Aug. 23, 2005 - 20:47 MDT

IN THE DAYS OF AGO

About this time of year is when my memories try to refresh themselves (as if they were people) of my first days in school, seems to me that our school started right after Labor Day, a time when most of us were still tired from that last picnic, ball game and hiking of the summer.

When I was a young lad my concept of self pictured me as "big" acknowledging though that grown ups were a darn sight bigger. But I felt so small and inconsequential when Mom drug me to my first day of school and to the complicated life of the first grade, me being so uncomfortable in new tight clothes.

It was so far to walk to go there, all of a long block and a short one to put me on the school grounds. Half the distance to our neighborhood library but the trek seemed so much farther.

Reminds me, Heather and I were talking today in the car about our first days of school and I remarked to her, "Shoot, I think it was third grade before I had gained the concept that there were more folks in the world and more different ways of looking at things than I could ever imagine."

And thinking about that - - - I was an only child, who saw cousins infrequently and my boy cousin and I would be engaged in mortal combat within five minutes of being together. A whole school full of kids was mind boggling to this dude.

Then the frightening figure of Mrs. Cordingly our principle was nightmare stuff. Later on in school I saw her as a slightly past middle age, weighty woman, quite dignified and polite. But oh she was scary to me in first grade. I would try to duck behind her in the halls.

My memories are sketchy of first grade. My teacher Mrs. Gray was to my mind, old and ugly when I first met her, a person who became beautiful in my eyes because she was a kind, generous, loving and supremely patient person to us all.

I learned a few things in first grade. One was that library paste was good for sticking things together, including dabbing it in a girls hair but above that, following the example of a girl who sat near me, I found it was absolutely delicious. Teacher never drew down on us other than occasionally remarking that the outgoing paste could stick every paper in school together and wondering where it all went. I was pretty good at cutting things out and keeping to the lines.

Wish I could remember the name of the penmanship exercises we had to do. The push-pulls (tees without crosses) and the "round-and-rounds" were so hard for me to even make them look that perhaps I knew what to do but not how to do it. Never did master that, tried it the other day and failed miserably.

Of course "recess" was treasured by me, I would go out the school door at the top of my voice, yelling because it was pent up inside me in the school room and had to be let out before I burst. Recess and the games thereto were educational for me as I had no one at home to play with. Reluctantly I would follow the crowd back into the class room, managing usually to be the last one back in the door.

It was hard to learn to print the words that I could easily read in a book. Writing was new to me. Seems to me it was about the end of first grade when Mrs. Gray started teaching us cursive writing. Used to make me so mad, teacher's letters on the blackboard were so beautiful and mine so pitiful. A little kid like me didn't understand that practise and eye-hand coordination had a lot to do with that.

Spelling came easily to me and simple counting and addition came hard, don't think we got very deep in that, but deeper than I really wanted to.

Dad told me that he went downtown to an office to do "work" on his job, but my work was to go to school and learn and to make decent grades. Took me some time to put that together and finding that it was putting in so many hours a week of doing what I was told to do, practising what I was shown, scratching up enough memory genes to actually learn a few things -- that was my job. For which I had a place to live, sleep, play and was supplied with clothes, shoes and toys. And of such great importance, a Mom and Dad to love me.

By the end of first grade I knew what was expected of me, but am still trying to master all of that.

I fell in love my first time in first grade, I loved her 'til her brothers made it known they didn't want us to be friends any more. They were a lot bigger than me and had her frightened too. So much for first grade romance. I can still see Ann's lovely face today in my minds eye, still beautiful when last I saw her in high school.

I did learn a few scholastic things in first grade, but I think the best thing I learned was how to be a decent, friendly citizen, having respect for other folks, back IN THE DAYS OF AGO . . . . . . . . .

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