My Nursery School teacher was Miss MacMaster. The class met three mornings a week in a small brick building adjacent to the Memorial Field playground in Summit, New Jersey.
My memories of Nursery School are fond, or at least uninvasive.
On one particular morning, workmen were banging and sawing away next door while we were singing, of all things, the Marine Corps Hymn. The louder they banged, the louder Miss MacMaster would have us sing. It was lots of fun. We were all singing and screaming at the same time, with her approval and encouragement.
Needless to say, I have never forgotten that moment. One thought that occasionally recurs is that we were in Nursery School and ALL of us - boys and girls - knew the words to the Marine Corps Hymn.
The Fifties were like that.
When I was little, we weren't all that far removed from World War II. There were war movies, war heroes (Audie Murphy), war ship models to be built, old Army uniforms stuffed in the attic, and endless war games to be reenacted with friends throughout the battlefields of the Watchung Reservation.
So why was it a surprise when, during my senior year in prep school, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps? It had been my childhood. It was how I was brought up. Patriotism, guns, war, and the Marine Corps were all very cool. Given the opportunity, the choice seemed obvious.
That being said, I’d like to turn you my readers, into you my listeners, for a peak at Miss MacMaster’s Nursery School class circa 2007. You can almost hear the workmen next door.
Semper Fidelis.
Thank you for visiting.
Jack
Saturday, February 2, 2008
"Songs For Beginners"
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2 comments:
The Fifties! I often reflect on David Halberstam's book that you gave me and wonder if it was simpler them, really, or it only seemed that way to us. Remember the "Yellow rose of Texas"?
Wonderful video! Was that you in the second row?
Remember memorizing the silouettes of Russian Migs published in the Newark Evening News during the Korean War? In case they attacked the US.
And picking out two toned cars at Dennis Werner's Dad's Chrysler dealership. Pink on top, black below? Flipping the pages back an forth?
Yes, the Fifties. When neighbors on the edges of oceans to the east and oceans to the west were decimated and we could help rebuild and all focus on ONE Satan. The Ruskies.
Too much to digest. Love the perspective. Thank you.
What a look at a memory! I've heard your story of Mrs. McMaster's class and singing the Marine Corps Hymn, but this movie was priceless! Imagine, children that young being about to remember all the correct words to it! Too funny...
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