Old Time
I remember being a small child and my favorite place to be was outside. No matter what the weather that's where I wanted to be. My Grandpa did his farm work with a team whether the old mare and stallion, or eventually we had a Morgan-Standard bred bay named Tony. I don't remember who we had paired with him.
Tony was the one that decided on the spur of the moment to make a U turn back to the paddock and leave my cousin Coco and me behind. Not a pleasant happening. Coco fared better than me, who ended up with five stitches on the outside of my lip, and six stitches on the inside. I'm glad I'm not a doctor. I spent one week in the hospital, one week at home, and then we had one week left before school was out. It was the end of my fifth grade school year, and that year wasn't over soon enough. It was a regular small town class in a two story brick building. Our teacher was the wife of a local grocery store owner. Mr. T. was a mild mannered business man, we always considered on the wealthy side of the tracks. He had a horse or two, and my Grandpa shod horses as well as farmed. It being a small town everyone was pretty well acquainted, and my Grandpa was well respected in his own right. Not for his wealthy status as much as his friendly, neighborly personality to most everyone.
I don't know why, but Mr. T's wife for some reason just didn't seem to favor our family. She particularly seemed to dislike me. Granted, perfect I was not, although by fifth grade I was much more co-operative than I had been. My third grade teacher, actually felt compelled one day to pick me up and shake me, demanding, 'Won't you pay attention!?'. It didn't help that I remember, but perhaps it did. I don't remember doing anything horrendous in fifth grade other than reading ahead in my reader once. I had the audacity to miss a math problem once (9 x 4= 36) and had to write it twenty times so I'd remember it.
Every winter I would have a bad case of upper respiratory croup. I would get extremely sick and miss three days of school. Back in my day, if you were out of school for more than three days you had to have a doctor's note to get back in to school. We were poor and didn't have money for non essentials such as doctors. So, after three days no matter what condition I was in they would prop me up and trundle me off to school. In fifth grade I had this same occurrence. Winter in the mid-west can be brutal, which it was that year with snow and cold weather. Children would even bring their sleds to school and sled down the 'hill'. On occasion children could get permission to stay inside if there was a compelling reason, as in my case having been home ill. As I stood in line waiting to ask permission to stay inside, a classmate Howard B. a tall young boy about a year older than myself stood in front of me. He was asking to stay inside as well. Mrs. T was friendly and told him he could stay in, and she told him, "Don't forget to stop by and scoop my sidewalk this evening, Howard."
You've probably guessed that I was not granted permission. "Certainly not! You're not pulling the wool over my eyes!" she snapped. That was the tenor for that year. The scene that really sticks in my mind however, was the whole class sitting around a long table--maybe several smaller tables scooted together. I don't remember the subject, I don't remember anything other than Mrs. T talking to the class about something. Then of a sudden she stopped speaking. I'm sitting about three maybe four kids from her. She stops talking to the class and glares at me. "Stop looking at me like that!" Since I didn't know how I was looking at her, I couldn't stop looking at her in whatever manner had triggered her anger. She got up from her chair, and she slapped me across the face.
I was humiliated at being singled out as well as being slapped , especially for something I didn't understand. I burst into tears which was an even worse embarrassment. That incident happened not too long before the horse accident and the end of the school year. One good note. Our class would take up a donation when there was an accident, as in my case, and get a present for the unlucky child. Whether Mrs. T. felt a bit of reproach for her hasty anger I don't know, but I did receive a gift. I was given a book from the 'Donna Parker', a series like Nancy Drew, and a paint by numbers picture. I don't know what the picture was, but I remember my sister painting it for me.
I don't remember what happened to Mrs. T., but we were never encouraged to take tales home. Somehow I did know she had been hard on my oldest cousin, my sister, and maybe even my cousin Coco, who lived with us at our Grandparents farm until the year before my year of trial. That year was a turning point in my life, difficult in many ways.
As I reflect on childhood, I wonder how children and the human race manages to survive. Children are the pieces in our society that are forced to take life that is thrust upon them even though they have so little understanding. We have a saying in our neck-of-the-woods; They're just doing the best they can with what they have to work with. In colonial days children were expected to be small adults. They were dressed like small adults, they were groomed to have manners like small adults, but they at least could see what adults were supposed to be like.
Children today grow up much too fast. They have knowledge of things that rob them of their childhood, and robs them of their innocence. They don't have a foundation for how to be adults since most of the adults in their lives are living like they are selfish children.
