Northboro School Visits (Part 3 of 5): Lincoln Street

Day three, I visited Lincoln Street School. This was my elementary school. And this was what I saw as I drove up to the school:

Most Awesome Sign Ever

I promptly burst into tears.

I sat in the parking lot for a few minutes, composing myself and reminiscing about the playground (we used to play jumprope over there and Electricity on the manhole covers over there, the girls used to chase the boys around that tree, my friend Gillian and I used to make little houses out of dandelions just over there...). Then I got out of the car and took pictures of the sign. I even figured out how to send a photo with my cell phone so that my husband could see the sign.

Inside, the school looked exactly the same as it did when I went there. Same walls, same floor, same everything, except that the curtain in the cafetorium stage is now blue instead of the very attractive 1970s brown print. I remembered that I was Mrs. Rabbit in our fifth grade play on that stage. I even remembered the lyrics to the Mrs. Rabbit song (which meant that pretty much the entire day, my brain was singing, "Oh, I am Mrs. Rabbit, and I say hello to you!")

I was in school here when I decided that I wanted to become a writer. I wrote my very first story in classroom number 1, Mr. Bostock's fifth grade class. He was the teacher who first encouraged me to write. He's directly responsible for who I am today.

And I got to thank him in person. He's retired now, but his daughter-in-law teaches fourth grade at Lincoln Street School, so he came in to her classroom when I was between presentations. Of course, I nearly cried. It was so phenomenally awesome to be able to say thank you to someone who had such a profound influence on my life.

Mr. Bostock and Me

I then went on to do two more presentations. It was so cool talking to the students there and thinking all the time, "I was you." (And then thinking: "Oh, I am Mrs. Rabbit, and I say hello to you...")