listen to concerts on the wireless, though I think my parents got little pleasure from them themselves, and it was never suggested that I might learn an instrument. My body grew and there were strange changes in it which frightened me at first. But my mother merely said, shortly and dryly: “It’s natural. It always happens.” So I sup- pose I stopped being afraid.
I reached eighteen without being aware that there was anything special about being eighteen. If any coming-of-age was celebrated in any of the books in the house, it would have been a twenty-first. So I became legally adult and eligible to vote (except that I was on no electoral rolls) without anything being said about it.
But my parents (who were now old, even I could see that) registered …show more content…
He was stout, decidedly so, but he seemed well-meaning, and had a little goatee beard. The Congregation disapproved of display in dress (it was easier to say what the Congregation disapproved of than to say what they believed in), but for this tea Mr. Hatfield was besuited, undoubt- edly tidy and spruce, and even sported a white carnation in his buttonhole.
Oddly enough what I remember about that occasion was our tea service, which I sat looking at much of the time. I compared this tea with great social occasions in books, and I saw that our tea service wasn’t up to par: each cup and saucer suf- fered from small chips or cracks, and the colored pattern was dingy; only the slops basin, hardly ever used, had any freshness.
Mr. Hatfield talked mostly to my parents, and even with them things were not easy. My mother and father had few topics of conversation because they had few interests. Eventually when they got on to homeopathy things went more easily, my father having some expertise in that field. Occasionally Mr. Hatfield would address a remark to me.
“I hear you’re fond of
I reached eighteen without being aware that there was anything special about being eighteen. If any coming-of-age was celebrated in any of the books in the house, it would have been a twenty-first. So I became legally adult and eligible to vote (except that I was on no electoral rolls) without anything being said about it.
But my parents (who were now old, even I could see that) registered …show more content…
He was stout, decidedly so, but he seemed well-meaning, and had a little goatee beard. The Congregation disapproved of display in dress (it was easier to say what the Congregation disapproved of than to say what they believed in), but for this tea Mr. Hatfield was besuited, undoubt- edly tidy and spruce, and even sported a white carnation in his buttonhole.
Oddly enough what I remember about that occasion was our tea service, which I sat looking at much of the time. I compared this tea with great social occasions in books, and I saw that our tea service wasn’t up to par: each cup and saucer suf- fered from small chips or cracks, and the colored pattern was dingy; only the slops basin, hardly ever used, had any freshness.
Mr. Hatfield talked mostly to my parents, and even with them things were not easy. My mother and father had few topics of conversation because they had few interests. Eventually when they got on to homeopathy things went more easily, my father having some expertise in that field. Occasionally Mr. Hatfield would address a remark to me.
“I hear you’re fond of