8:00
# We have two schools in New Jerusalem : the elementary school that was built twenty years before , when they put in the wooden sidewalks and the town hall ; and the non-denominational Academy that was built just before I left for 1975 . Miss Tannenbaum , a spinster lady with a moustache and a bristling German accent terrorised the little kids in the elementary school -- I 'd been stuck in her class for five long years . Mr Adelson , who was raised in San Francisco and who had worked as a roustabout , a telegraph operator and a merchant seaman taught the Academy , and his wild stories were all Oly could talk about . He raised one eyebrow quizzically when I came through the door at 8:00 that morning . He was tall , like my Pa , but Pa had been as big as an ox , and Mr Adelson was thin and wiry . He wore rumpled pants and a shirt with a wilted celluloid collar . He had a skinny little beard that made him look like a gentleman pirate , and used some shiny pomade to grease his hair straight back from his high forehead .