Acquiring a formal education was a formidable struggle for me which I stumbled through but somehow managed to receive a college degree. During my public school years, if those bumper stickers about a son or daughter being on the honor roll would had been around, my parents wouldn't have had a reason to purchase one on my account.
During my grade school years I always wondered what it would be like to be in the Bluebird reading group, but I never had that experience. I can't remember what my reading group's name was, but it was probably the Buzzards or Turkeys.
I remember an event that occurred in music during my elementary years. In preparation for a music concert for our parents, the teacher separated us into two groups: those who could sing in tune and the "rest of us." The "better singers" were to dress up nicely, stand on risers, and sing a variety of songs. The "rest of us" were to dress up like bums and sing "Shortnen Bread."
On the night of the concert, after the "better singers" finished their performance, and the parents acknowledged them with polite applause, our bedraggled group scrambled onto the stage. As we exuberantly launched into our performance, the parents began to laugh louder and louder. We suddenly realized that we were a hit and boisterously concluded our act along with a few unplanned antics. The parents were roaring with laughter and awarded us with a huge applause. The "rest of us" couldn't believe what was happening. We had stolen the show, we had out done the "better singers," we were somebody! Needless to say. . .so I won't say it, or more appropriately, write it.
I also became well acquainted with the back section of classrooms, but not by choice. In several of my classes, the teachers would place those who made the highest grades each six weeks on the front row and progress toward the back of the room for "the rest of us" with the lower grades. That practice really didn't bother me much because I could engage in activities other than learning the lesson.
I always enjoyed drawing cartoons of people and have gotten into binds several times because of my depictions. While in the second grade, I was drawing a picture of a boy relieving himself, using a dotted line to represent the liquid waste product. The boy next to me and I thought that we were quietly snickering about the picture when miraculously out of nowhere, materialized the teacher right beside me. She quickly snatched up my cartoon, and I think that I experienced another encounter with her board of education.
These memories surfaced as I was wondering why I hadn't learned certain lessons during my education. I wish that I had been paying attention when the teacher was explaining how to open a cellophane bag of chips without ripping it down the side and spilling the chips all over the counter. During the lesson of properly sealing a zip-lock bag, I must have been daydreaming, because I never learned that lesson. The art of opening and closing one of those cereal boxes with the little tab that fits into a slot must have been explained while I was drawing a cartoon.
However, after realizing that teachers know everything, and that I should have paid more attention in school, I made an astute decision. I married a teacher, and it paid off because she knows all about cellophane bags, zip-locks, and cereal boxes.
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