Special Treasures

Because I keep that bracelet in a very special place, I do not often see it. I keep it in a special place because it would be unbearable to me to have it stolen. It was a very special gift that I received 36 years ago and having been burglarized before, I know to keep it somewhere safe.

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I mentioned Miss Lane and this bracelet just briefly in a post I did last June about teachers. I think I accidentally called her Mrs. Lane in that post but I'm pretty sure she was a Miss. She's the teacher in the photo below:

I'm the third kid to the right of Miss Lane, sitting the closest to the teachers desk, which is right behind me.

I adored Miss Lane. I was always hanging around after school offering to help do anything. One time she let me help her in the storage room and she gave me outdated textbooks including the teacher's edition with the bright red text with the answers. I was thrilled and they were great for "playing school." My friends were so impressed that I had a teacher's book.

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After second grade, I would continue to visit Miss Lane after school. When I was in fifth grade or so she asked me to help her grade some projects and I felt so grown up. I always loved to spend time with her and she always seemed glad to see me.

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Nowadays, or maybe it's just a Texas thing, elementary schools have graduations, which is pretty silly, but we didn't have anything like that back then. On the last day of school when you were in the sixth grade, you were just done. Done with sixth grade and done with elementary school. On my last day of sixth grade, Miss Lane found me somewhere and told me to come to see her at the end of the day. Everyone ran out of the school like crazy monkeys the way we always did every year on the last day of school, but I took the other direction, to walk back to the old first and second grade building.

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Miss Lane was there waiting for me and gave me a little gift box. I opened it to find that little bracelet. I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world. She hugged me and said some things, which I so wish I could remember exactly, but I imagine she told me that I was a smart girl and to study hard and have a great life. Because that's the sort of thing a teacher would say.

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It's not real gold and I imagine, or at least I hope, that it was not very expensive, but it has held up very well because I never wore it. It was always too special.