Picardy

I was a terrible student.

I rarely did homework but somehow slid by with Cs and just barely advanced from grade to grade. What homework I did was driven solely by fear of a teacher’s wrath but, over time, my skin grew thicker with each passing year. “Homework time” was spent alone in my room with doors shut as I worked on hobbies or reading Science Fiction.

On Saturdays, Dad would sometimes go to the hospital to see a couple of his patients. And sometimes he would take me along.

East encompassed kindergarten through senior high school. The elementary, East Elementary School, had the right half of the building while the high schools, junior and senior collectively referred to as East High School, had the left. I started there with kindergarten and attended for twelve years but at the end of my eleventh grade it was clear that something had to change. My grades were dismal and only with summer school was I advanced to the twelfth.

The near-wealthy lived in Chickasaw Gardens just a few blocks from Picardy.

Some things change, some don’t.

You can’t really tell one person’s story because, if you know them and they know others, there’s not one story, there are many, and they’re all intertwined. They are much like the roots of a tree, branching, turning, winding themselves around one another, each one growing, expanding and pressing on those nearby.