Posted by And Even More School: The Third Grade
Third grade! My first day and it’s back to the Penitentiary, the gloomy, intimidating building in which I passed my kindergarten year. As usual my parents had delayed their return from our family vacation, and I am starting a week behind everyone else. The day starts on an upbeat note. It is gratifying that with two years growth I can now reach up and slap the bus stop sign. This is the ritual by which you guarantee your place in the boarding line in the order in which you arrived and slapped. In kindergarten at age four I couldn’t reach the sign (or much else) and was daily consigned to last place in line and the backbench seat between two surly fifth grade boys who for four months worked out their considerable self-esteem issues by attempting to exacerbate mine. After Christmas they grew tired of me and limited their attention to a daily poke or two in the ribs. Sadly I considered this an improvement. But on this first day of third grade, and as I am always early at the bus stop, I am on the size-large-yellow bus, sitting pretty in a mid-section window seat. Sadly, my exaltation is brief. To tell the truth, I am anxious and blue. Had I had the words then to describe my feelings on this first day away from my cozy neighborhood “little kids” school, the metaphor would have been drawn from small birds or shanghaied cabin boys. Innocents fallen from the nest or pried from mother’s arms having ‘nary a clue what to expect going forward, but instinctively knowing that there is only forward – no going back. No, my fate is sealed. I am bound out for another year inside the grimy, forsaken four stories of the “Pen.” And there will be no more Miss C.
And my two years at the brand new community school with Miss Curtis was pretty champion. We played “phonics chutes and ladders” and “plus and take-away bingo.” We read about Alice and Jerry, the basal reader twins, whose youthful traumas and terrors were invariably resolved in a page and a half. Fully aware that the Russians would likely bomb us we were regularly trained to fox them by hiding under our desks. The playground had grass, the bathroom was right next to the classroom, and we were too young for cursive. Sure, one day in the cafeteria the glass liner in my Roy Roger’s thermos broke, but steadied by the fortitude modeled by Alice and Jerry, I coped with it. Life was good. Now life is uncertain at best. Everything is up in the air.
The size-large yellow lets us off and, ominously, seems eager to depart. Everyone trudges ahead. I trudge with them anxious to keep up and not get lost if I can avoid it. Apparently I am no longer afraid to look up at the narrow attic windows above the fourth floor where formerly there might have been ghouls checking out the offerings in advance of their lunch hour. A teacher is meeting us at the door. Remarkably I am able to say who I am, ask where to go and then get there – Miss Tolliver’s room.
Where Miss Curtis was round, kind and no-nonsense, Miss Tolliver is just no nonsense and, as I suspect from the outset, has a much broader definition of what constitutes nonsense than Miss C. Looking back, I see an angry marionette frustrated by her strings and unable to get at her charges. Arms akimbo- she is all elbows and awkward angles – she thinks she is smiling, but I am not so sure. (Later I had it on good authority that Tolliver slept with her hands on her hips.) I go to my assigned desk and my life as a third grader commences.
The first half of the morning goes quickly. New routines are listed and defined. Expectations are fathomable although at one point my attention rushes ahead trying to ignore the announcement that we will all take turns counting the lunch money. Halfway to the lunch period, Tolliver calls for a bathroom break. This is my first day. I’ve no idea where the bathroom is. Following the person in front of me is usually a good strategy. We all move toward the door and out into the hall. I keep behind my front person. I follow down the hall and suddenly I hear gales of laughter from behind and then from right around me. Who is the object of the laughter? No real need to ask. I am the only one not laughing. And as I am enveloped, as in a movie sandstorm, by the amusement of others, I realize my mistake. Having followed a girl I have proceeded along the route to the girls’ bathroom and am close to stepping in. I have hit the sweet spot of third grade humor, and, highly amused, the boys are gathered at the corner where I went wrong. They soon disappear around the bend on their way to the boys’ room. I scurry after them, and, while not scarred for life, I have, at least for the moment, made a name for myself. For the rest of the morning I suffer no more harm than the occasional sly glance. Lunch comes and goes, and, then, it is time for recess. I have said that the common name for the school was “The Penitentiary.” And certainly it had an “exercise yard” to match. I followed the crowd again (a little more circumspect now) down a hall that, through fire doors, emptied out onto a vast expanse of cracked and poorly patched cement surrounded by a low block retaining wall topped with a chain-linked fence. The whole surface sloped down to a center drain that was covered by a heavy round grate of the type through which one might easily lose keys, a snack or, even, a very small child. Originally (some time just after McKinley was shot) the decline to the drain was carefully graded to efficiently clear the play area of water. Now, however, the downward slope was, shall we say, exceedingly downward, probably due to cracks in the cement having allowed water to seep under and ice to form and thaw and undermine large areas around the drain. A challenging playing surface, indeed, but none of the kids seemed to care. As always, over time, they had been adaptable and rules had been developed to referee the eccentric bounces that were due to the unique surficial geology of the playing surface.
As with the bathroom run, I had no script for this period of the day. I did have the sense to follow my male classmates this time as they wandered over to a corner of the playground. And it was here on that day that I was introduced to male competitive athletics. It seemed to be clearly assumed that we were going to play kickball, and two kids began choosing sides. Their authority was unquestioned, and who was I, the kid who had gone to the girls’ bathroom, to cavil. I was only mildly attentive to the process of choosing up until I sensed some kind of problem had arisen. As it was, my turning up that day had made for an odd number of boys, and I tuned back in to hear an argument about who would take me on their team. In retrospect I don’t think there was any animus in this. The captains had a problem to solve. They knew nothing of my athletic potential or me. And, to be honest I have never looked (and authentically) as if I had any athletic potential. In fact, all they really knew about this “new kid” was that he had almost gone into the girls’ room. Didn’t exactly keep his eye on the ball there, did he? They didn’t want to get stuck. But valuable recess time was being lost. The mob was restless. Finally, and with visible reluctance, I was accepted by one of the captains and told to report to right field. (And this, incidentally, was the beginning of my long experience as a right fielder. In kickball it doesn’t register the same degree of discrimination that it does in baseball. As you undoubtedly know in pickup baseball the least proficient player is put in right field because of the statistical lack of left-handed hitters.) And so I dutifully “reported” to right field and don’t remember anything after that.
I seem always to remember things about the first day of school and not much else about the balance of the year. I do, however, perhaps being older, have a few memories to share. On a field trip we toured a commercial bakery. Upon our departure each kid was presented with a ball of raw dough in a little bag. Now anyone who has any recollection of third grade, and more to the point, third graders, can see in what direction this was headed and can easily imagine the teacher’s nightmare that was the ride back to school. Tolliver tried. I will, if grudgingly, give her that. She stalked up and down the aisle wearing the livid version of her frowny face, but it was impossible to prevent students of the low sort from pinging little dough wads at friends and enemies alike. Only boredom prevented anarchy as kids tired of the game. Of course, we got a lecture. Superficially subdued we played our best “we are humbled by the seriousness of our transgressions.” Offered our best “heads bowed in shame” and were as affected by her diatribe as oilskin is by rain.
Three experiences more are representative of my third grade experience. We had reading groups named after birds. I think I was a bluebird. One day, at the reading table, I was caught by the Tolliver reading a book of my choice inside the book of her choice. I vaguely remember a protracted silence. Undoubtedly the other bluebirds were waiting to see what would follow from such a gross breech of the rules. Perhaps Tolliver was caught up in grieving the loss of caning as an intervention for a small boy who had found something interesting to read. In any event, I am sure I would remember if there was a punishment, but I have nothing. Presumably we went back to task and I was once again party to the enthralling lives of Alice and Jerry, the basal twins.
You may recall my mentioning above my attempt to ignore the prediction that we would all take turns counting the lunch money. This turned out to be no idle threat. We began with “Andreotti” and went, a kid-a-day, through the alphabet. The task was performed on
the green surface of the paper-cutting board. And not to drag this out, I couldn’t do it. My mind went completely blank. I just stood there afraid of making things much worse by touching anything. And she let me stand. Tolliver just let me stand – no encouragement, no instruction, just me standing there. (It’s enough to make you long for right field.) Eventually, after what seemed like two weeks, at least, she muttered, called up the next “M., and sent me back to my seat. For the rest of the year my name was skipped over so not a complete loss although I have never since been completely comfortable around paper-cutters.
