Saturday, October 25, 2008

Making a scroll of memories of Miss McMurphy

In the Middle Ages, they would commemorate a person in this way: a monk carrying a scroll would trek to convent to monastery to church to cathedral. Wherever he stopped, people would add personal comments to the scroll. After he hauled the (by this time very long and heavy) scroll back to his own monastery, it would be put in the library and thereby cherished. I speak as an ex-librarian: it would be cherished!

Miss McMurphy has remained in my brain like a disapproving ghost ever since I left Whitehorse High School and my stories of her are in the nature of war stories. On the other hand, she taught me how to write a sentence and how to recognize the poetry of John Donne. I count myself very lucky that I had her as my English teacher.

This is a 'scroll' in her honour, and I invite comments from any of her former students. To do so, you can either email Helen Munro, or write something in the comments section of the blog. I will pick up these comments and add them to the scroll.

Also, I possess a couple of yearbooks (1959 and 1960), so your photo may appear with your memory.

Remember: "preview" is your friend. Let us not, however, obsess too much about grammar
(I have written and re-written this little essay oh, about 10 times so far...)!

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