gloria

4th grade was an eventful year.

It was the year the Challenger blew up -- live on televisions dragged into classrooms all over the country, including mine. (I ran into my 4th grade teacher, the incomparable Mrs. Owens, years later at some school function and we were reminiscing about that year.  She mentioned that she'd applied to be the teacher on board and how disappointed she'd been to never hear back about it, only to get the official NASA rejection letter later that February, weeks after the explosion.)

It was my year of antibiotics. (Wasn't there some silly book called "My Year of Meats"? Maybe I've got my first book title.)

It was the last time I was in or near a hurricane. Gloria. Other than being sick that year, my most vivid memory is walking with my father in the wind and rain, water swirling over our boots and down the street, tugging us down the hill to the lake which of course had overflown its banks and was creeping up towards the road.

I remember feeling so brave and strong, standing there in the onslaught and looking out over all that water, holding my father's hand.  I haven't gone out much in this Irene storm, and I wonder a little bit where my sense of adventure went.