Time Will Tell...The girls go to Catholic School

The girls eagerly anticipated the first day of fourth grade.  Ink pens, ink cartridges, pencils, crayons, zippered pencil case were checked and double checked and placed in the standard issue green canvas book bag.  This was the first year for school uniforms chosen by a committee of nuns.  Of course they were shapeless, royal blue jumpers with a white blouse.  Mother made the uniforms from a pattern that had been provided.  There is not uniform shade of royal blue.  The homemade ones clearly stood out from the purchased.  "Homemade was OK if some one had to ask in a surprised voice, "Is that home made?"  No one wanted their clothes to shout "HOME MADE."

This was the first year the girls were in separate classes.  The biggest bulge of the baby boomer population plus the closing of the country schools contributed to this fact.   The older twin had the newest teacher, Miss J.  Miss J, a real person, not a nun.  Curiously, the first and fourth grades were combined into one classroom so that the younger twin shared a classroom with little sister.  Now all the girls went to Catholic School.

  She was young,  red headed and freckle faced.  Miss J was not a nun although it was rumored that she had tried out the convent and inexplicably  left. Miss J was known as a Lay teacher in Catholic school parlance.  Two Lay teachers held positions at the Catholic School.  The balance of faculty lived a secretive life across the street in a convent.  Students were not allowed to enter.  Miss J lived in a house just down the street with her widowed mother.   On the first day she was lively and sparkly eyed,  engaging all of us in her aura of likability.   We joined  the Miss J fan club en mass and whole heartily.  Later, a cloudiness passed over her features.  A few classmates became targets of ridicule.  Mercilessly she embarrassed a classmate with spina bifida about an accident in her diaper.  Even fourth graders saw the injustice of this.   On one particular occasion her lesson seemed to escape the pupils understanding.  Raising a heavy Merriam Dictionary over each head, a jarring bop was delivered to each pupils head.  Then the clouds would lift and joy would return to the classroom of Miss J.

Sister and Miss J traded classrooms to teach social studies/geography and religion.  In fourth grade, states and capitals were memorized.  The girls were built in study partners and quizzed and challenged each other.  Even little sister could recite the capital of New York, Florida, Wisconsin, etc.  The girls aced the test.  The next topic was time zones.  The students were made to understand that just because it is 11 am here in Michigan, somewhere people are still asleep.  Father was at the dinner table while the girls studied for the test on time zones the next day.  "Let me see what you are studying."  Father knew Miss J from childhood.  There was some angst between them, sensed by the girls but never explained.  "That is all wrong," he pronounced.  It was completely backwards and Father proceeded to prove it.  The following morning the girls confidently took the exam.  If it was 6 am in Seattle, what time was it in Buffalo?
Smiling, Miss J praised the class for doing so well on the test and continued to smile a cold snake eyed smile when the oldest twin was handed a paper marked with an "F".  The other twin in turn received the same.  Crushed,  the girls returned home to Father.  Thunder struck and staring at the papers, the dining chair scraped loudly on the floor as he jumped up, looked up a phone number and dialed.   When Miss J answered, Father called her by her first name and said, "If it is 6 pm in Boston, what time is it in Seattle?"  Of course, she gave the wrong answer and Father proceeded to instruct until Miss J had to admit that she was undeniably wrong.  All the sisters sitting at the table giggled and cheered Fathers bold action in setting the world in proper order.
In class, Miss J had to admit the error and give the proper instruction.  The girls grinned with satisfaction at her discomfort.  The rest of the year, Miss J, smiling or not kept cold snake eyes for the girls.  The twins just smiled back.