Meditations

 

MEDITATIONS ON MY LIFE AT

GLASGOW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

(A Collection of Vignettes Based in Memory)

 

by Jane Byers

(December 14, 2018)

 

DEDICATED TO ALL OF MY 

GLASGOW SCHOOL CLASSMATES

 

 

CONFLICTS, GAMES AND POWER PLAYS

 

In Kindergarten, I lied to Mrs. Artz, my teacher, about how I burned my hand. Too ashamed to tell her I caught my entire right hand on fire while playing with matches and discarded birthday candles, I told her I burned it helping my Mom cook. Though she was very sympathetic, even at age six I sensed she didn’t buy my story. Guilt-ridden, I was a grateful little kid when she didn’t question me any further. With a calm, reassuring and kind demeanor, Mrs. Artz was an ideal teacher for very young and impressionable children.

 

Two years later, Mrs. Mendenhall yanked a cherry lollipop from that same hand. There I was in second grade, happily licking away on my special lollipop while sitting on the gym floor during a school assembly. Suddenly, she pounced. I don’t know why I thought it was okay to enjoy my treat during a school program. No one else had a lollipop. As judge, jury and executioner, Mrs. Mendenhall later publicly humiliated me when she summoned me to the front of the class, wielded the sucker and demanded an explanation for my transgression. Paralyzed, I stood there in stock still silence, never answering. I took the Fifth. This was the same teacher who paid me a dime on several occasions for cleaning the supply closet after school, a sure sign that I had been elevated to “teacher’s pet” status. It was confusing to an eight-year old mind. I wonder if I bought that sucker with one of those dimes.  

 

The next year in third grade, Miss Billings forbade me to go outside to recess until I ate all of the mushy green peas on my lunch tray. As she forced me to take several bites, I gagged on each indignity. I never finished eating those peas and I never went to recess that day. I suppose we declared a truce, since both of us were due back in the classroom after recess. However, to this day, I ask myself,  “Why do  I always associate Miss Billings with mushy green peas?” Maybe the bigger question is why did my two most dramatic confrontations with teachers in grade school involve food? What does it all mean?

 

In fifth grade, Patty Geller scaled the coat room wall (a good ten feet high), peeked over the top and made faces at the class. We aren’t sure what possessed Patty, but it was a stunt that brought laughter and delight to the class. Busted by Mrs. Jenkins, Patty locked herself in the coat room because she was afraid to come out. Having a knack for behaving well as a teacher, Mrs. Jenkins didn’t lose her mind. She coaxed Patty out of the coat room and, while the rest of us took off for recess, she stayed behind with Patty to smooth the waters. Mrs. Jenkins possessed the even hand. 

 

On the other hand, in sixth grade, Mr. Somogyi, whose mantra was “I am preparing you for Junior High,” administered a dose of unpleasantness when he doggedly berated one of our classmates for her messy hair after we filed into the classroom from recess. He then doubled down and refused to let her comb and “fix” her hair in the classroom mirror, loudly lecturing that hair can be combed only in the restroom during the restroom break later in the day. It was mind-boggling. For sixth graders, especially those preparing for Junior High, something seemed askew when the adult in the room created a petty infraction and denied an easy fix. It was a perplexing teaching moment, indeed.
 

And then there was the time in fourth grade when my good buddy Joe Paulsen, flanked by a gaggle of boys on the playground, threw down the gauntlet and asked me, “Do you know what a pussy is?” Yikes! I was pretty sure there was something unorthodox about that question and I puzzled over the answer, so I cautiously mustered the best response I could to diffuse the challenge. With furrowed brow and Cathy Hunt as my witness, I squeaked, “A pussy-cat?” Not exactly original, it was good enough to rate a reluctant pass from Joe. I like to think that Joe never messed with me again. And, if truth be told, I still love getting mileage out of this story!!

 

One of my fondest grade-school memories centers around a game that Nancy Jackson and I played in Mr. Somogyi’s class in sixth grade. Though he ran a tight ship, he never caught us. The game is premised on the theory that watching someone yawn induces yawning in the person watching. Nancy and I sat at the opposite ends of the two outside rows of the classroom with several rows between us. I would start the game with a long, slow yawn directed at Nancy across the room. Then I  would yawn repeatedly while Nancy attempted to fight off the “induced yawn.” We were so amused with ourselves in the course of her struggle that when Nancy finally succumbed with a big yawn (which she always did), we had to make a supreme effort to button down our already-suppressed laughter in order to avoid the iron rebuke of Somogyi. Danger made it all that much more fun. Now, those were the days!

 

 

 

TALK ABOUT BOYS

 

Divulging my escapades with grade-school boys should include a little slice of tell-all. Here goes! Fasten your seat belts! 

 

Front Cover of Jane's sixth grade diary.

My second grade boyfriend (and first ever boyfriend, as I remember) was David Manning. My most memorable fifth grade crush was Ken DeBeer. Also, in fifth grade, Don Hutchison and I danced the Twist to the famous Chubby Checker song at the after-school dance. I had a crush on him for the next two days. As revealed by my diary, sixth grade produced an avalanche of crushes, all of which I confided mostly to my diary over a three-month period. It's time to name more names:  Dennis Dames, Fred Hennig, Steve Bremer, Gary Crews and Ricky Jolliff. Sadly, nothing ever worked out with any of  them because, after all, they were secret crushes.

Being a Baptist girl then, I tempered my public school crushes with a fascinating attraction to Catholic boys, the forbidden fruit of the 1960s. In Glasgow Village, I set my sights on John Sanders and Danny Ramacciotti, among others, none of whom I ever talked with but all of whom I thought about endlessly.  

 

Alas, grade school was a period of lost hopes and dreams as all those boys mysteriously disappeared in my fantasies. The only boy with whom I had an open and acknowledged boyfriend/girlfriend relationship was David Manning. That was second grade, when Mrs. Mendenhall grilled me about that sucker. Maybe that’s why he abandoned me. Or maybe he met someone else during those lazy, hazy, crazy summer days between second grade and third grade…. 


 

MEMORY SNIPPETS
 

• Sixth grade Field Day, where races were run and ribbons were won!​

• Playing Prison Ball in the gym—the greatest indoor game ever, led by Mr. Gordon, the greatest PE teacher ever!

• Sixth grade end-of-school dance, where Runa Caquelard and Lyn Baker wore identical gingham-checked blouses and matching skirts, but one dressed in blue and the other dressed in red—a blockbuster fashionista coup!

• In fifth grade, reading Trixie Belden mystery books (never Nancy Drew) propped on my lap but hidden by my desk from Mrs. Jenkins. Trixie was cool because she substituted the word “drat” for curse words, and I didn’t know any other girl who talked like that!

• Square dancing in PE and performing for our parents at a music program, where Jerry Standeford and Don Hutchison stole the show by whooping it up and immortalizing themselves in the mind of my Dad, who laughed and talked about their antics for years.

• Playing the piano for Miss Welch and Miss Goodwin in school music programs.

• Decorating shoeboxes for Valentine’s Day and exchanging Valentines with all of the kids in our class.

• Building a plaster of Paris volcano with lava flows for the all-elementary science fair. It was staggeringly beautiful.

• In sixth grade, riding the bus to Springfield, Illinois on the Sixth Grade Field Trip. My Dad volunteered to accompany us on the trip as a parent-sponsor, and I think he had more fun than the kids! It was a glorious day.

Patty, Jane and Nancy-fifth grade. Baton twirlers for the school picnic parade!

• Anticipating the annual school picnic and all of its trappings: making the class poster for the parade through Glasgow Village to Chain of Rocks Amusement Park; twirling our batons during the parade and wearing our homemade white uniforms, including those white tennis shoes that we painted with white shoe polish; eating unlimited clouds of cotton candy; and riding the Mad Mouse and bumper cars until the day faded.

Jane and Nancy-sixth grade. Baton twirlers for the school picnic parade.

• In fifth grade, watching sixth grader Barb Slatten perform a spectacular dance called the Hully Gully (it’s possible I settled on that dance because of its fantastic name). At Mr. Gordon’s behest, we cleared a third of the gym for her to dance her magic around the perimeter of a huge square of her own imagination. She danced to one of those thrilling surfer/guitar/rock instrumentals popular at the time—maybe “Misirlou” by Dick Dale or “Walk, Don’t Run” by the Ventures. The emotion it evoked in me is unforgettable. It was the grandest display of audacity I had ever witnessed, a true inspiration. I watched in awe, amazement and admiration and would have given anything to be her at that moment. Sometimes I reflect on why this particular memory is so profound for me. Perhaps Barb’s dance captured the optimism and all the possibilities of those times. Or, perhaps it simply is nothing more than a lovely memory I have carefully tucked away, like a worthy keepsake, and retrieved from time to time to play again in my mind. 

 

Jane-second grade.