My mother was “too afraid” to go and register me for elementary school. She thought people wouldn’t be able to understand her and make fun of her poor language skills.
She said she would home school my sister and me instead and that this would be better for all of us, so we could help around the house and learn “more important things”.
We used the old sandwhich bags my father brought home from his occasional work as a day laborer to practice our letters.
Months went by and just as there were fewer sandwhich bags our mothers schooling diminished.
We didn’t mind it back then. We were only kids taking every opportunity to slip away from our chores and play hide-and-seek with the neighbors kids.
Most days we spent by hanging around the asssited housing complex thinking how lucky we were not to have to go to school every time we saw the yellow bus passing.