First Day in School: Longest Ride

Posted By Les Conklin on Oct 3, 2015

By Manual Daniel Germano

Prologue

Relatives have visited to say good bye. After they leave, Germano endures a night tossing and turning in his bed, after which he eats breakfast with his family. The car has been packed. The author and his parents pile into the front seat, his sister and her friends load into the back seat as they prepare to leave. Germano does not want to go to the dreaded Perkins School for the Blind. Les Conklin, Editor

Part Three. Longest Ride

“The Howe Building Tower on Perkins School for the Blind’s campus in Watertown, Mass.” by Stephanie Sullivan – her camera. Licensed under FAL via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Howe_Building_Tower_on_Perkins_School_for_the_Blind

Oh, but I must get back to that day. Pa put the car in gear and we moved first slowly, then quickly, up our street to the end, a left on to Fox Hill, a right on Mount Hope, and then after a few blocks, a left on to the “back road,” which was route 138. Pretty soon we would reach, enter, and pass through Warren, Rhode Island, and many other towns and cities in Rhode Island and Massachusetts as we would wind our way toward Watertown, Massachusetts, and Perkins.

Yes, we were traveling from Bristol, Rhode Island, all the way to Watertown, Massachusetts, just a little west of Boston, a trip of about 80 miles, which in 1941 was a very, very long trip. The atmosphere in the car could become tense quickly. Pa and Ma did not read English very well and had difficulty reading the signs rapidly enough. From time to time when going to new places, they would really get lost!

But for now, we were still in Warren, Rhode Island, and so I put on the car radio and pressed little square buttons, which moved me from one station to another. My father quietly told me I would have to be careful so as not to get my hand in his way when he was using the shift, which came off of the steering wheel. Do you remember those shifts?

My Ma and Pa would talk once in a while, but my sister and her girlfriend would talk and talk and talk. As for me, I was very quiet sitting in my Sunday clothes. I was starting to itch from my woolen pants and getting hot and fidgety. The ride was getting very long, and yet I knew that at the same time, the car was speeding to that horrible place, Perkins, where my Ma and Pa and sister would leave me, all alone. I just hated, hated, hated that place! And I hated that Lady from the State, Mrs. Olson, with her smooth quiet voice, who kept telling me that I would love Perkins. Baloney, I would say under my breath.

“Blink Bells”

I then noticed that I could hear more traffic noises, cars, trucks, blowing horns, old truck bodies squeaking, and brakes screeching. All of a sudden, our car came to a halt and my Pa was blowing the horn and yelling, you suma-ma beech! Again, I would not hear an adult say those words under any condition for the next fourteen years. For a while, the car traveled in silence through the traffic. I then began to hear bells ring, at first faintly and then as we moved along, the bells were loud. They sounded like a very loud telephone ring. My sister and girlfriends almost said in a chorus, the “blink bells.” I was to learn that the word blink was an “in” word within the blind community and was a word often substituted for the word blind. I would also learn that the ringing telephone bells were auditory signals, which informed the blind pedestrian when the light governing the street they were crossing was green, and therefore, he could safely cross the street.

“Aqui Estamos”

The bells soon fell behind us and we were moving up a neighborhood street. We came to a sign near the entrance, which no one read to me at the time. It said, “Blind children, drive slowly,” then we rode through tall double gates into the grounds. I was to learn that the entire grounds were enclosed by an 8’ fence made of iron bars about 1 ½” in diameter and about 2” apart from one another. Why this fence had been built and kept, I never learned. We drove a little, and Pa saw someone and asked, “Where is Anagnus cottage?” The person pointed and Pa drove the car into a parking area and rather sadly announced, “Aqui estamos,” or here we are. Everyone was cramped from sitting for two and one-half hours, so we all got out of the car and stood and stretched without saying very much.

Continued: Part Four: Everything’s Different