader who took to me as well, and we would play in the huge tires that were placed around the “big kid” playground. Yes, we had segregated playgrounds. Probably made sense. This was unfortunate because the swings were on the other side of the playground and those were by far my favorite. I had a swing-less year. I also had the unfortunate accident of running on the paved part outside the school, falling, and skinning both of my knees quite badly. I still have a bit of the scars.

The classroom wasn’t nearly as exciting. I think that my teacher was named Madame Yvette, but I could be wrong. I remember nap time being pretty interesting. The teacher would play a record (yes!) and we would all put our heads down on our desks for like 10 minutes or something. I don’t think it was very long. It was also my first “show and tell” situation. While I can’t remember what I brought, someone else brought kittens! Of course the class went nuts over that. We also had our first “religion” class, which is quite common in the French schools around here. Basically what we did in our religion class was the teacher would hand out letters and whoever got the letter M would get to put a rosary on the Virgin Mary mini-statue. Once I told my mom about it, she had me transferred to the English school before you could blink an eye. She told everyone it was because she wanted me to have friends closer to me though. I have a bunch of schoolwork from there that mom saved, but most of it is really just art projects. We did French work and some math but it was minimal.

Primary is when I was first fully conscious of how much I hated Halloween. I was all excited about going to school dressed as Minnie Mouse and when the time actually came, I don’t think I even went. My mom took me trick or treating that night and I screamed at the first house we went to, when the person who answered the door was dressed up looking scary. I don’t really leave the house on Halloween to this day. Another memorable holiday moment was the Christmas play. I was an angel, and I had one line, something about the Star of David being broken and having to fix it. I apparently called out “HI MOM!” in the middle of the show. I don’t actually remember doing it, but I’ve been told the story a few times.

I liked a lot how the French school incorporated the grades together and got the older kids involved in the younger’s lives. We had reading buddies to teach us reading or just tell us stories, we often went to go see plays by the older kids, and we would have events for all the grades. I found that changed a lot in the English school I went to. Sometimes I wonder how I would have turned out had I stayed in the French school, but I guess I’ll never know.

Inspired by my friend Mark, I decided to write a recap of every year that I was in school. Despite the fact that I am slightly younger than he is, I don’t think it will be any easier to remember much of anything before grade 8 but we’ll give it a shot.

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The name of my preschool or kindergarten (that must be a German word) or whatever-you-want-to-call-it-before-I-turned-5 was called Papillion et Pissenlit. Yes, it was French and situated in the next “village” or “hamlet” over, Pubnico. The name means Butterflies and Dandelions, but “pissenlit” itself was always hilarious to us kids because if you made that one word into three – piss en lit – it roughly translates to “pee in bed”. It was on the top floor of the community building, which ironically is the same building I recently took my wedding pictures in. There were two older ladies that ran it, I remember them being old then and I have no idea if they are still alive but I highly doubt it. A fair amount of the kids in it were also in my primary class the following year. A few instances of that particular year stand out to me.

First, I hated oranges (the fruit and at that time the juice too) at that early age. One day the teachers cut them up for us in slivers and I decided I liked them that way and would beg my neighbor to recreate them but never could the magic of those particular oranges be created. I still do not like the taste or texture of the fruit.

I also remember not being very sociable with the other kids. I have a distinct memory of being alone surrounded by shelves of books and reading, perfectly happy not to be playing with the others. I also remember making a little boy with no hair (or at least whitish-blondish wispy hair) cry because I hit him with a blunt object since I didn’t want to share. The boy probably had it coming – I don’t think I was a child that would take toys from others but often I would protect the toy I was playing with already. I don’t recall making any friends or being invited to playdates unless it was instigated by the mothers. I was probably a lot like I am now – not all that concerned with making friends as long as I had things I could do by myself.

I don’t think that I hated preschool or anything, but it wasn’t exactly something I loved either. I was just as content to play with my toys at home as I was anywhere else.

Next: Grade Primary (which is not grade 1 for those of you that don’t have our screwed up school system!)