School Daze

I started my quest for learning via the public education system in September of 1963. Kindergarten had not been thought of yet, so at the age of six I started the 1st grade at Reeds Elementary School. I lived only two miles from the school but I still rode the school bus and was never car pooled to school as is the custom of so many today.
To this day I can still visualize Mrs. Myers, my first grade teacher. She had a high pitched voice that could be heard and picked out among a large group of adults or an even larger group of loud mouthed first graders.
We were made to take a nap after lunch. We had all brought a small mat from home to aid in this activity. Many of these so called nap times did not line up with my need to talk and be active. As a result, Tina Lanier and I felt it necessary to talk while we were supposed to be resting and/or napping. Mrs. Myers decided if she couldn’t shut us up she would at least move us to where we wouldn’t disturb the other sleepers. In her wisdom she made Tina and I sleep in an adjoining utility room that was located between the auditorium and our classroom. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. What business did the teacher have of putting a girl and a boy in a room to themselves to “sleep”? Give me a break; we were only six years old! Anyway, Tina and I were pleased to find out that the utility room was also used as a storage room for many of our classroom games and activities. If this was to be punishment for talking during nap time I guess we might as well make the best of it. We played games, talked and endured our punishment while the rest of the children were forced to rest. It was also our good fortune that there was a sizable space under the door leading from our classroom to the auditorium and also the classroom door. It allowed us to be able to monitor Mrs. Myer’s goings and comings without any problem. It allowed us ample time to put away our toys preventing us from being busted. I might mention that Tina Lanier was also the first girl I kissed. It happened on a church hayride years later but that’s another story.
Other than lunch, my highlight during my elementary school days was recess. It was a time to release stored up energy that a teacher probably didn’t want to see during class time. It came with its risks. I remember the time that Ken Dorsett fell off the monkey bars and cracked open his skull. We all thought that he was going to die. He was taken away, stitched up and ended up living after all.
My little group of friends did a lot of role playing games during recess. We played Star Trek using the stoop and steps of the gymnasium as the control room of the USS Enterprise. We took turns “transporting” each other to places unknown. One craze that overtook us was the year that the Monkees (the singing group) was televised. My group of recess buddies became the Monkees. I was Peter. We even had some of the girls in our class chasing us around for our autographs (we wouldn’t have known what to do it they caught us!). Looking back, I’m really not sure how we got the girls to chase us. I guess they were role playing too. We went as far as entering the school talent show lip singing one of the Monkees’ songs. We had borrowed guitars and drums from someone to make it more authentic. We won honorable mentions (2nd place) to a group of upper classmen that actually preformed live another Monkees song. Come to think of it, this might have been when the girls started chasing us.
I must have been somewhat of a rebel during part of my schooling. Not a trouble maker, I like to think of it as having a need for some mischief (or practice stupidity). Who knows, I may have been diagnosed as having ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). I think it was more or less just part of being a kid.
The graveled area where the buses were parked was off limits to students during class time. Billy Lanning and I decided to play near the buses during recess one summer day. It started off playful enough but ended badly. Billy had ran and hid behind a large shade tree next to the bus parking lot. I decided to flush him out of hiding by throwing handfuls of small gravel from the parking lot. What I was unaware of was the fact that I had in my haste, picked up larger gravel with the lot. I threw the gravel high into the tree limbs and let them fall from above in hopes of scaring him out of hiding. The next thing I knew I saw Billy running out from behind the tree holding one hand to his head. One of the larger gravel had hit him in the top of the head and he was bleeding. I felt bad and we both knew that it wasn’t my intention to hurt him. My mind has tried to suppress some of my bad memories but I think I ended up getting a paddling from one of my teachers for my little stunt. Billy survived and I didn’t go to the “forbidden zone” anymore nor did I feel the need to continue throwing rocks at my friends. The key to making mistakes is that you learn something from them and quit repeating the same ones over and over again. I call it M.L.M. Mess-up, Learn, Move-on.
Speaking of messing up, I did another stupid thing during my elementary school days. This happened when I was around nine or ten years old and knew better. At those times we had old iron water fountains outside near the school sidewalks. My second cousin Bonnie Swicegood was drinking some water from one of those fountains and I thought it would be funny to push the back of her head and cause her to have a good face washing. I over estimated my push and caused her to bust her lip on the guard just above the water outlet. Lesson learned here: “engage brain before acting”. I’m not sure if she ratted on me but she should have. I probably apologized profusely and begged her not to tell. These types of things are funny when nothing bad happens (like pulling a chair out from under someone as they start to set down) but when someone is disfigured or maimed who is laughing then? Lesson learned: for every action there is a consequence, good and bad.
Think about a pebble that is tossed into a calm lake. It may not make a big splash but the ripple caused by the impact goes on for a while. The point is, once the ripple starts it can’t be reversed or stopped. Even if you throw another pebble in the lake to head off the outgoing ripple, you have merely made yet another ripple that may only serve to go in another direction. We all need to take a moment and think before we act or react to a situation. No decision affects only us and no one else.