Age five

 Three things happened when I was age five that were large inputs into a young nervous system. 

1. We got electricity

2. A tonsillectomy happened

3. I started school

Life changed a lot with electrification. Up to then we had lived our farm life with kerosene lamp or two, adequate to see by in the evening or to take outside to the outdoor toilet in winter in the dark. Not great but people made do. 
Electrification happened before tonsillectomy I think, because I remember when I came home a fridge had appeared that contained throat-soothing jello and ice cream. And I do remember being enthralled watching a young man in our yard who dug a big hole for a power pole, so it must have been before the surgery, or concurrent with. 
What a difference it made. La mere installed an electric can opener and found somewhere to stash an electric popcorn maker and I think also an electric kettle. She loved new plug-in stuff. We had overhead lighting in every room. And a big yard light. 

The tonsillectomy was smooth sailing psychosocially, all but for the way my eyes were covered up and I was held down by all four limbs in the OR while still conscious which was terrifying and just made me struggle and yell more and a huge ether mask was applied to my face and then, dark. Then waking up with the sorest throat in the whole wide world. I do hope that kinder treatment of paediatric patients has evolved since the mid-1950s. 

I started school that fall, age 5 and a half, because I had been born so late in the year and there was a six-month cutoff baked into the law or something. I was deemed fit to begin, I guess, and maybe la mere was happy to have me gone most of the day. I mean, we were never cozy anyway and I was thrilled to move onto to something new, like learning to read! Like being around kids I had never met before! Playing at recess and learning stuff in between. Printing words and later, cursive writing, math. It felt good, like I wanted to take my brain out and flatten it out like a raw piecrust and let knowledge rain down and soak into it. Gain cognitive agency. 

It was a one-room schoolhouse with windows on the south side. It was already old; its glass panes had drooped and rippled from direct sunshine heat from long before I got there. 
The door to the classroom was in the exact middle of the front wall of the class. Over it hung an official portrait of a young, new Queen Elizabeth, looking very lovely and sovereign and reassuring. Watching over all of us as we entered and exited. Every morning we sang Oh Canada, and recited the Lord's Prayer. Every day when school ended, we sang God Save the Queen. Comforting rituals. 
There was a piano in the back of the room beside the window where the the pencil sharpener was screwed to the sill. My cousin usually played the music. She took piano lessons and had advanced quite far. Three years older than me, one of the big kids. She played very well, actually. She had not just one, but two pianos at home to practice on. So cool. 
There was a horse barn in the school yard, even though most people did not use horses to get to school anymore. There were cars, and school buses, and bicycles, and walking. The barn was good for playing Anti-I-Over, which I loved because it involved yelling. 

I'll probably write more about school days, but for now, I just want to say that I sat in that room for eight years, most of them with the same teacher. By the time I had migrated over to the north side of the school room, I had most of the content memorized from hearing it so repeatedly and was more than ready to get to high school and new learning.