My 2nd Grade Teacher
Our Lady of Lourdes Grade School
Philadelphia, PA
1962-63
The minute I saw her, I thought she was the most beautiful
woman I had ever seen. With her long
platinum blonde hair pile high up on her head and her cat’s eye makeup and long
red finger nails, her face alone conveyed a presence when she walked in the
room. She wore a perfume that was strong
and noticeable. She had a deep, dark
beauty mark just around her mouth. Her
style of dress was beautiful as well.
She wore tight, tight skirts above her knees which was very reveling at
that time. She wore high, spiked heels and sometimes she wore fishnet stocking
as well. She exuded style. And when she stood next to any of the nuns, her
beautiful was undeniable. She was the
beauty queen of the faculty.
Fifteen years later, I am at a concert at my grade school
with my mother. My much younger brother
is in a Christmas play. We are sitting
in the cafeteria on the same chairs that I sat on year ago. An old woman walks by us, her perfume
precedes her. It is pungent and offensive.
Her hair is thinned from age and too many years of cheap dye jobs. Her shirt is too tight and its old, worn thin
from years of wear. She looks hangered, worn out and tired.
“Who is that old woman, she looks like an old whore,” I
comment to my mother.
“You don’t recognize her?
That’s Miss Taylor”, my mother responded.
And sure enough it was.
The years had not been kind to her.
I didn’t realize how old she was when she was my teacher. But the years of poor Catholic school,
teacher’s salary had forced her to work beyond her prime and now she looked
like an old street walker.
I was sorry I ever saw her again.
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