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Fragments From the Memory Log, Entry Nine

From lessons to teachers, from lunch to recess, my first six years spent in elementary school was a vast and confusing channel of mixed transmissions for me.

Going back to first grade, we had class sessions where our teacher read Bible stories to us. Honest to goodness Biblical tales, right out of the New Testaments (though not the King James version). Imagine something like that happening in a US classroom today! We’d have a dozen ACLU lawyers rappelling from helicopters before she could pass over a “begat”. First Amendment rights are apparently trampled without thought in the interest of filling up classroom time. But not to worry: we, that is the students, took them in without ornamentation, never catching any preaching or an evangelizing hook. To our teacher they were nice stories, simple parables we might learn from. Their use was not an attempt to indoctrinate her students into the Christian faith. I’m proof positive of that.

My most indelible first grade recollection involves a written assignment. Actually, it’s all about the recollection, since there was a dispute with another classmate over it. The paper I, or he, but definitely not we, turned in had no name attached to it, and both of us claimed ownership. Through some child logic and a bit of tears, I convinced our teacher I was its true author. Thing is, I’ve never been positive of the truth behind my claims, though I was quite certain at the time. So the event either displays one of the first just and proper decisions made in my favor, or shows how good at lying to myself I can be. Until further evidence is uncovered, I opt for the former.

Out of all school years, my favorite will always be third grade. Not for any particular incident or personal preference towards the teacher, but because I was doing so well during that time. There is also the fact we had a Kentucky Fried Chicken just across Main street and right outside our classroom windows, so pre-lunch periods always smelled of fried chicken and gravy. For a Midwestern kid, that tends to be a pretty good smell. But honestly, it wasn’t the wafting odor of deep fried poultry but the straight A’s I was receiving which really helped the school year move by swiftly. So it was the best, but by far the least entertaining to read about.

Every good thing has its opposite, and fifth grade was my karmic payback for the salad days of third. I can’t claim living hell status for it, but it had it’s moments. For starters early on in the year, our teacher, the kind of educator students pray to get, took maternity leave. Her substitute was, to put it mildly, never one to make it into our prayers, except on the tail end where we might request her ousting. To avoid unwanted legal concerns, I’ll call her Ms. Scuttle.

My relationship with Ms. Scuttle is the worst I had with an adult while I was young, even though I met others far more unlikable than her. I no longer know who fired off the first salvo, but I admit to causing some of the battles along the way, if unintentionally. One time I fell ill and was sent to the nurse, whos office happened to be a room on the other side of the wall to my class. As I lay on the couch in the nurse’s station, waiting for one of my parents to appear and take me home, I heard a tapping coming through that wall. What option as a ten year old did I have? I tapped back. My rapping was acknowledged, and soon I was one side of a faux Morse code chat. This ended abruptly two minutes into the discussion, as that’s when Ms. Scuttle came bounding through the door, demanding to know who was tapping on the wall. Naturally I was completely in the dark, and told her so. I failed to see how she could find me responsible, even with the circumstantial evidence of me lying right next to the wall.

I was honestly sick and out for the next few days, and thankfully the issue was allowed to burn out. Not all of them did. My time with Ms. Scuttle was certainly a low period in my elementary remembrances. I seem to recall the bad grades easily, but forget much of the good ones. Fortunately, I learned a little from both of them.