Some Things from School I'll Never Forget

No particular order to these memories, but there are some choice things I suppose will stay with me forever:

First grade. MF sits in the row beside me in class. One afternoon during 'art,' M carefully colors each of his teeth a different color from his box of crayons as I watch, fascinated. When finished, he sighs with contentment, and flashes a wide grin, revealing a rainbow-colored mouth. I could never figure out, all through first to fifth grade, whether MF was brilliant or a complete idiot. I tend towards the latter.

Second grade: Dad drives us to school every morning (my brother is a year and a half older). This day as I exit the car, I detect an immediate breeze. I realize I've forgotten my underwear! As I am in a dress as usual, this is a problem, particularly during recess when I usually climb the monkey-bars. I sit back in the car. Dad looks at me quizzically. When I tell him what I've forgotten, to his credit, he laughs and we head back home.

Third grade. A boy throws up his lunch immediately after recess, and is forever branded with the nickname "Earp," which follows him through grade school. Today he is a writer, but unfortunately for him, I can't forget the nickname or how he came to acquire it.

Fourth grade. The school nurse asks me what's wrong, and when I tell her "I dunno, I just feel crummy," she dissolves in fits of laughter.

Fifth grade. Weeks are spent on the playground playing Lost in Space. We enact the episodes we watch that week. I am always elected to play 'Penny,' because of my long brown hair.

Eight grade. When I tell mom a boy in my class is named Ronny Hinckleheimer, she makes me swear I am not making it up (I am prone to flights of imagination). She does the same thing a few years later when I tell her about Herron Higgenbotham.

The games we played in our neighborhood were epic. It was a golden age, and the entire block was filled with a tribe of kids roughly the same age. Hide & Go Seek is played with all the seriousness of War Games.  This afternoon, I am a half-block from 'safe' and the opposing team is closing in. I jump into the back of a laundry truck making deliveries and order the startled driver when he returns from the house, to drive me down the street as I dive under a load of laundry bags. For some reason, without saying a word, he does this, delivering me right up to the designated safe point. The other kids can't figure out how I eluded capture.

What, you thought I was going to talk about school subjects?!