By Angela Lannon Day (B. Mus., M. Ed.) Books were my first love. School was my second. I was born and raised in Placentia and attended St. Edward’s Elementary from 1958 to 1965, Sacred Heart High from 1965 to 1968, and graduated with the first class from Laval in 1969. Now, many years, three universities and a long teaching career later, I realize that the early academic training I received was second to none. I was blessed with some pretty incredible teachers, starting with my mother, Mary (Shea) Lannon, who taught me to read when I was four and to recite in Latin (O Salutaris and Tantum Ergo) when I was six. I wanted to attend school before I was old enough to do so. Despite warnings from Mom, I followed my older sister to school one day, just marched right into her Grade 1 classroom (kindergarten was non-existent there and then.) Sister Mary Marilyn, the teacher, was kind, but told me I was not old enough to be there. “But I can read,” I informed her boldly. “Why don’t you show us?” she said. “You just come right up to the front and read.” I think Sister Marilyn was certain that that would be the end of it. I reached into my bag, pulled out my sister’s old Faith and Freedom reader, walked to the front, and read a story about David and Ann. Once finished, I triumphantly closed the book and looked up into the incredulous face of Sister Mary, master of my fate. “Yes, you can read, Angela.” She nodded but her face was grim. “But you have to wait another year to attend Grade 1. Right now you have to go home.” I may have been too young for school, but I was not too young for heartbreak. Sadly, I left. A year was a long wait, interminable, but time fell away and I returned to Sister Marilyn’s classroom where I was happy to inhale the three R’s. I still recall the first poem she taught the class: There was a little turtle…. Next was Miss Betty Barron’s class. What I remember most about Grade 2 was the "Robby" incident. Robby sat two aisles away from me and one morning, as he was taking a circuitous route to the pencil sharpener, he dropped a note on my desk. I looked at him and he pointed at the note. I opened it. “Be my girlfriend,” it read. I didn’t know what to think other than the fact that we were not supposed to write notes in school, so I took it to the teacher. Miss Barron grinned (a lot) and scolded Robby (a little). After school that very day, Miss Barron stood in my family’s kitchen where she and my mother were having a great laugh over the situation. I remember Mom being impressed with Robby’s neat printing and accurate spelling. I loved Miss Barron, but I wanted to hide. I started piano lessons when I was in Grade 3, under the tutelage of Sister John Eudes; I persisted in that endeavour despite Sister’s habit of rapping my knuckles with a pointer every time I made a mistake. Mrs. Bernadette Murphy, my Grade 3 teacher, was very helpful in that she, and all others who came after, allowed me to catch up on what I missed while taking music lessons during class time. My Grade 4 teacher, Mrs. Millie Young, was not only a highly dedicated teacher, but also an outstanding storyteller. My favourite subject that year was Catechism because Mrs. Young would tell us riveting stories about the saints. So vibrant, detailed and dramatic were her stories, that I, at age nine, was convinced she knew all the saints personally. I never wanted her stories to end, but of course, they did… and always with the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. In Grade 5, we began to study French by following the adventures of two toy soldiers named Totor and Tristan. It was also the year when multiplication tables were emphasized and Miss Mona Flynn had us repeating them like bird song. The principal, Sister Mary Austin, often visited the class that year to give us multiplication speed drills. Grade 6 was one of my favourite years overall and I was just flying along in Miss Theresa Traverse’s class. Because I loved reading, I enjoyed all the lessons on syntax in English Language classes. Sometimes, during that class, Miss Traverse used my exercise book as an answer key and I beamed with pride when she read my answers aloud to the class. One day, the assignment was: "Write the positive, comparative and superlative form of given adjectives." Miss Traverse was reading answers from my exercise book and, abruptly, she stopped. I looked up. “Angela Lannon,” she said, astonished, “little, littler, and littlest?” My blood rushed to my face because I knew darn well that the correct answer was little, less and least. Guess I must have watched “The Littlest Hobo” one too many times. I don’t think she borrowed my exercise book for a while after that and I don’t think I wanted her to, either. In Grade 7, my teacher was Mrs. Mary Wakeham; I still recall her excellent lessons about Newton’s Law of Gravity and Mendel’s Genetics through Plants. However, my favourite subject in Grade 7 was not science. It was Latin. The study of Latin was a great gift to me because, through it, I developed a deeper understanding of the English language. I still have three of the four "Approach to Latin" textbooks I used in Placentia and I went on to study Latin in university. Currently, whether I’m watching Jeopardy or editing a story, I apply Latin skills acquired from Grades 7 to 11. I learned to love literature in Grade 8 from Miss Annie Murphy whose passion for same oozed through her pores. She quoted a lot of Shakespeare (e.g. “... Who steals my purse steals trash...”) and we memorized a lot of poetry; to this day, I can recite Flanders Fields and High Flight. I enjoyed the memory work until Miss Murphy announced that we would tackle The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I remember opening my reading anthology to that particular poem; the first page contained a biography of the author (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) and a couple of stanzas. I shrugged: rhyming couplets… no big deal. Then I began turning pages, counting stanzas. At about 120, my teenage rebellion years kicked in. So much for Coleridge and his albatross! (In hindsight, I think Miss Murphy was being facetious about memorizing that one.) The rest of my high school years are a blur academically, simply because I paid more attention to teenage pursuits than to academic ones. But I do remember the intensity of Miss Dobbin, the kindliness of Sister Xaveria and the wry humour of Sister Casimir who once asked a group of us: “How many people are dead in Mount Carmel Cemetery?” We just shrugged and looked at each other blankly. “All of them,” said Sister with a twinkle in her eye. Last, certainly not least, in my memory is Sister Mary St. William (aka Sister Kathleen Rex), with whom I studied music from Grade 5 to 11. That little nun smiled a lot, sang a lot, and, as a conductor, danced an aerobic routine every time she stepped in front of a choir… she would do darn near anything to transmit, teach, animate. Despite the stress associated with the constant demands of concerts and festivals, the only reaction she showed was to call us a bunch of "old grannies" and to use, chronically, the appalling expletive “sugar!” As a result of her support and encouragement, I was admitted to the music program at Mount Allison University. Sister Kathleen Rex instilled in me a lifelong love of music. For years, I taught music classes and choirs in Manitoba and British Columbia. For years, I taught classroom work. My formative education served me well then and continues to do so now in my role as a writer of fiction. I am sincerely grateful to all the educators with whom I had the good fortune to study in Placentia. Angela Lannon Day writes fiction under the pen name Annie Daylon (www.anniedaylon.com). She has published a dozen short stories and her first novel, "Maggie of the Marshes," is available on Amazon Kindle.   Submitted By: Angela Day