THE HAUNTED BUCKET

THEY WANT THEIR STORY TOLD 

YES, HAUNTED!!!
I have  written before about the fact that for me almost every street in Pawtucket holds a memory or some kind of association. The place where I fell off my new bike, the place where my sister Sheila sat down in the middle of the road and would not budge.  The porch of my friend who  told me the FACTS OF LIFE  and I laughed  at the weird things she was telling me. The stadium that I climbed into almost daily in the  summer. These places are charged for me and a ride through the neighborhoods comforts me in some deep way that I cannot say that I understand. 

When I was living in Pawtucket--before I got away-- I feared that I would never escape. I could see all of the limitations of  Pawtucket and feared that the  negatives would limit me as well.  So the experience of leaving and going to graduate school  at the University of Illinois was  extremely liberating.  

People  at Illinois read  me in a positive way.  Because they  read  themselves in a positive way.  I was  suddenly in an environment that was highly esteemed and  it passed that esteem on to all of us who managed to gain admission.  There was none of that  self-denigrating RI and Pawtucket  attitude--If you're so great what are you doing here? Instead they heard my RI accent as an elite Eastern accent.  The American Studies  people even knew the historic, colonial achievements-- firsts--foundry in America, founder of Pawtucket, governor, lawyers, publisher-- that my name Jenckes/ Jenks conveyed and conferred on me. It was an education  for me in so many  ways. 

Thinking of all these  advantages I guess  explains  why I support whatever BIG TEN Teams make it  to the Dance in March Madness.