When my parents told me I’d be going to boarding school, I felt excited. I loved Alaska, for sure; the fun and friends and coming home everyday after school. But going to Ireland offered a whole new world of exciting opportunities and adventure for me, at least that’s what I thought at the time.
I remember the day my sixth grade teacher announced to the class she was handing out permission slips for our upcoming field trip to Romig Junior High and the pride I felt telling her and the class that I didn’t need one. “I’m not going to Romig,” I said with probably a smirk. “I’m going to Ireland.” I looked around the class to see who might be envious and felt a little hurt no one seemed to give a damn.
School in Ireland would start off with a long plane ride. I loved airplanes and flying. I knew every airliner there was, even many of the European ones like the Trident, VC-10, and Viscount. I knew them because I’d been to Europe before – in 1971 when Mom pulled me out of first grade to rescue Roger from boarding school in Northern Ireland. We went to Portugal after that, back to Ireland, then home to Washington. That was all good fun.
I expected this time to be no different, seeing how Roger still included me in his fun. I thought I was the luckiest little brother there was. And he’d protect me from bullies, too. He told me about those. Said they roamed the halls of Romig looking for little guys just like me to nudge quarters around the toilet seats by the nose, and if the quarter fell into the bowl? “They’ll push your head in and hold you there until you come up with the quarter in your teeth,” Roger often told me. Boarding school didn’t sound nearly as scary.
Bicentennial quilt project - 1976
