Where wuz I?

Let's leave the chair and Winthrop House for a few moments and mosey on over to the Thomas School. Thomas School BRRE, that is...BEFORE Remington Rand Estate....back in the crumbling former mansion of Miss Mabel Thomas, founder and first headmistress of dear old "TS", letters its gray sweatshirts were emblazoned with until a few of the more worldly and cynical parents attended a Trustees meeting back in 1958 and had a word with Mrs. Opie.
Thomas at its peak was a very motley assortment of instructors (you really couldn't call them teachers since they were strictly uncredentialed), "gulls" from Southport and Greens Farms, westport, Darien as far south as Noroton, Shippan Point and sometimes including a couple of Jews from New Canaan who couldn't go anywhere else( but definitely no one from Greenwich) faculty dogs, famous spouses, veterans of HUAC investigations, and depending on the year, various schoolgirl tragedies.

My sister enrolled in 1957, repeating ninth grade when a deficiency in foreign languages, history, English, and general knowledge was discovered at the time of her graduation from Center junior high in Norwalk. Her 17 classmates were pale and unhealthy looking, partially due to the prohibition against wearing any type of makeup. And the school day lasted until 4:30, so the gulls enjoyed very little sunlight during the winter months.

I eagerly arrived in the fall of 1960, ready forall of it..the pale and unhealthy complexion, the instruction in french and latin, the distance from Rowayton girls and boys (who wanted to tan and didn't want to play sports), and the proximity to the intellectual world I imagined resided on Bluff Avenue. What fun I had. There were 26 girls, and our homeroom was the boathouse which extended into Wilson Cove and floated away shortly after I left. We were seated in alphabetical order...Booth, Brown, Carey, Carillo... (don't worry...a blonde of Spanish descent who wore only Black and Orange woolen scarves in honor of Daddy's alma mater.) We studied Algebra under Mammy Steelbags, our homeroom teacher who was named for her huge tits that she was constantly adjusting inside her over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders (bra). That was it...what I loved....there were words and nicknames for eveything...and everyone... Rencie for Florence Farwell, Winky for Suzie May's younger sister Winifred, Chicky for Catherine Matthieson. They all wanted to shed grandma's name and be a gull who was just a tiny bit common and have a language outsiders wouldn't know. I caught on fast...to the vocabulary, at least. I ate it up.

I arrived on the first day (walked) on my own..no mummy, no car, not streaming out of the Greens Farms bus with the lower school. Previously I had appeared at the entrance testing alone, with no pencil, no adult showing me which room to find and where to sit.
My sister had given me one warning...Do Not say "Hi" when introduced to Mrs. Opie. Of course, my nerves were shot and...
I blurted "hi" when she lifted her two fingers slightly toward me and nodded...She knew what I was still to find out...Although I was the highest scorer ever on the TSl entrance exam, I was a failure from the first day.