“Most Likely
to Succeed” the high school yearbook read.
I thought back to my experiences as an honor student, always well-liked by
teachers. I had always loved school – well, actually.…that wasn’t always true.
I don’t remember much about the events of elementary
school, but I could take you on a virtual tour of the large red brick North
Central Elementary school and its
grounds. Huge live oaks graced the
large front and side lawns. In the back
of the school, a wide horseshoe-shaped sidewalk circled a grove of five or six
more stately oaks. Before school and at
recess students walked around and around it in groups of two or three. At my 20th high school reunion, a
classmate told me she had envied the red Mary Jane shoes I wore in first grade
because they made the neatest shuffling noise as we strolled around the
horseshoe!
I held tightly to my mother’s hand as we walked up the
long sidewalk, into the open space of the large foyer and down the wood-floored
hall to the right past the lower elementary classrooms. I wore
a red, yellow and blue plaid dress with puffed sleeves and a gathered skirt and
sash. My mother always made neat little school
dresses for me. My long blonde hair
bounced with curls formed by sleeping with rag curlers – strips of material
around which sections of hair were wrapped and tied. My bangs were freshly trimmed, a little
crooked and more than a little too short..
As we passed the first room on the right – Mrs. Moody’s
first grade classroom, I saw new first graders waiting eagerly with their moms.
“Surely,
third grade will be better than first.” I thought, but my stomach turned.
Mrs. Moody was barely taller than her
first graders, much shorter than five feet.
She wore pointy dark-rimmed glasses and dressed in tailored suits and
dresses with chunky healed shoes. There
were few disciplinary problems in elementary school. Teachers kept order in their classrooms,
especially Mrs. Moody. Intimidation was
her M.O. No wonder I missed almost half
of the school year with acute tonsillitis.
During a long hot September afternoon, terrified to ask to go to the
bathroom, I sat for the half-hour before dismissal with a warm puddle at my
feet. When the bell rang, I got up and left quickly, The poor janitor. To my
enormous relief, Mrs. Moody hadn’t noticed.
In the days before special education, a boy who had been
held back a grade or two was in our class.
Roger Dale was kind and gentle, but slow in learning. I learned a lot about compassion one day when
Ms. Moody angrily threw a glass of water in Roger Dale’s face. I remember him sobbing outside the classroom
window as he took off his plaid cotton shirt and hung it on the shrub to dry.
The memory still hurts.
“Surely 3rd grade will be better!” I told
myself.
The next classroom we passed on the right was Mrs.
Alexander’s second grade classroom. I
remembered that second grade hadn’t been much better than first – maybe worse. Mrs. Alexander was tall, thin, and stern. She wore her hair wavy and close to her head.
I wonder now just how old she and Mrs. Moody were. They certainly seemed old to me then, and
they even look old to me in the picture I have, but I suppose they could have
been only in their forties. Every day after
lunch, Mrs. Alexander paddled children who had “milk mustaches”. I had started second grade there, moved, attended
two other schools and then transferred back into Mrs. Alexander’s classroom.
When she began to teach cursive writing in the spring, she was not happy that I
had already started learning cursive at another school. She snarled out words I
will never forget “You just think you’re smart, but you’re no smarter than an
old billy goat!” As we walked by, I drew
a little closer to Mama and shivered a little as I saw the new 2nd
grade class sitting there happy and optimistic about their school year. Poor
kids.
“Oh, surely 3rd grade will be
better!” I agonized again.
As we continued down the hall to the last classroom on
the left, next to the cafeteria, I felt a little queasy.
“I’ve never
known anyone who’s done third grade before!” I fretted.
As we turned
into the room a tall black-haired woman stood in the middle of desks, students
and parents. She was young-fresh out of
college! And she smiled a big toothy
smile–
“Hello, Linda,
I’m Miss Kenneth, your new teacher.”
Then she did something so unexpected that I almost gasped – she hugged
me. Saying goodbye to Mama suddenly
became a little easier.
That first morning Miss Kenneth had each of us read to her
and do a writing assignment.
“Oh you read so well Linda!” “Great writing, Linda.” Throughout the morning, again and again, she
smiled. I fell in love with Miss
Kenneth!
By recess, as I skipped around the horseshoe,
I decided that school just might be my thing after all.
