At School

At School

2.20.19

I was in second grade when I asked my dad the big question.  He had just come home from work and was taking off his tie when little bowl-cut-sporting, brown-eyed me asked, “is F*ck a bad word?” Dad’s eyes bulged out of his head a little.  Not because he hadn’t heard it before, but because he didn’t expect to hear it coming from his little bowl-cut-sporting, brown-eyed me, standing in the burnt-orange living room on Rosebrier at the end of his workday.

“Yes it is.  Where did you hear that?”

“At school,” I replied.

Granted, it wasn’t Mrs. White who said it (although she did point to the chalkboard with her middle finger, but it was an innocent gesture. She wasn’t flipping us off, or the alphabet.) I was calmly encouraged not to say it again or throw it around like diamonds. That was the end of it.

I was in 2^nd or 3^rd grade, walking down the sidewalk in front of the school, when I saw what I thought was a balloon on the sidewalk.  My class’s equivalent of Dennis the Menace or that red-haired bully in “A Christmas Story” encouraged me to pick it up. I did.  When the nearby bus erupted with laughter I immediately threw it down and ran like hell.  I didn’t say I was smart or worldly.  Nope!  But I did touch a condom for the first time on that fateful day while my classmates howled.

It was probably in 3^rd grade when I barricaded myself in the school bathroom stall to learn all about menstrual cycles from Judy Blume’s Are You There God, it’s Me Margaret.

And I was an adult hauling a charter bus full of high school debaters home from St. Louis when the bus broke down on I-44 around 1am and we had to unload the entire contents of said bus on the side of the interstate and wait for another bus to come fetch us.  During that time, one girl in the back of the bus flashed her boobies and another boy mooned the lot of those awake or not freezing with me on the side of the road.

Stuff happens at school.  My dad didn’t storm the school demanding justice for his little angel; and I may have scrubbed my hands furiously after my brush with the “balloon.” They didn’t strip the bathroom of stall doors because the female reproductive system and I made a literary match of understanding therein. And charter busses weren’t banned because of some stupid T & A on I-44. (The culprits were punished Monday morning after my interrogations by bus headlights in the wee hours, by the way, and thank you very much.)

Dangers abound. Knowledge is out there. I don’t mean to trivialize the daunting task of protecting little Johnny and Trixie on the school grounds—from sidewalks, to hallways, to bathrooms, to busses, to ChromeBooks.  There are ways to address issues, and I don’t have all the answers. 

But I do know this:  I learned a lot at school.  I learned that some people have more than I do and some have less.  I learned that some are mean (myself included) and some are unfailingly kind. I learned how to think, write, debate, deal with people, consider opposing views, play B team second string, make a Best Choice wedding cake with Tammy, sing with Tiff, trade crappy lunch food for Leslie’s Star Crunch and do just well enough in Algebra to get a Jolly Rancher from Mrs. Wherry.  I learned that a big gold barrette and corduroy walking shorts with matching tights won’t get you a date but hard work and some pluck will get you a life.

I learned a lot at school. Schools of Springtown? Thanks.  I will support you forever.