2.12 Jefferson Elementary

1955 • San Jose ~ Jefferson Elementary was like all grammar schools, filled with the noise of kids screaming, whistles blowing, and bells ringing. I paid careful attention to my teacher, Miss Harrison, but when she started writing too many numbers on the blackboard, which was green, my mind wandered where it wasn’t so crowded, spending most of its time outside the window, my thoughts drifting around with the quiet sycamores and floating clouds.

I wasn’t about to raise my hand and ask a question. I might get called on, or worse yet, be wrong. I didn’t like sitting in the middle of the room; anywhere on the side or the back, even the front, was better. Quietly observing from the edges, I prayed no one would notice me. I ached to suck my fingers but didn’t want to be called a baby, so I bit my nails instead.

There were things I liked about second grade: reading stories, practicing letters, drawing houses with a peaked roof, a green door, one window and a straight row of tulips in the front yard. And lunch. One day a week I got to eat in the cafeteria, buying a red lunch ticket for a quarter. I liked the feel of the molded trays and thought it was neat the way they were sectioned so the fish sticks, creamed corn, fruit cocktail and JELL-O wouldn’t touch. I never have liked my food touching. Even though the cafeteria meal was good, the pitch and clanging in there made me a wreck, so I usually brought my lunch in a brown bag, lettered with my name and room number, so I could eat outside.

The playground was deadly. The swings, merry-go-round, and teeter-totter were designed to make me throw up or break my scrawny neck. At recess, the other kids played tetherball, kickball, and dodgeball: games that in my opinion were way too dangerous. It was a shock having a ball smashed in my face, kicked in my stomach, or slammed at my back. It hurt. A swinging bat once cracked me in the mouth, splitting my lips and breaking my upper front tooth in half, confirming every belief I held about the dangers of playground weaponry. Foursquare was more to liking; no one was allowed to try to do away with me.

We marched outside for weekly fire drills, holding hands two-by-two, boys in one line, girls in the other, moving away from the low one-story building that was built like a bunker and wouldn’t burn even if it had been doused with gasoline. During air-raid practice to protect us from Communist invaders, we crouched like rolled up pill bugs under our wood-top desks with unused inkwells, our arms protecting our heads, the boys scanning the room and snickering at all the girl’s flowered cotton panties in full bloom. There was never any nuclear attack. Like an inch-thick desktop was going to protect me. Oh please! I had plenty of other dangers in my life to fret about.

I remember a lot about second grade. We had finger paints and watercolors, pull-down maps and afternoon naps. I can still feel the damp winter cloakroom with its piles of dripping raincoats and soggy boots. I remember the screech of chalk and the ticking clock and the whirl of the sharpener by Miss Harrison’s desk. I remember the aroma of paste, of buff paper with wood slivers and blue lines, of clouds of chalk dust from pounded erasers. I even remember how it tasted: graham crackers and cold milk and chewed Ticonderoga pencils, the eraser seldom used on mine; I was careful not to make mistakes. I remember Dick and Jane. “See Spot run. Run, Spot, run.” I knew exactly how Spot felt. I wanted to run, too.

I liked bank day. I’ve been banking with Bank of America since I was in the second grade. Every other Friday I brought my nickels and dimes to school, turning in my passbook and coins in a small drawstring sackcloth bag. Magically, the passbook returned the next week, my latest deposits handwritten on the ledger. It wasn’t so much the money I saved over time that I cared much about, it was my name printed on the inside of my passbook cover. I had three things that were of utmost importance to me: my small green bankbook, my report cards, and my library card. They all contained my name, confirming my existence.

I didn’t have a yellow slicker with a matching billed hat that snapped under my chin, but I wanted one. And I wanted a Brownie uniform too, in the worst way. Most of the girls in my class were Brownies and they all wore their uniforms to school on Thursdays. After weeks of hinting and trying not to beg her, my mother finally gave in and took me shopping for the brown dress with the shiny gold sash, my only store-bought dress. We got the socks too. However, it hadn’t occurred to me that being a Brownie meant going to troop meetings. I only went to one; it was more painful than school. I didn’t want to have to be with the girls and their sashes covered with pins and badges, their hair bouncy and curly. I didn’t know what to say. I just wanted to look like them, to feel like I fit in.

to be continued…

© 2018. Catherine Sevenau.
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