School Days

Schools in this area are already in session. They start much earlier than they once did. In years gone by they began either in the last week of August or in the first week of September following Labor Day. Nowadays Alabama schools typically begin the first or second week of August. Since I was in school, more days have been added to the school calendar making an earlier start a must. Also, many schools now operate on an all year schedule meaning that the summer break is much shorter, but students and teachers get more holidays throughout the school year.

I recall my first day of elementary school in grade one. Back then, kindergarten attendance was not common, so many of us had never spent an entire day in the classroom. Therefore, it was customary for the mothers to spend the first day of school with their children who were in grade one. After that, we were on our own. Some children were traumatized by being left alone without their mothers. This was during the era in which most mothers did not work outside the home. I do recall the second day of school without my mother. I admit that I desperately wanted to cry, but I had too much pride. I felt that it was undignified. Not all children had such a well developed sense of propriety. There was one boy who sobbed uncontrollably every day for what seemed like an eternity. The teacher tried to be patient, but she finally had enough. No other child continued to cry after the first month. In frustration, the teacher scolded the boy, telling him that she had had enough of his crying. It was time to stop. Amazingly, her strategy worked. He never cried again.

Soon I settled down into the routine of learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. Reading proved the easiest for me. At first I didn't think I would get the hang of it. Our first reading lesson consisted of the teacher reading a sentence out loud and asking us to repeat it. I was amazed at how well most of the students could parrot what the teacher said. I couldn't repeat everything with the ease that the others did, but now I realize that they weren't reading, just memorizing what she said. The teacher introduced us to phonics, and I excelled at reading. Phonics lessons were my favorite academic exercise. I loved learning new rules and being challenged to apply these rules to decipher unfamiliar words.

My least favorite activity was handwriting. We were forced to learn by watching public television lessons. The TV teacher went too fast, and I couldn't keep up. Today my handwriting is simply dreadful. One day I decided to rebel. Instead of trying to write five r's on my handwriting pad, I sat there like a stubborn mule. There was no sense in trying to make five r's when the teacher barely gave us enough time to write three of them. My classroom teacher noticed that I wasn't writing, so she asked me why. I made up a stupid fib that I simply forgot that I was supposed to keep up with the TV instructor. Later on in the day, the second grade teacher visited our room, so the first grade teacher made it a point to inform our visitor: "One person in this room did not do her lesson. I am not going to tell you her name, but she has blond hair." I was clearly the blondest person in the room, so that left little doubt as to the identity of the culprit.

Sometimes our teacher would step outside the room to blow her nose. She honked so loudly, you could hear her clear across to the end of the sixth grade classroom. During her absence, we would get into mischief. I once decided to entertain the class by seeing how high I could kick my shoe into the air. Unfortunately, the shoe landed in the fish bowl. Although I carefully and quickly plucked the shoe out of the bowl, the damage turned out to be irreversible. All the fish died a week later. To this day, I have terrible foot odor no matter how much I bathe. I suppose my feet harbor some powerful bacteria.

My antics were not the worst in the class by far. One boy named Scooter used to catch flies with his bare hands. He then popped them in his mouth and swallowed them. I am not sure if he actually chewed them up or not. Scooter didn't appear to suffer any ill effects from his culinary habits. The teacher never knew what Scooter did when she was absent from the room. I wasn't about to tell. It would have ruined our entertainment. Since we had no playground equipment outside at the time, we had to make our own fun. Our mothers would have been horrified. But we survived long enough to become adults.

Summer is drawing to a close, but the flies linger as a reminder of the heat and humidity. To this day, I can't view a buzzing fly without remembering Scooter. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years ago. To this day, I don't know why. He was in the prime of life.