First Day in School: Last Meal

Posted By Les Conklin on Sep 29, 2015

By Manual Daniel Germano

Prologue

The author is seven years old and the “Lady from the State” has ordered that his immigrant parents send the blind Germano to Perkins School for the Blind.” To do that he must leave home and his close-knit Portuguese family and live at the school. He does not want to go. Relatives have visited his home to say good before he leaves the next day.

This article is being published in seven installments between September 30, 2015 and October 14, 2015. The second installment appears below. For links to other installments, see “Related Articles, Website/Video” at the end of this installment. Les Conklin, Editor

First Day in School: Part One. Dreaded Day

Part Two. Last Meal

So as I remember it, I hardly slept the night before, but when my mother called me in the morning, I asked if I could sleep for five more minutes. I thought, maybe, that if I stayed in bed with my eyes tightly closed I could stop the time for a little while. I got up and had breakfast, which consisted of a chunk of masa generously spread with butter and coffee. This breakfast of massa, (which is Portuguese sweet bread) butter, and coffee would disappear for a long, long time. (Perkins never heard of massa and kids could not have coffee until they were 16 years old.)

The morning went by in a blur, and soon the car was packed with my suitcases, boxes of winter clothes, and a few toys. We then had a light lunch of delicious fried chourico with peppers in a roll with potato salad. (Again, I would not see chourico and peppers for a long time.)

Smoke Smell

Pa then, in a rather loud stern voice, (I think Pa wanted to sound brave) announced that it was getting late and that it was a long, long trip. So we all piled into the car and slammed the doors shut. I sat in the front between my Pa and Ma with my sister, May, in the back with two girl friends. Then Pa lit his cigarette, which Pa did just before he did something or after he just finished doing something else. He lit a cigarette when he first got up, and then right after he finished breakfast, and so on and so on through the day. In fact, when I thought of Pa, part of him was smoke. He smelled of smoke, his clothes smelled of smoke, the easy chair he sat in smelled of smoke, and even the car smelled of smoke. It did not smell bad, it just smelled of my Pa, and that gave me a feeling of home and security. Again, this smell of smoke would disappear from my life for a long, long time and be replaced by that cold, sanitized “home” I would call Perkins.

Continued – Part Three: Longest Ride