Snow Melt

Childhood Memories: The First Days of School

The August 16, 2013 prompt for "Blogging Circle of Friends Prompt Forum"  is
What do you remember about first days of school?

I went to Washington (I think that was the name of the school) Elementary in Blackwell, Oklahoma. The colors I associate with this school are green and brown because all the chalk boards were green and the playground was covered with brown hard dirt. The class rooms were set up so that each student has his or her own desk and chair, which was not attached to the desk. The tops of the desk were light brown or tan, but the undersides of the desk were black or at least appeared black when you had to crawl under them for protection.

The one of thing I remember from elementary school was the atomic bomb drills. Every month or so, we had to go through these drills conducted by our teachers, mostly women who were old enough to realize the folly of children teaching children that they could survive an atomic bomb by hiding under a wooden desk. At the time, most of the children were either too young to understand the absurdity of those drills or so happy not to have to listen to the teaching talking while attempting to write on the chalk board for fifteen to forty-five minutes that they never thought the exercise was absurd.

I also remember lunch because we did not have lunches served by the school, instead a parent (usually the mother) packed the child's lunch each morning. The lunch usually consisted of a peanut butter and jelly or a luncheon meat sandwich which was wrapped in a clear plastic wrap. The sandwich along with a couple Twinkies, a bag of potato chips, and a thermos of soup or some other hot liquid were placed in either a brown paper bag or a metal lunch pail. I also remember drinking chocolate milk at school, but I don't know if the school served the milk or my mother sent it with me in my lunch.

I have avoided discussing the playground until now. Recess was either fun, all right, or a pain in the ass. In grade school, recess was where the bullies practiced being bullies. It was also where the snobs practiced snobbery and best friendships were formed. Recess was the best and the worst time of grade school; especially in a small town that had railroad tracks dividing one class from another. Because I went to grade school in Blackwell, Oklahoma, I fully understand the concept of the "wrong side of the tracks" because while my parents lived on the "right side of the tracks" my grandparents lived on the "wrong side"; so it didn't really matter what side of the tracks my parents lived on.

What else do I remember about grade school? I remember that I knew a girl who, at least, once during that time believed there was going to be a war with soldiers marching in the streets of Blackwell. This made sense at the time because the main employer was a zinc smelter (I'm not quite sure who owned or managed it at the time). I remember that the business was a "good corporate citizen" because it gave sand to churches and schools to cover the ground. Never mind that the sand contained high levels of zinc which turned out to be dangerous to a person's health. This practice go the town on the "super fund site" list for environmental clean-up.

Then there was the monthly or perhaps weekly "spraying for mosquitoes", which was not supposed to have any effect on human beings. Anyway, the city government or whoever was responsible for that said it was all right for children to play outside while the "spraying trucks" went through the neighborhood. The weird thing is that the only time I remember seeing those damn trucks was when I was at my grandparents house. At the time, I thought they did it all through Blackwell, but now I am beginning to wonder about that. Maybe at 66 I'm more skeptical then I was at 6 years old.