The motto
Imagine a school that actually had a crest with a motto… in LATIN no less!
Quod Facis Bene Fac…What You Do, Do Well
I noticed that as the first thing when I got the school handbook. And I was in awe. What a message to give….What you do, do well. I fully intended to do just that.
Oh, the possibilities!
AND then there was the fact that there was an actual handbook! Torrington High School had an actual school student HANDBOOK. It spelled out the rules of academic achievement. It listed the MANY teachers, by subject. Their degrees. The universities they attended. I read each one. These were not just “teachers.” They were scholars…accomplished people. The portals to all that wisdom I wanted.
And courses. So MANY courses listed by subject. So many subjects. And MULTIPLE choices for courses in each subject.
Imagine you didn’t just take “English.” It could be College English. And it wasn’t grammar. You studied LITERATURE! Like that book the nun gave me. And you wrote term papers!
You could read about the Greeks. Shakespeare. British and American Literature. Poetry! And in your senior year, you could have electives like Creative Writing. Introduction to Film. Mythology and Bible Studies.
You didn’t just study “History.” You took World Civilization. American History. Political seminars. And it wasn’t just hand-waving for science, but Chemistry, Biology, and Earth Science. And languages – Latin, German, French, Italian, Spanish…. I was beyond excited. I hadn’t even started the school year yet, but I had already mapped out all four of my years to take everything that sounded interesting. And all of it did.
This felt like such a big new world. Like maybe a future was possible yet with this knowledge…and certainly, Dad wouldn’t keep doing “things” to me that much longer. I would grow up, and he would have to stop, right?
The Talisman of Power
I also received a major talisman when I graduated from Sacred Heart School. A TYPEWRITER.
My grandmother in Bridgeport worked at the Remington factory. My father had arranged through her to get me a typewriter as a graduation gift. You have to understand. This was revolutionary to me.
Up until this point, everything I did had to be handwritten. I never thought about typing papers. I didn’t know there would BE research papers. We did have Mom’s 1940s black Royal typewriter, but I don’t think it worked that well. So, oh, what a gift.
This object represented the opportunity to succeed in this new big world. So much so that I didn’t even care that I had to go to the high school that summer and take an Intro to Typing class. It meant success. And I wanted it.
It is interesting how talismans carry the power of that memory. Over the years, I lost track of that typewriter, and of course, I am typing this on a laptop. But I hunted down the exact model of what I had in 1969 and found it online. It was more than I wanted to pay. But I made an offer and they accepted.
I couldn’t believe how excited I was, anticipating its delivery. You’d think I just ordered a brand new PC, not some 1960s antique. But when it showed up, I tore open the package, looked at it, and it was like time had not passed. I just reveled in its appearance sitting there on my desk.
When I put my hands on it, it’s amazing how tactile memory takes you right back to that moment in time when I received that first typewriter. Closing my eyes, I just rested my fingers on the keys. Slid them over the letters. Hit the space bar. Yanked the carriage return handle. It all came back. How to lock the carriage. Backspace. Change the ribbon. I was in heaven.
I slid a piece of paper behind the carriage, spun the knob to roll it into place, and punched the keys. Yes, punched. Manual typewriters. They require a finger strength that I’d not used in years. But oh, what a joy. And a laugh as I noticed and remembered that when you type, if you don’t use the same power on each keystroke, some letters will be darker than others. The details you forget.
Photo by author
Now, to get on with it…
This object held the power to propel me into a future I could only dream about. It was fog-shrouded and unclear. But it was POSSIBLE with a tool like this. I was on my way. All I needed now was to get started in that new place — The Torrington High School — and see which of those scholars I would get to learn from.
Soul Mosaic 
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