Which Reminds Me

During the year that I was in seventh grade I attended Modesto Christian School. I remember that the girl sitting at the desk directly to the right of me was Joan whose mother taught the sewing lessons that were given to the seventh grade girls. I made an apron and some other things. Gathers are a tricky thing. Her mother showed us the blue formal gown that she was making for Lee Bueno. It was very elaborate. Steve was the guy who sat directly in front of me at school. One day Joan and I were talking about what we got on a test. Joan asked me what my grade was, and it was probably an A or B. Joan said that she had gotten a D or F. She explained that her mind blanks out on tests and she forgets everything. Oh, that's too bad. At least her mother can teach her how to sew because if she is already flunking seventh grade her career prospects will not be good, or else she could get married and then grades would not matter. Or I suppose that someone may have made all these conjectures about Joan's future because I really didn't think about that at the time and completely forgot about Joan later after returning to El Salvador. Maybe Steve remembers overhearing that conversation. Who knows? I vaguely remember Joan and Steve. I also vaguely remember Judy and Julie (Stott), two girls who were about the same height, small, both blondes, both popular, always seen together. I once asked them if they were twins, which probably seemed to them like a very stupid question, but they seemed so identical at the time. Later, I noticed their differences but at first I thought they looked identical. So that is what the Modesto bees are buzzing about, I would imagine.