My Life – Part 3: Primary School

During my formative years my other great escape was school itself. While the other children groaned at the resumption of classes in the fall I rejoiced. Finally, after all that time, my isolation was at an end. I once again had people my age to interact with even if that interaction was not always wholly positive.

My earliest recollection of a ‘school’ situation was at the Frankfort Baptist Tot Center. Where I was before this I couldn’t say but sometime in the 3-4 age range I got my first dose of institutional care. I only have one firm memory of the place and it involved a huge vat of spools. My guess is that some industrial outfit had donated these plastic spools in bulk. They were the sort of spools you might expect to find copper wire wound around. The Center had a huge vat of these things and they were about the size of a toddler’s hand… except for one. It was THE spool. The BIG spool and it was the most coveted item in the Tot Center room I was in. If you had the BIG spool then you were lord god king of that place. One day, I got the spool… Oh the Power tied up in that object. Well for whatever reason, I reared back and chucked that sucker across the room. I recall the momentary visceral bliss as the object traced its graceful parabolic trajectory across the room. Not only had I had the BIG spool but I’d made it take flight. I was king of the air… at least until it came down. It came down right in Jamey Mundell’s face. Since this was the BIG spool he reeled with the power of the blow, fell back and hit is head on the wall and started to wail. While the paramedics came and took Jamey to the hospital for X-Rays I had to sit against the wall without the BIG spool. Oh how fleeting is such absolute power.

I’d say things picked up from there. In first grade the kid next to me, evil genius that he was told me to break his crayons. He held them out and told me to karate chop them. Well I was no fool. When someone tells me to karate chop something by golly I don’t miss the chance. So that day we worked our way through a box of 36 from sea-green all the down to burnt umber. The kid seemed absolutely thrilled at the time to have 72 crayons when before he only had 36. Well wouldn’t ya know it the next day suddenly somebody’s in trouble for breaking someone else’s crayons. It’s funny how stupid the excuse of “But he TOLD me to break them” sounds to an adult, especially when it’s true. Pretty sure I got the belt for that one AND had the buy the kid some new crayons.

Despite my skills at the martial arts, I wasn’t a popular kid. Primarily due, I think, to my inability to ever go outside. Mom always told me that I was too “sneaky” and that she didn’t want to have to watch me so I wasn’t to go outside. This is not to say that I didn’t try. One day, Tom Harrison and I worked up a plan. Tom came to my house about 20 minutes after my mom and I got home. He knocked on the door and asked politely if “Rob could come out.” My mother, ever ingenious said, “He’s not home.” Luckily, Tom was good on his feet and said quickly, “Yes he is, I just saw him through his window.” My mother responded simply with, “Go away.” I have no doubt that little act earned her a reputation about the neighborhood as someone you don’t want to bother with on Halloween.

In addition to being stuck in the house, my personal hygiene didn’t exactly endear me to any of my peers. See, in our house in the early 80s bath night was on Wednesday. That was apparently the point at which the odor from me was bad enough to leak under the door of my room and into adjoining areas of the house. One unfortunate omission from this weekly ritual was the washing of hair. That always happened on the weekends at grandpa’s house so by Friday I was not only reeking but had enough hair oil built up to lubricate the chassis of a 68 Dodge. This earned me the apropos name of ‘Greaser’ despite my attempts to pass my hairstyle off as some sort of a 60s tribute.

Looking back a paragraph, I realize it’s a bit wrong to say I couldn’t go outside. When I was in elementary school, I had to walk to school every morning come rain, snow or a hail of thumbtacks. I left the house promptly at 7:30 and had to be at school half a mile away at 8:30. Now a little math will tell you that this plan left me about 50 minutes each morning to do any damn thing I wanted. Somehow, it was deemed more appropriate for me to wander the streets for an hour every morning than to just give me a key to the house. I’ll admit that I can’t figure that one out. So for that hour I made my way to school in at least 100 different ways. I could toddle along the creek bed for a few minutes before school or check out the back of shops selling god knows what. Even more fun were the days when my father had a early-morning meeting and I was out the door before 6. I had endless fun being taken in by strangers from the old lady on Clay street with whom I had breakfast once and even wandered down to Tom’s house once during those wee hours.

Similarly, I had about 50 minutes after school each day before I had to meet my mother and walk home. Like clockwork I would meet her outside the National Cigar Factory and she would sprint home as fast as her legs could carry her with her child trying hard to keep up behind her. One learns to walk fast when one’s mom is in a huge and unnecessary hurry. I do recall that once I tried an experiment on her. Rather than meeting her outside the factory I hid myself cleverly where I could study her reactions as she came out and failed to see me waiting for her. Surprisingly, she never batted an eye. She came out, turned the corner and started for home as if nothing was amiss. She was good at pretending I didn’t even exist.

Things went on like this pretty much unchanged through elementary and middle school. In fact, until that fateful night I referred to at the end of Part 2. It was around 8^th grade when my mother tried to lose herself forever at the bottom of a bottle of pills.

Currently Reading: “Typhoon and other Tales”, Joseph Conrad [130/220]

Periodic Robism: Most people are so wholly unacquainted with the truth that they fail to recognize it even when it is thrust upon them.