Autobiographical Me

One of our final homework assignments in eighth

grade was to write an autobiography of our lives.

Sr. Anne Vincetta said that a good portion of our

English grade would depend upon it.

Although a tinge of excitement ran through me, I

was always hesitant when it came to putting pen

to paper except when it came to drawing, the only

subject in which I managed grade A s consistently.

Be that as it may, I tackled my assignment judiciously,

paying close attention to dotting my i s and crossing

my t s. It was a fairly good story with a basic timeline

chronology like date of birth, parents, siblings and so

forth.

Mostly, though, I wrote about my best friend, Larry,

and how we would ride our bikes down to the creek

and hunt for turtles and frogs. And the big snapper we

ran across one day who could snap sticks in half we

put in front of his face.

“What do you suppose would happen if you put your

finger up to his beak?” I asked my friend. “I’m no

fool,” Larry said to me.“You do it and we’ll see.”

“Uh uh, no way, Jose!”, I shot back at him.

Anyway, in my writing I explained how in winter we

would set up and run our electric trains. We would

take turns: one day my house and the Lionel; the next

day Larry’s place and his American Flyer. I strongly

favored the Lionel because it was my dad’s when he

was a kid.

Up to that juncture in my life (14-years, and only vaguely

remembering 9 or 10 of those), I had little more of inter-

est to say. Oh, there was the St. Louis Cardinals and Stan

the Man Musial. They would surely win the Pennant this

year.

The title of my autobiography was, This is Really Me. I

never mentioned what I wanted to be when I grew up. I

couldn’t see myself more than a week in the future. I

planned to take the bus to the Cardinals game on Sunday

after Mass.

I did get a B on my autobiography. Only missed dotting

a couple of i s, and as I recall, failed to cross one or

two t s. Hadn’t a clue as to which “Really Me” I’d

grow up to be. For that we'd all have to wait and see.

                                              -30-

Chris Hanch 6-20-2020