Starting St. Clare's-1968-1969-Part 2

Out teacher for 1st Grade was a nun named Sister Sheryl(sp). If I am recalling correctly, she was from Australia or had been there. My classmates are going to need to clarify something for me. I understand that you would later have a Sister Sheryl teach you when you were either in 3rd or 4th Grade. Was she the same one we had in 1st Grade or not? I was not in California for 3rd or 4th Grade and that's why I'm asking.
When we began our classes, the word was passed to Sister Sheryl that I was hearing impaired and that I needed to sit up front. Unfortunately, people got their signals crossed when it came to understanding which of my ears was the worse ear of the two. It was my right ear which was the one that had the most amount of loss. Somebody must have said my left was the worst of the two. Even though I sat in the first row of desks in front of Sister Sheryl's desk, guess where I was placed? When you faced the chalkboard and her desk, I was placed on the left side. What this accomplished was that my bad right ear blocked out any clarity of what she would be saying if she turned part of the way around or when she faced the blackboard completely and with her back turned to us. For the most part, I got along pretty well when she spoke. I lost a lot when it came to math. This was something I was to pay a dear price for. I started the process of not comprehending and falling behind on my math skills. I have never been able to overcome my math problems and I consider myself to be essentially mathematically illiterate. This was to become a big obstacle in my schooling clear on up through college and even to this very day. It wasn't until the second half of the year, after I told my Mom about where I had been, that my seat was changed to being in the front row on the right side of Sister Sheryl's desk so that I could hear her more properly. I still couldn't figure her out whenever she turned her back to us even from there.
However, I did develop quite an apptitude for English skills and reading and essentially anything that didn't have to do with numbers. My ability and advancement in reading skills at an early level came about by accident. And yes, my hearing was the big factor. I recall very clearly that Sister Sheryl gave us a reading assignment out of our reader. She told us verbally first. Then, she wrote it down (the one or two chapters we were to cover) on the blackboard. Before I was able to write down what we were supposed to read for that night, she erased it off the board. When I got picked up by my Mom in her car, we went off to somewhere on the El Camino Real (I believe-I can visualize it, but I could never remember the street names down there) to stop by at a fabric store that my Mom needed to go to. Just before she got out of the car to go in, she told me that she was going to be in there for quite a while and that I should lock up the car and just stay until she was done. I had nothing better to do, so I started to read out of my reader. Mom was gone for so long that I just kept reading beyond the first couple of chapters. What ended up happening was that I read the entire book in that one sitting. Whereas I fell far behind in math, I ended up jumping ahead in a huge gain on my reading and English skills.
What I remember of Sister Sheryl is that she was a small woman and that I barely communicated with her at all even though I was starting some very important schooling. In fact, the only time I recall interacting with her in class was because I didn't realize that I was flirting with getting into some kind of trouble somehow. I recall something of her pointing me out in class and saying something about getting into a doghouse and I pretended I was a puppy a kind of barked something back at her. I couldn't figure out a damned thing she said or was referring to. From having to sit up front, I do recall that Ana V. sat right next to me or in the very near vicinity.
I also have a memory of a time when Sister Sheryl took us all outside to the yard one afternoon to talk to us about something she was trying to teach us. I don't know if it had anything to do with Science or not because I allowed myself to stand too far behind to hear her clearly. I can still see myself facing off to the left and behind you guys on the Santa Clara Street side of the yard while she was speaking. Instead of attempting to listen to her, I became fascinated by something else instead which caught my attention. The moon was up in the sky behind her. I just looked at it for a long time. By this time in my life, I was already a big fan of the Apollo rockets and the NASA space program. I looked at it and I realized, in a childlike way, that I was developing an emotional attachment to the moon. To this day, I still have a great affinity for the moon. Whenever I see it, I always blow a kiss to it. I think you can pretty much trace the origins of my doing that to that particular day.
I don't recall that I got very close to any of you except for Johnny M. I don't if the early workings of Social Darwinism was already at play or not. It wouldn't be until 2nd Grade that I would start the process of communicating with more of you on anything resembling a consistent basis.
I do recall the last day of school of our first year together. I remember very clearly the look on Danny Amaral's face when he was told that he was being held back for a year. It really gutted him and I remember feeling so very badly for him. I hated to see it happen.
On looking back on this time, an event happened in San Jose that I wish I was old enough to have gone to because he would become a subject of conversation among us hip kids later on. Playing at the Santa Clara International Pop Festival at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose on May 25th, 1969, a certain Mr. Jimi Hendrix performed an outdoor show there which is immortalized on a wall tapestry that I have hanging in the room where I do my headphones listening.
I recall that we had outdoor monitors who used to make sure everything on the schoolgrounds went by smoothly. We were told by monitors not to ever talk to anybody who was beyond the fence which surrounded our yard. We were told to be careful of the hippies who might try to give us drugs and also not to talk to anybody from the University of Santa Clara as well. So, I guess the idea of us being used as mules by those dastardly hippies was pretty much part of the conservative paranoia going around at the time. Hell, none of the monitors had any idea that our being the in Catholic system was planting the seeds of our becoming rebellious hippies ourselves once we got over to 5th Grade and into the other yard facing the University.
Another thing you guys are going to have to clear up for me because I'm foggy on it is the whole corporal punishment thing. I do know, for a fact, that our Principal, Sister Eileen, was still meting out ruler on knuckle lashings for the especially naughty kids when they got sent to her office. I believe that when we entered 1st Grade, this was the final year that corporal punishment was to be employed. Am I correct on this?
Inevitably, I will recall something else from that first year of school and I'll put it into some other post somewhere down the line. I'll do that for all of my recollections. I forgot to mention at the beginning of my last entry (Part 1), that we also suffered the terrible loss of Martin Luther King in 1968 as well. I wish to dedicate this post in memory of two great Americans with whom I've come to hold very dearly in my heart. I speak of MLK and Bobby Kennedy. We were greatly blessed to have had them in our lives. After 1st Grade was done, I don't believe that I ever communicated with Sister Sheryl again. I wish I could talk to her now if she's still alive.