Tag Archives: memoir

North Fairhaven

North Fairhaven Girl at Oxford School

Again, I was inspired by Chris Richard’s posts on Substack — Long Ago & Close By — about Oxford School. My hometown of Fairhaven, MA., closed the school in 2007 due to a declining student population, and it has since been converted into housing. This was the elementary school I attended as a child in the town’s northern end, and for me a good place to learn. That’s me above on my first day of school.

Oxford School was a short walk along Main Street from Jesse Street where I lived. I usually met up with other kids in the neighborhood, and years later, my sister came with me. It was a cold walk in winter, especially for us girls who were required to wear dresses or skirts. Snow pants kept our legs warm.

As Chris reported, the main brick building was finished in 1896. An addition was added in 1953 to handle North Fairhaven’s growing population. The addition had a gym with a stage, which was used for assemblies. The school bell in the tower came from Paul Revere’s foundry.

Due to the Baby Boomers, each grade, one through six, had enough for two full classes or a combination of grades like second and third in one. North Fairhaven, as I mentioned in an early post, attracted an influx of nationalities such as Polish, French Canadian, and Portuguese, many of them immigrants or the next generations. I recall the last names of classmates: Cabral, Benoit, Canto, Gonsalves, Hendricks, Ponte, Viera, Wojcik. Mine was Medeiros.

We were situated in the class according to our height, the shortest kids up front. I was somewhere in the middle. The desks in the original building were bolted to the floor, but movable in the addition.

My fellow students were the usual mix of personalities you would expect in a class. I would rank myself with the silly and smart girls. One memorable classmate in third grade was Frank who was so fascinated by movie monsters he kept a collection of photos. By the way, I still keep in contact with several classmates via social media.

School was easy for me, so I got good grades — making honor roll meant the family would get sundaes at Frates’ Dairy. I was happy to learn how to read and then later, how to write what others could read. Thank you to my teachers like Mrs. Cadell and Mrs. O’Neil.

Fourth grade, when Mrs. Darwin was my teacher, was a favorite year. We students worked hard at making perfectly round letters in cursive — although journalism ruined that for me. She read aloud A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Poohseries and taught us about world explorers.

And Mrs. Darwin gave me the freedom to write on my own, making up short stories and one-act plays. I assigned parts to my classmates, and we practiced at recess. Later, we performed in front of the class. I don’t remember what I wrote, but I do the feeling of using words to tell a story.

One sixth-grade teacher, who I will not identify, taught after serving in the military. He was a tough disciplinarian. If a student misbehaved, he, it was usually a boy, was given the option of being hit with a short or long stick. I don’t know how hard because I never had to make that choice.

During my time at Oxford School, we got a new principal, Miss Toledo. I recall two things about her: she was very short and she inspired a rhyme — “Holy Torpedo, here comes Toledo.”

We started the day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord’s Prayer, the Protestant version that ended: “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” We Catholics skipped that line. We sang patriotic songs.

We were expected to be quiet in class unless called upon and to raise our hands if we wanted to ask or answer something. No passing notes although we did.

I recall being pulled out of class for hearing and vision tests, getting our hair inspected for lice, and receiving a dose of polio vaccine via a sugar cube.

I realize now learning was tougher for some kids, and they didn’t have the educational resources that became available later. So, a few kids “stayed back” a grade, and then there was the mysterious “special class.”

The cafeteria was located in the bottom floor of the addition. Mrs. Foley, a North Fairhaven neighbor, was head cook. Lunch cost a quarter and milk, for those who brought their lunch, a dime. (We also had a milk break in our classroom.) We were served standard American fare and were expected to clean our plate. The worst menu item was hash. On Friday, lunch was a tuna fish sandwich or fish sticks, probably since most of the kids were Catholics who didn’t eat meat that day.

We kids burned off a lot of energy at recess, during a morning break and after lunch. A teacher supervised as we kids played. During inclement weather, we were in the gym or playing eraser tag in the classroom. That’s where two kids chased each other around the classroom with a blackboard eraser on top of their heads. If the eraser fell, you were out. I was actually good at it due to my flat head.

One popular game outside was Cock-a-Rooster. Kids lined up on one end of the large asphalt lot in front of the addition. One kid would yell, “Cock-a-Rooster,” and everyone would run to the other side. Whoever the kid touched, joined him or her in tagging for the next round. This would continue until one person was left. It was a bit exciting dodging the taggers.

Needless to say, playing on hard surfaces (in front and behind the school) meant scraped and scabby knees for many of us girls.

Other pastimes included hopscotch, jacks, and marbles. We jumped rope to rhymes, two of us girls swirling a long rope for a jumper. Here’s one: “Cinderella, dressed in yella/ Went downtown to meet her fells/ On the way her girdle busted/ How many people were disgusted / 5-10-15-20 ….”

Thanks Oxford School for a good start to my education.

And for those who want to read Chris Richards’ posts “The School on the Top of the Hill”, here they are: Part One and Part Two. Again, thanks to the readers he has sent my way.

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Hilltown Postcards

Hilltown Postcard: Following the Plow

When I worked as an editor for a daily newspaper in Western Mass., I drove a good country road, Route 143, from the small hilltown where we lived through two others to a valley city. Most of the year, it was a pleasant 45-minute commute with long views, deep forests, occasional wildlife, and very few vehicles. A traffic jam typically involved three cars stuck behind a logging truck on one of the route’s steep hills.

But then, there was winter.

I dreaded November. Rain that month meant black ice. And that was just the start of a long season of digging ourselves out of deep snow. I constantly kept tabs on the weather.

Prior to working as an editor for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, I was its correspondent for the town of Worthington where we lived, being paid by the inch, and after several years, I was on staff covering two more hilltowns — Chesterfield and Cummington — plus regional news. Today, so many people work remotely, but Jim Foudy, who was the editor-in-chief then, said it didn’t make sense for me to cover those towns in the newsroom. I called a corner of our bedroom, where I kept my desk, the Hilltown Bureau.

I was frequently put in charge of any bad weather coverage. Typically, I would call a few of the highway superintendents for an update on road conditions and how their crews were handling them. Here’s a memorable example: during one ice storm, the highway trucks had to be driven backwards to spread sand on the road to give their wheels traction, and sometimes, the conditions were so dangerous, they were called back to the garage.

The highway supers didn’t mind taking a break to chat with a reporter. Sometimes I felt they were expecting me to call. I also called people who might have driven in the storm or worked outside or had an interesting perspective. Of course, Donald Ives, who kept daily weather records in Worthington for decades, was on my list.

But that changed when I became an editor, and I assigned those stories to reporters. Also, I had to commute to Northampton.

I left for the newsroom at 6:10 in the morning. I knew by then the plow trucks were out on the roads. I had faith when I reached the town line, the Chesterfield crew had taken care of a steep hill my car would climb. I kept going until I reached the Williamsburg aka Burgy line. Here was another hill, this time down to Route 9, a state highway that took me to Northampton. As I approached each town line, I asked myself “Did they make it? Did they make it?” It was extremely rare they didn’t.

When freezing rain or snow fell, the highway crews hit the steep hills first so they wouldn’t lose them. That included the one in front our house in Worthington. When I saw a truck’s strobing yellow lights move down that slope I knew for sure a storm had arrived.

One time, the police were on top of Burgy Hill telling people to take it slow since the road was icy. But as I did just that, the town’s highway truck was spreading salted sand on its way up.

Lucky for me and other drivers, those little towns spend a good chunk of their money roads. And the men who maintained the roads — yes, there were no women — took their jobs seriously. In Worthington, three men took care of 57 miles of roads in the winter.

The worst snow storms of the season were the first and last. During the first, it seemed people forgot how to drive on snowy roads. On the last, everybody, including the highway crews, was sick of snow.

Often I met the plow and gratefully followed it uphill all the way to the next town. Or its driver deservedly got a wave and toot of my Subaru’s horn when we passed in the opposite direction. At the end of winter, I sent a thank you card to the highway department in the three towns.

Sometimes we got hit with a storm when I was at work and my boss let me leave early. I recall one April 1 watching serious snow falling outside the newsroom’s windows. It was obvious this wasn’t going to be the flurries that had been forecast. In fact, it was such a fast-falling wet snow that when I turned left on Route 143, a tractor trailer was jackknifed on the road. But my all-wheel-drive Subaru managed to get around it.

After depending on these crews for so many years, I also got to know their work habits. For instance, I learned I shouldn’t drive home at noon. No matter the weather the guys took their lunch break then. If I waited until 1, they were back on the roads.

The crews also inspired characters in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, including one guy, Cary Moore, who worked on a town’s highway department and wrote poetry good enough for a famous poet to steal. That was in Checking the Traps.And in case you’re wondering, that character is not based on anyone real.

Here’s a poem Cary — well, I, actually — wrote about his highway super called The Peerless Plowman:

Night and day the Peerless Plowman sees the road ahead.

He drives alone

Pushing snow aside with his truck’s long blade.

No harm will come to those who follow.

The Peerless Plowman watches the weather.

Hey, guys, a storm front’s moving in, he tells us,

Get the trucks ready before it does.

We can’t let the people down.

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Christmas

Ho Ho Ho

It started the day after Thanksgiving when my father would answer the phone with “Ho, ho, ho.” Up to that holiday, it was “Gobble, gobble, gobble.” As you can see my father got into the spirit of things.

My father Antone Medeiros, known in my hometown of Fairhaven, Massachusetts as “Hawk,” has been gone nine years now. But his spirit, his joy for the simple celebrations of life continue.

I can see him wearing his homemade holiday vest, and even a Santa hat, well, when he wasn’t wearing one of those cowboy hats he was known for.

Dad didn’t grow up with much. His parents, immigrants from the Azores, had a large family. They had chickens and large fields to grow vegetables my grandfather sold in a farmstand on the edge of their property. There were children who didn’t make it to adulthood after falling ill.

Unlike his father, mine never drank. I recall him telling me how he had to walk to the corner bar to fetch my grandfather, loading him onto a sled, and dragging him home in the snow. 

But Dad enjoyed being the center of attention, telling jokes and singing. In that photo above, my father did a belly flop in the snow as my mother took his photo. That’s my sister Christine on the left and me on the right. (He did that in pools, also.)

I honestly feel Dad could have been a movie star or a comedian, but he wasn’t an ambitious person. He supported his family — I have three siblings — as an autobody repairman, or tin knocker as it was called then.

Later, when St. Mary’s Church had an annual variety show for many years, he had an outlet for that kind of showmanship. My mother was there on stage with him, and later, my brother. Mom made him outrageous costumes, including for Halloween and town events.

Whenever Dad went somewhere and left our mother and us to wait in the car, we knew he wouldn’t be back any time soon because he would end up gabbing with people he knew. “Oh, he’s coming,” one of us would say as we watched the large window at Trippy’s Variety in North Fairhaven. “Oh, no, he’s not.”

For a few years, during the holidays, my parents along with their friends showed up late at people’s homes to sing, including one song in Portuguese, at their door, and they would be let in to schmooze. (My younger sister and I came along when we were little.) And I knew my Dad pretended to be Santa for holiday parties for kids in need.

Dad was a coach for youth sports in Fairhaven for many years: football, softball, basketball. He used to give the players on the peewee football team name funny nicknames like “Crazy Legs.” Many of his former players came to his wake. As they went through the receiving line, I asked each one what my father called him. They smiled and told me.

Perhaps, if you knew my father, you have a memory to share as well.

So, now, that it is Christmastime, I think of how much he enjoyed this time of year. It wasn’t about presents. It was about making other people feel good, making them laugh. Thank you, Dad. I haven’t forgotten.

And for those who do celebrate Christmas, ho, ho, ho.

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Hilltown Postcards

Stacking Firewood

The wood stove we bought was our only source of heat in that funky house we rented in Ringville. It wasn’t our first go-round keeping warm this way. We did that when we lived for a year in a cabin in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire.

When we first moved to that part of Worthington, we bought long slabs of hardwood from a lumber yard. As you can see in the photos below, Hank used a chainsaw to cut the slabs into burnable pieces that were then stacked beneath the house’s front overhang. I don’t touch power tools, especially ones with a blade, so I helped with the stacking.

We brought in enough wood to last a few days or longer depending on how cold it was. The warmest part of the house was in the living room, which had the wood stove. The rest of the house, especially the bedrooms, was quite cold with ice on the single-paned windows. I seriously doubt the house’s walls had much if any insulation.

Fortunately, our thoughtful friend, Win Donovan came to our house to keep the fire going when we visited my parents at Christmas, the only time we were away during the winter. Otherwise the water pipes would have burst.

I recall someone saying you should only have burned half of your wood supply by Christmas. I always assessed the amount we had at that time. Fortunately, we never ran out.

As the years went on, we upped the quality of the hardwood we burned. It was necessary to burn seasoned hardwood, that is, logs that have dried at least a year after they were cut. (When we lived in Taos, New Mexico, we burned softwood in our passive-solar home because that was all that was available.)

Seasoned wood costs more than unseasoned. The smart thing would be to buy green wood, and then let it dry for a year. We weren’t able to afford that until we moved into the home we built — stay tuned for future Hilltown Postcards. We burned three cords to heat that house.

Each fall we bought firewood from Dean, who lived in town and cut wood year-round. One year we splurged and bought six cords of dry and green wood. We burned the dry wood and let the green logs be. Next year and from then on, we only needed green wood delivered because we were ahead of the game.

In the fall, the green wood was stacked in long rows for a year. We brought most of the dry wood into the house’s walk-in basement and stacked what couldn’t fit beneath the deck. We had to carry the logs to the wood stove upstairs although we also had one in the cellar for those really cold days. 

Yes, we moved those logs a lot.

The chore of stacking firewood fell to Hank and I although I recall our three sons were helpful. The girls would start and somehow wander off before the job was finished. We worked at it for weekends.

I’ve always liked the puzzle of making a free-standing stack. You need a solid base and crisscrossed squarish logs at the ends to keep the rows in place. I so enjoy that clocking sound of wood falling in place. 

It was satisfying to watch the neat stacks rise, and later in the winter, use the wood to keep us warm.

I was inspired to write this post the other day while stacking firewood that will heat Hank’s workshop in our home. He burns one cord max. A half cord arrived to replenish our supply, thanks to our town’s program that supplies up to a cord of firewood free to residents. (Thank you Buckland and the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.) The logs came from trees felled by the power company. Volunteers helped prep the wood.

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Hilltown Postcards

My Teaching Experience

Suddenly, Hank couldn’t work due to a serious injury that was no fault of his own. That meant, I had to step up to support our family. What I made writing stories for the local newspaper would only fill a bag of groceries. Thank goodness, the certificate I earned 18 years earlier as a college senior meant I could teach in public schools, and it was our good fortune, I was hired to fill in for a teacher on sick leave who decided not to return.

At Gateway Regional Middle School in Huntington, I taught fifth and sixth graders, who needed extra help with reading, and seventh and eighth graders, who needed the same for writing. They came in groups to the oversized room I shared with two other teachers. The students sat at tables on my side. 

It had been many years since I took the courses required for my minor in education or did student teaching. So, I counted on what I had learned from my own inspiring teachers. I was lucky to have had many. Plus, as the mother of six, I was used to kids. Five were now school age, including our oldest daughter in high school. One son was among my reading students.

I wanted to make the time my students spent learning a comfortable experience. For instance, I let them chew gum in my class. I figured it helped them relax. But I had one rule: I couldn’t hear or smell it. They caught on fast.

Several had an I.E.P., that is, an Individualized Education Plan because they had been identified as special needs students. To me, it meant they learned in a different way than the larger pack. Two of my sons had I.E.P.s.

Fortunately, I worked with an aide who was a great teammate. I recall one fifth-grader, who I will call David, liked to stir things up instead of learn. So, my aide and I came up with a plan — she and David would trade places for a class. David would be my aide while the real one acted like him, being a disruptive pain in the you-know-what, even wearing his trademark suspenders. Was our idea a success? I believe so. At the end of the school year, I gave David an award for being one of my most improved students, which he accepted with gusto at a school assembly.

The curriculum was set for the reading students. My aide and I worked closely with them. However, it was up to me to come up with ways to inspire the writing students. So, I gave them writing prompts I felt would motivate them as they wrote on one of the classroom’s early model Apple computers. Here’s one prompt: “I am your worst nightmare” — the line from a Rambo movie. Yes, that was a hit.

In the spring, the school held a short story contest every year for the seventh and eighth graders, so my students worked on their entries during class. The contest was judged by people outside the school. Needless to say, I was thrilled when three of my students’ stories placed.

Meanwhile, Hank was healing from the torn tendons in his shoulder. He did what he was able to keep the home going. Our youngest was only a toddler. The next-to-youngest went half-day to kindergarten. Plus, we had moved Hank’s father, who could no longer live on his own, into a rest home in Northampton. 

We scraped by as best we could. Hank has always been a careful woodworker, but unfortunately someone on the contractor’s crew wasn’t, so he fell through a hole 18 feet onto his shoulder. The contractors declined to give him any money while he was unable to work because he was a subcontractor.

Yes, we contacted a lawyer, but any kind of settlement was at least three years off. Those who were treating Hank’s injuries agreed to wait for the money owed them. His goal was to get better, and he did finally, that summer when he returned to work. By the way, those contractors had the nerve to ask him back.

How did we manage on a starting teacher’s salary? Barely, but then household expenses were rather minimal. TV channels came free through an antenna on the roof. No cell phones or computers. (I wrote my stories for the paper on a funky laptop it supplied and transmitted the copy through the phone line.) No car payments and the vehicles had basic insurance. Water came from a spring in the cellar. We heated with wood. Our rent was $300.

I recall a few days before Christmas finding a box of food and an envelope containing $70 on our doorstep. When we asked around, no one would claim responsibility for this good deed.

My thoughtful mother sent boxes of quality clothes for the kids she found at rummage sales held in her town. She took them shopping at a jeans outlet in Fall River when we visited. One time she mailed me a box of clothing. My mother was a cafeteria worker, so she knew what would be suitable for a teacher to wear. I smile thinking of that.

The end of the school year was approaching. The district was having a tough time financially, so positions were being cut. I found out I wasn’t being hired back when a first-year teacher rushed into my room, saying joyfully her job was saved because “they were letting the reading teacher go.” I recalled saying, “That’s me.” Flustered, she left. Minutes later, the principal came rushing into my room to break the news in a more professional way.

For a while, I contemplated getting my master’s degree, soon to be a new requirement for a permanent teaching license, even taking night courses at a state college. I applied for an open position at Gateway, was a finalist, but didn’t get the job.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the classroom experience, I concentrated instead on finding opportunities in the field of journalism. Later, when I became an editor, then an editor-in-chief, I most often hired rookie reporters. I would tell those who were recent grads: welcome to grad school. Once again, I was a teacher.

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