The first morning I started out for grade school, it felt like I was riding on a magic carpet. I was no longer a little brat from nursery school. Soon, I’d be able to write and to count. And above all, I’d be able to read. To read the fairy tales my mother used to tell me at bedtime, and of course all the comics of my elder brothers. Now I was a big boy!
Closing my eyes today, I can still recall the images of the stern walls, of the playground with the horse-chestnut trees. I can smell the chalk, I can hear the faint scratching of pens on crisp paper (we used real pens, with ink pots, not ballpoints!).