MadMup.com

Years: 1978-1979
Teacher: Miss Carpenter

This was the first year of the new school building, so it must have been strange for everyone. Rather than the here-and-there classrooms in the church building, it was an actual school with actual classrooms. Grades 1-8 were all housed in one building. The Main Office was smack in the middle of the building, right where the main entrance was, so there was a kind of natural split. First through Fifth grades were to the left, and Sixth through Eighth and all the “extras” like the library, the art room and the music room were to the right. Kindergarten was still held at the church several miles away, and I’d guess it was partly because Mrs. Reid was accustomed to it, partly because of space, and partly because it seems a natural break. As a First Grader, the other end of the building might as well have been in Kansas. Even our recesses took place in a different area out back, and two natural hierarchies developed: First through Fourth grades and Fifth through Eighth.

Two physical characteristics of my teacher that year stand out in my memory: eyes and fingernails. Miss Carpenter had these seemingly huge eyes that she would roll in your direction in such a way that you knew you were in trouble. In my mind they seem almost caricatures now, but I remember the way she would do it and it did a good job of stopping whatever it was you were doing to have earned it. Also, if you didn’t stop it, you might get the next step: the fingernails. They probably weren’t as long as they felt, but they were strong and they felt pointy, especially in the soft tissues around the bones in your shoulder. She was trained in the ninja arts, I’m sure of it – you wouldn’t be aware of her approach and then BAM. Fingernails.

For a lesson one day, Miss Carpenter brought in Miss Appling, the seventh grade teacher, who was about six feet tall. Jesse R. was the shortest and smallest kid in our class and he was made to stand next to her in front of the class as some sort of example about size. I don’t remember the lesson, but I do remember the way Jesse looked up at her. It was like one of those slow camera pans you see in movies that illustrate just how big the bouncer/robot/Godzilla is. At the end of it, his head was looking almost straight up.

I received my first in-school spanking in First Grade and, oddly enough, I didn’t deserve it. “Suuuuuure you didn’t,” you’re probably saying. As a matter of fact, I didn’t. I’ll go on to say that, over the years, I received plenty that I did deserve, and missed out on several that I should have gotten, but this first one, I didn’t deserve.

We were lining up after gym class, and I was towards the middle of the line. The boy at the back of the line was asked to go hold the doors for us, as was the routine. Knowing he was coming up my side, I stuck my foot out as if I were going to trip him, but giggled and pulled my foot back almost immediately. Unfortunately, David S. was a bigger fooler-arounder than I, so when he got to me, he tripped himself and laid the blame on me. To quote Jasper from The Simpsons, in his role as substitute teacher, “That’s a paddlin’.” Now, I shouldn’t have been fooling around in the first place, I’ll agree, but the spanking was for tripping, and I didn’t deserve it. I think it set me down a path of tomfoolery, as I might have thought, “I’ll get in trouble whether or not I do stuff, so I might as well do stuff.” I don’t know that for sure, but it’s a theory I’ve oft entertained. It should be noted that this was also the day I learned about the “if you get a spanking at school you get one at home” rule.

One of my friends in First Grade was named Birch C. Yep. “Birch.” His family was from Maine, so I assume a love of trees was involved. One day we were lined up at the water fountain after recess and Birch was wearing what people these days call a “trucker hat,” one of those with the plastic snaps in the back for adjusting the size. I thought it might be harmless fun to unsnap the snaps. I thought wrong. In the process of unsnapping them all at once, some of the snaps broke off rather than unsnapping, and his hat was worthless after that. I felt really bad about it, but to this day I think I still owe him five bucks. I saw him a few years ago (like, 12), but I don’t remember if I paid him then or not. Next time I see him, I’ll do it, I swear.

Another lasting memory I have from First Grade is the dreaded penmanship tests. We were full-on into the business of writing letters and I wasn’t very neat about it, apparently. My worst grades were those in penmanship. My parents, as an incentive, told me that if I got an “A” in penmanship, we’d have pizza for dinner. As this was a rare treat back then, I tried my very hardest and managed to pull it off some how. We had the pizza, but the only thing that stuck with me from that experience is my love of pizza, I’m afraid. If this blog were hand-written, none of you would come back. It has been suggested that my signature looks like an EKG reading.

First Grade is also the earliest I can remember meeting Dave O., even though we didn’t become friends until much later. He was in the class ahead of me, so we didn’t mingle much except for at recess. Still, I count him a good friend to this day and we regularly correspond, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

Second Grade wasn’t nearly as exciting.

Years: 1977-1978
Teacher: Mrs. Reid

As you might suspect, my memories of Kindergarten are few and far between. Frankly, it might turn out that I don’t have many memories for any of my years of school, but I plead agedness, particularly on this year. After all, it has been almost 29 years since I started Kindergarten, and I have trouble remembering things I did last week.

There are a few things that stand out, though, even after all this time.

First of all, I’ll never forget my Kindergarten teacher as long as my brain works. One doesn’t like to use the word “unique” indiscriminately, but I believe it applies. Before I even got to her class I had heard about her. My brother was two grades ahead of me and he had told me stories about a classmate that had to wear a paper bird’s beak for a day because he made noises and another who had to wear a tail all day for being a tattletale. Other tales of kids being taped to their seats only furthered the trepidation I felt. True to the stories, when she was introducing herself to us, she talked about stringing kids up by their toes and all manner of other tortures. Let me tell you, the fear was struck, hard and fast, in the hearts of every Kindergartener in the room.

Not enough, apparently, as I remember having to sit at the “bad table,” and I remember not being the only person at the table. Of course, “bad” in kindergarten meant “too talkative,” but bad is bad, so there I sat. I also remember spending one lunch period out in the hallway, huddled next to a radiator because I “couldn’t behave in the classroom.”

I don’t remember if I could read before I went to school, so I don’t remember if learning the letters was review for me or new information. I do know that I used to copy my last name off my lunch so I could get it right. Hey, for a kid trying to learn how to spell “cat” and “jump,” a last name of “Zwolanek” can be pretty tricky. I’m not even sure I knew how to pronounce it correctly at this point of my life.

There was a system of gold stars and black blots that kept record of our behavior throughout the year. Gold stars had the extra benefit of earning the recipient a piece of candy. Black blots … well, the only benefit there was shame.

Did everyone have naptime in Kindergarten? What a fantastic idea. It’s terrible that we feel people grow out of naptime, because I often feel like a nap in the middle of the workday would not only help productivity but might also make people friendlier to each other during the other parts of the day – “Bob, I’m not sure what I think of this business plan, but let me nap on it and I’ll get back to you this afternoon.” Our goal during naptime was to be the quietest and lay the most still in an effort to be dubbed “Nap Fairy” and be given the power to wake everyone else up at the end of naptime in the order determined best by the Nap Fairy. Mrs. Reid was still teaching Kindergarten in the same school as of last year and I’m guessing this position still exists, but I’d bet it has a different name now.

The most traumatic memory I have from Kindergarten is from the end-of-the-year party we had at a local park. One of the games we played was that one where you tie a balloon to your ankle and try to protect yours while you’re trying to step on and break everyone else’s. Things were going along swimmingly until such time as Scott I. smacked his head into my mouth while trying to break my balloon. Blood, blood, more blood, and a loose tooth is what I remember. Miss Westphall (a teacher whose name will come up again later but at this time was teaching 4th grade, I think) was the closest teacher with the longest fingernails and she tried pulling the tooth the rest of the way out, but all she pulled out of me were more tears.

The nature of Christian schools, especially ones so near a Christian college, dictates that you’ll have the same core of classmates for most of your years of school. The teachers at the college send their kids through the school and the older students at the college send their kids through for as long as they’re in college. As a result, there were at least five of us that I can remember right off the bat that were classmates all the way from Kindergarten through our Senior year of high school, and even a little into college. Though Scott I. wasn’t one of them and didn’t actually stay with our class past that year, I ran into him years later when he came back for college and confronted him with the years of bitterness I had built up over the incident. I don’t remember the exact sequence of events, but I think I was finally able to get past it.

My Kindergarten year took place in the basement of the church that had started the school. It was to end up being the last year that the whole school was housed there, as they were putting up a new building which would be ready by the time I started first grade.

Okay, it’s a new month. No more fooling around. Having “a case of the Januaries” only counts when that month is in session. I’ll do my best to soldier on and post, even though I don’t have the gumption yet.

So let’s do this thing – this thing where I post and you read.

All righty, then.