A Few Words

In my earliest days of school, our Sub A (Grade 1) teacher sent us home with a pile of books to be covered by our moms in regulation brown paper. My mom sent me back to school with the pile of exercise books covered in the brightest floral paper. The teacher looked with disdain at my books. “Tell your mother to cover these in brown paper!” I took them home again and explained how everyone else had brown paper covered books and would she please recover them according to the teacher’s orders? My mother was adamant. Why should books be covered in brown paper when you are in Sub A? She sent them back still in their garish wrapping. I was never going to be like everyone else. I was to celebrate what was extraordinary.