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Something to remember

Miss Schultz, a fine German woman, was trying to teach us to speak French. It was late in the afternoon, and, tired of learning that day, my thoughts were focused on the bare trees outside my White Bear Lake High School classroom window. I saw wispy grey clouds float by and wondered if the sun would ever shine again, it being November and all, one of the darkest months of the year.
We went around the room introducing ourselves, in French, I having chosen the lovely name Simone.
We talked, in French, about clouds in the sky, about libraries with books, about having headaches and asked each other the time, in French.
I was thinking about my new friend, too, Not in French. We had only known each other a few months. He was kind of a pest, hanging around my home all the time. And I wasnít sure if I wanted to think of him as my ìolder brotherî or my boyfriend. I looked at the clock not a few times.
I enjoyed my French class, really I did, but at the end of the day I was more than ready for it to be over.
Life had been going along pretty well in my sophomore year. I was looking forward to Thanksgiving with my family, the good food, the fellowship, the annual parade on television and then Christmas.
All I wanted for Christmas that year, I believe, was to be in love. It was my poetic period, I loved everything and everyone and also hated everything and everyone.
I wondered why I was alive, where I fit into the big picture in the world, and what my future would hold.
Back to the French class. I secretly penned a love poem, in French, in my head while others stumbled through their oral responses, in French. The jes and tus and nous were all getting jumbled in my head and I became impatient for the bell to ring signaling the end of the day at last.
A voice came over the PA system. It surprised us all.
The voice said the president had been shot, he was dead.
It was a moment when you wanted to use those profanities you had learned, in French.
But I didnít. I cried.

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