by Ann C. Averill In first grade, the first thing I learn is that reading means groups. The first group gathers around the front table with Miss Fontaine. Their hard cover book, The Little White House, displays a boy in a cowboy suit riding a pony as if reading is galloping fun. Betsey Baum raises …
by Ann Averill During Christmas vacation I slept with a boy – for the first time – for all the wrong reasons. After Christmas vacation, I come home from school, turn on the tiny TV in the den, and change the channel to Dark Shadows, the soap opera I used to watch with my best …
by Ann C. Averill Halloween costumes, my mom made them all. Second grade, a hot pink gypsy skirt with black rickrack at the bottom and clip-on hoop earrings that I hoped made me look like dusky Mrs. Tuthill, the only mom I knew in my 1960’s suburb with pierced ears. Third grade, a glittering green …
by Ann C. Averill When I was a little girl, my family ate dinner at 6:30 every night. A meat, a vegetable, a starch, and a homemade dessert like tapioca pudding or apple brown betty. Often my brother and I watched The Early Show from 5:00-7:00 PM featuring movies like Mothra Meets Godzilla. That meant …
by Ann C. Averill My first memory is of a rented cottage on a skinny point jutting into the confluence of the Housatonic River and Long Island Sound. I’m afraid of the snails that pock the beach in front of the gray shingled shack, so when we swim, Daddy carries me into the water. When …
