parochial school, and my immediate reaction to the new building was liberating. Here the faculty members were predominantly Protestant, and they were definitely less strict and oppressively virtuous than the nuns I had known. In this particular English composition class, however, I felt even more indecisive and detached than I had years before in parochial school, where my main concern had been in keeping my distance from the big Irish boys in the schoolyard who often ganged up on Italian-Americans during recess. In those days we constituted a small minority within the larger minority of Irish Catholics on this Protestant-governed island of Ocean City, founded in 1879 by Methodist ministers. But my teacher in this English composition class had all but reduced me to thinking that I was foreign-born, that English was my second language. My position on the student newspaper and my bylined articles in the town weekly and sometimes in the Atlantic City daily, articles that then represented my sole claim to whatever capabilities I possessed, never drew a word of encouragement from my teacher, nor did she even mention them to me in private before or after class. I could not believe that she never saw them in print, or that she remained silent about them because they were not pertinent to my work in her classroom. No matter how low her opinion of journalism might have been, nor how little regard she might have had for those editors who considered my articles publishable, her omission in thissituation surely was connected to some personal dislike of me, I repeatedly told myself, although beyond this I did not know what to think. Or rather what I
did
think only added to my frustration and bewilderment. I think that in a strange wayâstrange to everyone except the kind of teenage boy I was in that time and place, a pimply-faced sixteen-year-old in the apex of ignorance and wonderment about womenâI was in love with her.
Each afternoon I sat waiting eagerly for her to enter the classroom. She was a slender, blue-eyed blonde with a long-legged stride who held her head high and who often wore tight-fitting tweed suits that accentuated her figure. She was then in her early twenties, perhaps teaching teenagers for the first time, which might have explained why she seemed to be so high-strung, and at times timorous, and always quick in trying to assert her control over her students, who were probably only five or six years younger than she was. She had come to us as a substitute teacher, filling in for an elderly and ailing veteran of the faculty, whose longtime popularity with his students had been sustained by his generous nature in grading themâbut, much to my regret, this gentleman with coronary problems was never able to regain his health and his presence in English composition class. He resigned shortly before the start of my junior year; and due to scheduling problems and other matters, the more experienced teachers who might have stepped in for him were not as free and flexible as was this lovely female newcomer to the faculty, who would soon become the source of my romantic fantasies and my grief.
My difficulties began on the very first day of her arrival. Our class was scheduled to meet immediately following lunch. While most of us were chatting at our desks awaiting the arrival of our new teacher, my other schoolmates were leaning out of the open windows, calling to their friends entering the building from the street. It was a warm September day, and the breezes blowing across the nearby dunes carried the salty smell of the sea into our classroom, giving us a lingering sense of summer.
As the bell rang and everyone hastened to their seats, our teacher entered, smiling. She said nothing as she surveyed the room. She wore a yellow short-sleeved linen dress; her blond hair was held back by a blue velvet ribbon; her face and arms were suntanned and, compared to the dowdy female faculty members whom we were accustomed to
did
think only added to my frustration and bewilderment. I think that in a strange wayâstrange to everyone except the kind of teenage boy I was in that time and place, a pimply-faced sixteen-year-old in the apex of ignorance and wonderment about womenâI was in love with her.
Each afternoon I sat waiting eagerly for her to enter the classroom. She was a slender, blue-eyed blonde with a long-legged stride who held her head high and who often wore tight-fitting tweed suits that accentuated her figure. She was then in her early twenties, perhaps teaching teenagers for the first time, which might have explained why she seemed to be so high-strung, and at times timorous, and always quick in trying to assert her control over her students, who were probably only five or six years younger than she was. She had come to us as a substitute teacher, filling in for an elderly and ailing veteran of the faculty, whose longtime popularity with his students had been sustained by his generous nature in grading themâbut, much to my regret, this gentleman with coronary problems was never able to regain his health and his presence in English composition class. He resigned shortly before the start of my junior year; and due to scheduling problems and other matters, the more experienced teachers who might have stepped in for him were not as free and flexible as was this lovely female newcomer to the faculty, who would soon become the source of my romantic fantasies and my grief.
My difficulties began on the very first day of her arrival. Our class was scheduled to meet immediately following lunch. While most of us were chatting at our desks awaiting the arrival of our new teacher, my other schoolmates were leaning out of the open windows, calling to their friends entering the building from the street. It was a warm September day, and the breezes blowing across the nearby dunes carried the salty smell of the sea into our classroom, giving us a lingering sense of summer.
As the bell rang and everyone hastened to their seats, our teacher entered, smiling. She said nothing as she surveyed the room. She wore a yellow short-sleeved linen dress; her blond hair was held back by a blue velvet ribbon; her face and arms were suntanned and, compared to the dowdy female faculty members whom we were accustomed to
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