Today I decided to reflect on a childhood experience - just to experience the memory.It is winter of 1957, and I am in the second grade at Noble Road Elementary School in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Most days I would walk to and from school over snowy sidewalks along side mountains of snow piled by the side of the road from the snowscraper trucks.
One of my favorite things to do was to stop at the corner store by the school each afternoon after school. This year I would take pennies my Mom, Susie Goodwin, had given me to use in the gumball machine, and if you got a marble instead the clerk would give you a rabbit's foot.
All year I had been collecting, and had a string of them in bright colors - red, blue, yellow, and green. They were different sizes and they had soft fur, and I like to rub them.
I would take them to school and put them in my desk that had a top and closed. Now and then I would put my hand in and rub them. One day, my teacher warned me not to play with my rabbits' feet, but I must have continued and she took them away. She said she would give them back at the end of the week, but when the time finally came, she could not find them.
I was extremely upset and hated my teacher for it. My most prized possession was taken and my heart was broken to lose it.
It's funny how this kind of thing makes an impression that lasts a lifetime. I have loved rabbit's feet ever since and kept a collection of sorts in a box to admire when I feel like it now.
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