Drive - A Memoir 42nd Installment
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edge of the gym separated by a knee wall. Those of us who dared would
clamber over the wall, drop down into the gym, and get yelled at when
we got caught. The school sat on about ten acres of mostly grass and
some dirt giving us room for plenty of outside play. The only
drawback to this little school was the small office for the principal
to paddle a wayward child now and again. I got mine twice: the first
for swearing and the second because a couple of us fourth graders
swam across the small lake during a field trip in the Camas National
Refuge to see a friend’s pet skunk (deodorized). Later, we swam
back, and the teacher and the chaperone were all freaked out. They
thought we were drowned or lost. Go figure! Well, back at the school,
we had to grab our ankles and receive several strokes with the
paddle. My jeans were still wet and the principal was determined to
make the punishment match the crime, so he was really putting his
weight into the whacks. The stinging got more painful and was
amplified by each wallop. I thought I was too tough for tears, but my
eyes were pretty wet. Walk
it off, walk it off,
was all I could think about as I circled the room. But, the
punishment in grade one had been more humiliating, the stuff
nightmares were made of, or at the least a life long mental illness.
I suffered the humiliation only once when I got extra wet and muddy
playing at recess. I had to abandon my trousers and pick out a nice
dress to wear while my clothes dried. I wore a pleasant blue one, and
it really freaked me out because I had to put up with teasing. The
girls singing:
“The
boy in a blue dress.” “Makes you look like an
idiot and makes you act like a mess.”
“The boy in a blue dress.”
Each
room had two grades with one teacher and six or seven kids in each
grade, so the school had about fifty kids and four teachers. The
first and second grades were the usual coloring in the lines and not
eating the paste; oh yeah, and the giggling, wiggling, whispering and
teasing of hyper farm kids forced to take a nap. Never happened,
napping I mean. It was in the third and fourth grade room I
discovered that with a little extra effort, I could learn and finish
my third grade work, then listen and learn the fourth grade work;
then the fourth grade the next year was easy play time. I had a fun
fourth grade. I did the same thing in fifth and sixth grade, but the
teacher caught on to me. A couple of others were doing the same
thing, and so the following sixth year the teacher had extra work and
books to read. My little plan of having a play
500 more words tomorrow
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