April 4, 1958

           The other day I drove by the building which long ago was a department store, and I thought of waiting in my mother’s 1952 Buick on April 4, 1958 in a parking space by the side of the store while she went in.  It was an important day, and I waited in the Buick contemplating and a little bored.

           Some months before I had asked if I could go to The School, a private school.  An odd request to leave what Life Magazine regularly called the best publc school system in the country, but my parents said I could go if I could get in.  So I took the standardized admission test which in those days was the same test for 6^th graders going into 7^th as for 12^th graders going for 13 years.  I understood there would be a grading curve but was mystified by the geometry, trigonometry and something called a “predicate nominative”.  I was called for an interview.

           It was a warm day for April and sunny.  My mother got lost on the way to the School, and when we arrive a little late Miss McKinnon, the School secretary since 1919 brought  me in to the Headmaster.  He was a tall man with a red face and a brown suit who started by asking me some questions, and as he began to read me a story I noticed a blossoming tree through the bay window behind his desk.  In the story someone walked down a corridor with a candlemaker, a baker and other tradespeople lining the right and the left.  The tree behind him made it look like his office was in a garden.  He stopped and asked me if I knew which trade was in the second door on the left.  I was stunned.  Not close to paying attention, I was sure I had blown it.

           Miss McKinnon escorted me out and my mother in.  After a while she came out, and as we walked to the Buick she told me that I had been accepted, but the Headmaster said, “He will not be at the top of his class”.

           My mother stopped at the department store on our way home, and I stayed in the Buick in a parking space which has since been removed but which I remember.