When I was very young, I went to Mrs. McGovren's nursery school on Ferry Road in Old Lyme. I remember little of it directly, mostly images and feelings. I know I was quite insistent about my age, and I know I met Santa there and some bunnies; also I know that the way I got there (my mother's bike had a child seat) was one of the best things about being small. One nebulous image does have a distinct story attached.
A long counter, made of wood, under plate glass windows that stretched the length of the room and that looked out onto the lawn on the south side of the house. The brightness of a thinly overcast day outside. I am standing on a stool, a grown up stands next to me. I have just climbed up on the stool while she looked elsewhere, either at the counter or at someone to her right, or so I think.
She notices me from the corner of her eye and faces me. We are eye-to-eye. I am four years old. "My word!" she exclaims. "You're very tall, aren't you!"
"Yup," I claim proudly. Proud to be tall, proud to have fooled a grown-up. "I grew a lot overnight."
"Well I'll be."
Unable to delight in my triumph privately, I had to show her what a simpleton she was. Giggling with victory, I confessed, "Really I'm just standing on this stool."
"You are?"
Naturally I can't vow that that's verbatim, but I know that she exclaimed at my height and that I was convinced I had hoodwinked a grown-up.
This incident, in which I know I delighted for quite a while, surfaced suddenly sometime in high school, when I myself was a baby-sitter. I realized that this woman, whoever she was I don't remember, likely went home that night and told her husband or her best friend or her dog or all three and everybody else too the cute thing little Lisa said that day.
Mrs. McGovren came into PGN once while I worked there. I hadn't seen her for years, probably; I don't believe she recognized me but she remembered my name, my sister's, and mother's.
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Last modified 23 November 1997
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