Our Short-cut to School

When I was in high school I despised Geometry.  Never had any use for it.  I  quickly arrived at the conclusion that my geometry class had only one benefit and that was its allotment of forty-three minutes for uninterrupted sleep each day.  And I made good use of that time  using "Introduction to Geometry" as my pillow.

So it really never took the investigative skills of a Sherlock Holmes to uncover the reason why my final  Regents exam grade was not particularly stellar.  If my memory serves me correctly, I saw the words "SUMMER SCHOOL" stamped in red ink across the term "I DO SO DECLARE" that concluded the test.

During the first few weeks of my summer recess from school I began to prepare myself for dark days cramped in a overcrowded classroom surrounded by backboards chaulk-filled with circles, squares, and isosoles triangles- a living hell.  That is, until my aunt Edna told me to look on the bright side 'cause, ". . .at least you'll have company, you're cousin Steve will be going too."

I perked up, as much as anyone who has to attend summer school, can perk up and probably said with a distant tone, "wow, . . . cool." or something like that.

The school was called Archbishop Molloy high school or "Molloy" for short.  It was a three floor off-white building, the length of a football field with a thin copper colored cross attached to the silver pleated facade above the main entrance.

Malloy rested on the top of a hill in front of its vastly manicured lawn which spread to the sidewalk below alongside Queens boulevard.  

What I remember most of that summer wasn't so much the teachers who worked there, or the subjects that were taught there, no, my friends, what I can never forget was how my cousin Steve and I got there.  

Every morning of every day that summer, Steve and I did what everyone else did; we took a shortcut.  Only our shortcut wasn't as homogenous as the rest.  Our shortcut was more creative, more colorful, more adventurous.  Fact is, some people wait all their lives before they take this very same route- a trip though the winding paths of Maple Grove. . .  Cemetery, that is.

Now I forget who had the clever idea of shortening out trip to summer school by passing through a graveyard, but I do have one clue.  Remember who failed geometry and didn't pay attention to the "Pythagoreon theorem", ya know one that goes: the shortest distance between two points?  I had no idea what this Pythagoreon shortcut was all about.  So, I think it's fair to assume, the clever idea did not generate with me.

No matter who thought of the idea.  It was stellar nonetheless and a thrilling way for two young cousins to take back some summer fun that was marred by an interruption of school.

As I was explaining, each morning on the way to Malloy and every afternoon returning from, Steve and I stealthily meandered through the shaded curving pathways  that lead past mausoleums and age-worn gravestones of Maple Grove Cemetery.

You might say that this shortcut was our daily trip though the countyside.

And I thought geometry was useless . . . huh.