contents - Gallatin School of Individualized Study - New York ...

velma noelvelma noel Gaining Perspective116Back in Grenadaone day, when I was a little girl back in Grenada, my parents sent my sisterJanet and me to the shop. It was seven in the evening and it had started toget dark outside. The shop was about 15 minutes away from where we lived. On theway to the shop was a family cemetery.As my sister and I neared the cemetery on our way back home, we hearda boom and something started rolling behind us. It was dark and we could not seewhat it was, so we started running.Where we were living we didn’t have streetlights. My sister and I bumpedinto each other in the dark and both of us fell in a drain. We got up as fast as we could,and we started running again. We ran until we got home and were out of breath. Ourparents asked us what happened. When we told them, they started laughing. Ourparents said it was a coconut that fell from the tree and started rolling behind us.After that evening, our parents never again sent my sister and me to theshop in the dark.A 54-year-old Grenada native, Velma Noel has lived in New York for 17 years.She is a student at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Learning Center, whereWinsome Pryce-Cortes is the site manager, and Susan Knott is the literacyadvisor. She would like to thank her volunteer tutor, Rochelle McNeeley. Thisis Velma Noel’s third publication in the Literacy Review, and she says, “I amdeveloping confidence in myself, and I am happy as a result.”