“Charlie’s Last Stand”
By
Gerry Niskern
Charlie’s dad carried the kicking, crying six year old back into the first grade room. He jammed him firmly into the seat of the wooden school desk and before he could turn to leave, the little overall clad boy was out the door in front of him. Earlier that morning Charlie came on the bus that first day of school with his brothers, but later, when his dad was driving to work along Rural Route # 1, he saw Charlie running down the highway headed home. As a first grader too, I watched dumb founded as Charlie’s dad brought him back and he escaped, again and again and again. The teacher of that classroom, consisting of two rows of first grade and two rows of second grade, was Mary Jane Crowe. Miss Crowe, fresh out of college, was speechless.
I guess I’d have to say that scenario is my vivid memory of the first day of school. I remember looking forward to starting first grade with my Big Chief table and brand new pencil; I also had a new orange, metal lunch bucket that my dad had scratched out “Gerry” on the lid. I couldn’t understand why Charlie didn’t want to stay. Homesickness hit me later when the long day became too long. I caught the bus (mothers didn’t take you on first day) at eight in the morning and back home again at four in the afternoon as there was only one bus and two runs per day; all ages together.
Today most kids have been to nursery or pre-school and are used to being away from home, but that wasn’t the case years ago. Stepping out of the comfort of home into a new and unknown world was scary. For some it was a day they will never forget and some would really like to.
My mother often told us about starting school in the little mining town where she lived. She remembered sitting there in her scratchy, starched best dress and trying her best to understand what the teacher was saying and trying not to cry. She and the others kids couldn’t understand a word! There were German, Italian, Austrian, Greek, Hungarian, and many other ethnic groups, none of whom spoke English. The practice of immigrant families was to keep the little ones close to home. The teacher was a kind and sweet lady, and her job was to have them speaking and reading English by the end of the year. And she did!
The second part of her story was about she and a new little girlfriend spying an apple orchard next to the school yard. One day after school they climbed the fence and were enjoying some of the big, red apples when their teacher saw them. She gave them a lecture about not touching other people’s property and the “kind and sweet” lady proceeded to turn each one across her knee and spank them!
My Resident Historian used to tell me about his first day of school in the dusty, little town of Muleshoe, Texas. His class was in line and the front door to the school was locked. He went over to peck on a window to let someone know and his teacher grabbed him, and in his words, “beat the hell out of me!”. He didn’t understand what he had sone wrong, but to “add insult to injury” on that day, it was announced that Texas was starting Kindergarten and all the six- year- olds had to go back and take Kindergarten first. Then he always shrugged and said , “Hey, it was Texas. What do you expect?”
Lots of readers have memories of the first day. # one son remembers the wild ride on the school bus with a grumpy driver that didn’t worry about jostling the kids around in their seats. He watched the driver graze a pole and take off a side mirror of the bus. Another friend remembers dragging her son, kicking and crying, out of the car and into the school room where the teacher grabbed hold and dragged him on in for the whole first week. Then the wise older teacher suggested that he might like to walk to school “like a big boy” with his brother and his friends. That did the trick.
One little beginner, an old friend of mine, laughs about his first day. He and another boy slipped out a side door and hid all day under some bushes until it was time to go home. After a couple of days of hiding and no lunch, they both decided maybe school wouldn’t be so bad.
School has changed for the better. Don’t you agree?