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Souvenirs Tell Stories — Part 6: A Ticket to KMA Graduation
“There are places I remember all my life
Though some have changed.
Some forever, not for better;
Some have gone, and some remain.
“In My Life” by John Lennon of the Beatles
During the late summer of 1977, as an eager and energetic 26-year-old English teacher, I walked into an old, brick building in an old, mill town in upstate New York. No, this particular building was not a factory; instead, it was a small, Catholic high school, and I spent the next nine years of my career working there. Though the school is now closed and though the building was demolished and the site turned into a parking lot, that school is one of the places John Lennon was writing about, one of those “places I remember all my life.”
Keveny Memorial Academy (KMA) in Cohoes, New York, was initially named St. Bernard’s Academy, and it included grades kindergarten through twelve. By the time I arrived, however, over 100 years after the building’s construction, the school offered only grades nine through twelve with roughly 50 students per grade. As a result, KMA was an ideal place to teach because the classes were small, the parents were involved and supportive, many of my fellow teachers were sisters of Saint Joseph, Sisters of Mercy, or local…
