CHAPTER SIX

On Monday at 7:15 a.m., and forever thereafter, we all woke up to the piercing sound of a brass bell, ding-a-linging along from one dorm to another and then up the stairs. Nothing happened at the School without bells, buzzers, and line-ups. We lined up for meals, school in the other building, and church outside. Sometimes, it seemed, we lined up just for the practice of doing it again.

I got up and said good morning to my next-door neighbour and he and I went into the washroom together. As there were maids in the sewing room, opposite the washroom, no one went half-dressed to wash up. I lined up at the row of sinks with other boys from all four dorms on the floor, kids nine to twelve or thereabouts. There was some talking in front of the mirrors but mostly someone humming a tune or singing a song. I was less afraid than I thought I would be, and even without Mom, I had everything ready so as not to be late for school. I washed up and combed my hair and went back to the dorm to put things away.

After cleaning up and lining up for a blob of cod liver oil, it was downstairs to line up for breakfast. We marched down another flight of stairs and into the basement, two by two, through an underground tunnel, past the Juniors’ dining room and into ours. With pipes of all sizes either hugging the walls of the tunnel or clinging to the ceiling, it could have been, as I imagined from time to time, an entrance to an underground bomb shelter, or, better still, a secret passageway to the very centre of the earth.

The dining room was mostly painted in white and light blue. Fluorescent lights attached themselves to a low ceiling that you could reach up and touch. There were tables for four, and, farther in, a smaller room with two longer tables, all nicely set and ready.

The eggs might have been a bit rubbery, the toast soggy, and the top slice of bread a bit stale, but overall, the food at the School was better than good on most days and always plentiful. Today I’d gladly sit down to Mrs. Woodward’s fish and chips every second Friday, Sunday dinners with homemade pie, her beef gravy from real beef, or the pancakes we got once a year. As good as it was, and as often as we were told about starving children in Africa (always Africa), lots of food was left over.

It you didn’t like porridge or cream of wheat for breakfast, you could fill up on cold cereal with fresh milk, not the powdered kind. If salt cod and potatoes for dinner on Mondays was not to your liking, you could get by with bread and real butter. And if that wasn’t enough, it was only a few hours to the next meal.

I can almost recite the weekly menu by heart, as it hardly ever changed in my nine years at the School. It was so reliable, week to week, that if you didn’t want the pears served at Tuesday supper, you could trade them, in advance, to someone who didn’t like homemade pie at Sunday dinner. And with more than ninety boys enrolled at the School, you could always find someone who didn’t like your favourite dessert.

On that first morning, I sat with Tony MacNeil and two other boys from my dorm. It was Tony’s first year at the School as well, but it didn’t seem to bother him nearly as much. We talked and laughed during breakfast about nothing I can remember. The dining room was always abuzz with chatter, at and between the tables. I learned quickly that if you wanted something you had to raise your hand and, before long, one of the maids was there.

Tony was a rougher sort than me, not a bully, but closer to that than far away, but I liked him for not being shy or mousy about anything. If you needed someone to do something daring, it was Tony, not me. I glued myself to him for a few days until I knew my way around. As if it was meant to be, we were both in the same class, Grade Three.

After breakfast on that Monday morning I went back upstairs to brush my teeth and get ready for school. After washing the sheets (I’ll get to that later), I went downstairs to line up for school, while one of the supervisors checked a list to make sure everyone was there.

I remember feeling less upset already because no one had teased me on the way there or anywhere else the day before. We marched from the boys’ side to the main corridor and stopped in front of the girls’ lineup. When a buzzer sounded, both lineups turned into the main hall and off we went, through the little jungle and into the School building.

It was girls on one side, boys on the other, and lots of chattering along the way. I saw kids of all ages and many of them with disabilities far worse than mine. Some walked with great difficulty, muscle and body spasms they couldn’t control and others in braces. One of the boys near me was almost non-communicative: there but not there. Most of the kids, however, were just totally blind or just partially sighted like me. I didn’t notice at the time but there were no kids in wheelchairs, and none in later years either. I was too young not to stare; I had never seen what I saw that morning. And I was surprised to discover that I wasn’t as badly off as I thought.

Not long after, we were all seated in the auditorium for what someone told me and Tony was Assembly Hall, held every school day. And there, too, it was girls on one side and boys on the other. I remember how friendly the other kids were, explaining what to expect and what to do next.

I was already talking to some of the other students and picking this one or that one as a possible friend. I don’t know why exactly, but I tended to identify with kids like Tony, who seemed to see as well or nearly as well as I did. I certainly wouldn’t have thought less of anyone, not me, but that’s the way it was.

Then all the students were there in the auditorium, along with some of the teachers and a few of the staff. There was a lot of talking, laughing, and then someone on stage playing a piece on the grand piano, music I recognized from the radio.

I remember how nice it all felt, warm inside, just sitting there in the rows with the other kids, living in the same world, so to speak. As poor as my eyesight was, there were countless others with far less to guide them. For the first time ever, by contrast, I was more sighted than blind.

When a man in a grey suit walked onto the stage, the place turned quiet and we stood up for God Save the Queen, the Lord’s Prayer, and a hymn. I knew some of the hymn from church and every word of the Lord’s Prayer from school, except for what the Protestants added at the end. You’d never hear those words at the end of the Lord’s Prayer where I came from. Protestants and Catholics had their own schools and churches and seldom even walked on the same side of the street to get there. I’m not sure I ever met a real Protestant before then and, of course, they were just like us, not as whispered about at home.

The man on stage introduced himself as Mr. Allen, the School Superintendent. He welcomed us to another year of study and, after a few announcements, he opened a book and began Chapter One of The Wind in the Willows. He read to us every day. If it wasn’t that book, it was Alice in Wonderland or Tom Sawyer or Gulliver’s Travels.

On that first morning and years of mornings thereafter, Mr. Allen read to us like he himself had written the books. It was one chapter a day until the end of that book and the beginning of the next. The readings were just like movies come to life and yet chock full of lessons and characters to be remembered.

Mr. Allen spoke like the Badger or Toad or the Ghost of Christmas Past. And as entertaining as it was back then, it’s even more so now. A good teacher is appreciated when they teach you, but even more as time moves forward. I never had much to do with Mr. Allen (or the Ghost of Christmas Past, either), but, whenever I did, he was kind and yet firm, formal and yet friendly, like you’d expect of someone in charge.

Sitting to my left was Donald Keeping, an older kid who was totally blind. I stared at him as he read the hymn with his fingers. I’d heard of Braille before, but to see it working: that was amazing. When he put the words down, I picked them up and ran my finger over the pages. I felt the bumps, which, of course, made no sense to me, whether up, down, or sideways.

After leaving the School years later I realized that nothing was done there without some thoughtful purpose. Morning Assembly gave us a sense of belonging to a larger community and the readings made up for books we probably would have read, but with great difficulty. Even the bells and buzzers taught me always to be on time. I was feeling better already and that was just the beginning of my first day at the School for the Blind in Halifax.