Category: School

Is it just me, or are very few kids walking to school these days compared to when we Boomers grew up?

The school situation in Bentonville, Arkansas has been whacked at least since my kids were in school. We’ve had a population explosion here for thirty years and perennially have too few seats in the classrooms. Not only that, my kids weren’t allowed to attend the elementary school close to my house. Instead, they had to ride a bus to one several miles away.

Shades of forced busing to achieve integration!

The truth be told, we probably would not have let them walk to school anyway, at least until they were older. Too many sleazeballs out there looking to prey on kids these days.

But in my hometown of Miami, Oklahoma so many years ago, the only kids who rode schoolbuses were the ones who lived in rural areas.

My own walk to school was about a mile. I would traverse alleys to get there, making friends with the neighborhood dogs in the process. They would eagerly greet me as I walked by at precisely the same time every morning.

In fact, if I close my eyes, I can envision nearly every step of the daily trek. Sometimes my slightly-better-than-normal memory scares me.

I also rode my bike to school a lot, a Sting Ray knockoff. The bike rack in front of Nichols School would be full of colorful banana-seaters, as well as a few odd traditional bikes ridden by the less fortunate.

Rain was a year-round threat in the midsouth. So sometimes the bike would have to go in the trunk for a ride home with mom. Of course, the trunk on a Fury III was big enough for three or four bikes.

Mom was a schoolteacher herself, and had to be at the other grade school in town early. So when the weather was bad in the mornings (or when I just wanted a break from walking), I would ride with the kids who lived across the street. I remember they had a big Buick LeSabre whose name I had a hard time pronouncing. It went against all of my training in phonics.

In all, I walked to kindergarten and school for four years before our move to rural southwest Missouri. But I have many, many memories of mini-adventures on the way while walking to and from Nichols Elementary so many years ago.

At the risk of inciting the wrath of the PC police, today’s memory is about the paddle that hung by the chalkboard, and the discipline it inspired.

I was a class clown. No, let me rephrase that. I was THE class clown. Ergo, I was quite familiar with that wooden implement that usually had holes drilled in it “to lower wind resistance” one teacher told me. It would also be sinisterly marked with bold colors to get your attention while it hung from the wall right where you could see it.

Occasionally, the teacher would use it. More often, getting a student’s attention and merely pointing to it would cause a potential disturbance-creator to settle down quickly.

The paddle accompanied my school days from first grade through my senior year in high school. And yes, I was familiar with the procedure involved in getting yourself a needed dose of corporal punishment.

My first grade teacher, Mrs. Cottam, would simply bend you over your desk and give you a single swat. She knew just how much oomph to put into it to gently cause a six-year-old to see the error of his ways. I only got one paddling from her that I recall. That was all I needed.

As I grew older, my propensity to entertain others made me a semi-regular recipient of “learning sessions.” By junior high, the procedure was modified a bit. You would be marched out to the hall and told to wait. The teacher would go get another to act as a witness, then would make you grab your ankles.

Different teachers had different pain-producing-levels. Students would spread the word among themselves as to whose paddlings were walks in the park and whose classes you DIDN’T DARE act up in.

My biggest shock was from Mr. Smith, my algebra teacher. He was a little guy who was very methodical in his educating, drawing lots of formulas on the board and teaching straight out of the book. He was also seemingly oblivious to the acting up that went on non-stop in his class. Of course, that made fertile soil for yours truly to plant my wild oats of clowning.

Well, one day, out of the blue, I guess he decided he’d had enough. So he marched a fellow goof and myself to the office. We both chuckled along the way. The whole school knew that the principal didn’t have much of a backswing.

To our surprise, diminutive Mr. Smith wielded the paddle. This was going to be even easier! I volunteered to go first. I bent over the desk. Mr. Smith proceeded to smack my rear so hard that my face hit wood!

I was stunned. I don’t think I even felt the next one. When I looked at my partner in crime, he was already crying.

When word got around of the sheer force behind Mr. Smith’s paddle, his class suddenly became quite well-behaved.

Today, of course, paddling is evil, monstrous, horrible, and, most important of all, Politically Incorrect. One website I found has a table showing the number of students who have been “battered,” not paddled, over the years. I don’t know why they’re worried about it. It’s been banned in every school district that I know of.

But we Boomer kids remember when our teachers had paddles, and weren’t afraid to use them.

This is a memory that every kid shares, regardless of generation. The last day of school was a rush for all involved.

Kids loved it because it meant three months of freedom. Teachers loved it for the same reason. But kids had the additional bonus of going up a grade the next year. Of course the lucky teachers gained another year of tenure, where applicable. But the rest got a year closer to retirement. And even the staff that had to keep working, like maintenance, finally got to tackle jobs that required shutting down parts of the buildings.

So the last day of school was without a doubt a good deal for all involved individuals.

The school year would start with a resigned acceptance of circumstances. Summer was fun, often involving a real vacation and perhaps some weekend campouts and fishing trips, But the days had grown shorter, the air had turned cooler, and it was time to get back to the dreary business of studying, learning, and (my biggest challenge) behaving yourself.

But eventually we would settle into the routine. Thanksgiving would provide a big fat four-day break, Christmas and New Year’s an even longer two-week hiatus, and, assuming we didn’t have too many snow days, a spring break of a week.

Once you got those precious April days off behind you, it was a short jog to the freedom of summer. You walked to school with an extra spring in your step. The weather was warm, leaves were popping out on the trees, and everyone was in a better mood.

Soon, you were in the very merry month of May. You were taking end-of-year tests and getting more free time in class for your own personal use (as long as you were quiet, another big challenge for your webmaster). You were free to draw airplanes, wars, space ships, or any other objects of kids’ artistic endeavors.

By the time I made it to junior high in the early 70’s, I was going to Bentonville, Arkansas Middle School (NOT junior high, according to our principal!). There, I obtained a taste of a spring tradition in that small town (at least it was back then). That tradition was progressive squirt gun lenience.

Get caught with a squirt gun in September, it was three licks in the principal’s office. But the same violation circa May the 5th would warrant a mere 100-word essay. And when school let out at the end of the month, your water-dispensing weapon was COMPLETELY LEGAL!

The only offense that would draw discipline was squirting the teacher. But some of the more light-hearted educators didn’t even mind that. So after a day of joyful dowsings from fellow students while delivering as much return fire as possible, you finally loaded your tired but exuberant body onto the school bus and went home.

It’s a shame that, as adults, we no longer have an annual explosion of joy like the last day of school. We could really use a day of unrestrained, innocent revelry every year.

Ah, elementary school. You got recess in the morning, lunch, recess in the afternoon, AND milk break! Life was sweet, especially now that many of us are slaving away at 50-60 hour per week jobs and are on call 24/7.

But in those relaxed times, we could count on an afternoon delivery of white or chocolate (your choice!). And, coolest of all, it came in cubic cartons.

Now, to be honest, I got a lot of milk in the more traditional cartons that had a single edge at the top, shaped a bit like a house. But in my earliest school years, the bovine-produced delight was encased in these perfect cubes, complete with a corner that was to be turned up for dispensing of the contents.

This photo is from a vintage carton featured for sale on eBay. I would have liked to seen a corner-on shot, but it gets the idea across.

Here’s to more relaxed times. Maybe we need afternoon milk breaks at our cubicled sweatshops.

The year was 1967. I was in the second grade. I was in class wearing my spiffy Cub Scout uniform, along with the other classmates who were members of the local pack. We had a den meeting after school that day, and we wore our uniforms to school.

But this afternoon’s meeting was a special one. We were to receive our Pinewood Derby kits!

The denmaster had been talking about the Pinewood Derby for weeks, building up our anticipation to nearly the breaking point in the process. I mean, what could be cooler than cars screaming down a track, with the winning entry getting a real trophy?

The concept of cars screaming down tracks is a natural thriller for young boys. That’s why Hot Wheels was such an instant hit. But Hot Wheels wasn’t around yet in 1967. So we Cub Scouts were able to get our speed rush via the Pinewood Derby.

That afternoon, we were finally given our kits, along with instructions to have our fathers help us transform them into screaming machines driven by gravity alone.

Interestingly, nearly every boy in the room had fathers AND mothers living in the same home back then. Today’s instructions no doubt mention visitation circumstances.

Anyhow, we ran home as eagerly as we could with our prizes. And as soon as dad had some time to spare, we went to work.

Dads got as big a kick out of making the cars as did the kids, as I recall. The big blocks of wood would require carving, cutting, sanding, painting, waxing, and strategic weighting. These activities were far over the head of a seven-year-old, so help was essential.

The key for dads, though, was knowing where to draw the line between “helping” and handling the whole process themselves.

My dad did great. He handled the carving parts, but let me do the sanding and spray painting (my car was a jet black, a color we just happened to have sitting on the garage shelf). I nailed the wheels on, and dad screwed fishing sinkers to the underbelly. I would say that he did exactly as the originator of the program, Don Murphy, was hoping for in 1953 when it all started.

The derby itself took place in the lunchroom of Nichols School in Miami, Oklahoma. The tables and chairs had been folded away that Friday night, and the magical track was set up in the middle of the room. It was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen. The room was full of excited kids and parents as the competition began.

My beautiful jet black racer was unfortunately not very fast. I remember winning one heat on the two-lane track, and getting blown away in the second round. Trophies were awarded to the top three finishers in each division (Wolf, Bear, Webelos). Everyone else got a ribbon. Needless to say, I was a ribbon winner.

But I still have fond memories of that night. And it did indeed bring a father and son closer together. I discussed that Pinewood car with dad many years later, and he still remembered it.

In researching the Pinewood Derby, I found several sites that offer guarantees of winning cars if you buy their plans, or you get your money back. But I like to think that there are still a few fathers out there who have the time to spend with their sons to build a racer completely from scratch, using only the designs in their collective heads, and possibly even beating out cars that are “guaranteed” to win.

Unfortunately, I can’t remember which day it was. But one day each week, we received a delightful little four-page read in school: My Weekly Reader.

Thanks to this fascinating little periodical, I knew the names of every astronaut who went into space between 1969 and 1972. In fourth grade, our teacher made us memorize them, and I kept doing so for years afterwards. My Weekly Reader would prominently trumpet their triumphs, even with the later moon missions that the public lost interest in.

Then again, there was Peanut and Jocko. The monkey and elephant would crack wise and further inspire class clowns like myself.

The idea behind MWR was that you would study them on your own, then discuss them in class. It was more like fun than work.

n researching this piece, I learned that the familiar flyer was first produced way back in 1928 by Eleanor M. Johnson, who died in 1987. So it’s far more than a Boomer tradition. In fact, it’s still going strong today! Even Peanut and Jocko are continuing to inspire the next generations of class clowns.

Here’s to Eleanor, who found a way to inject a little fun into an otherwise humdrum school day, and made you learn something in the process.

There may well be many of you Boomers (and others) out there who can’t relate to today’s memory. The Floridians and Los Angelenos will shake their heads quizzically, as will Minnesotans, but for different reasons. Bear with me.

Miami, Oklahoma (and my later homes in SW Missouri and NW Arkansas) had a temperate climate which allowed for hot summers and cold winters. The winters were quite mild compared to International Falls, Minnesota, but we got our share of frozen precipitation.

So a little bit of high pleasure I recall waking up to was discovering that the yard was white, so were the streets, and SCHOOL WAS CANCELED!

Mid-south towns like Miami were ill-equipped to deal with slippery streets. Since many winters would only manage a couple of two-inch snowfalls, city officials simply couldn’t justify purchasing expensive street-clearing equipment. So a modest three-inch-depth might virtually paralyze traffic for the early part of a day.

School buses made their runs first thing in the morning, so it didn’t take much snow for the school superintendent to call KGLC, the local radio station, as well as the Pittsburg, Kansas and Joplin, Missouri TV stations and give the word that would bring sheer ecstasy to kids all over town (and perhaps a slightly different emotion to their mothers).

While waking up to snow and getting the good news was intoxicating enough, it was even better if a heavy snow caused a cancellation the night before! I remember we got an unusual 12″ snowfall about 1966 or so. I got to stay up late that night and sleep in on a Wednesday, in the middle of January! Life couldn’t possibly get any better. That snow gave us the rest of the week off.

Okay, my memory is not so perfect that I recall the very days I missed. But it makes for a nice story flow, don’t you think? 😉

The neighborhood kids would converge some time in the morning, and the constructions and snowball fights would commence.

It’s amazing what a group of kids with time and packable snow can accomplish. I remember my buddies and myself constructing some pretty bonzer forts. The snowball fights that would follow were legendary.

It was unusual to miss more than one day of school in Miami. Wear from traffic as well as the few trucks they had with plows would generally make school quite feasible the next day. And besides, you didn’t want to miss TOO many days, or you might have to make them up at the end of the year. I remember going to school until early June one year, probably the one when we got the really bad storm.

Of course, you Minnesotans, Wisconsans, and fellow kids from the other northern states might well have missed fewer days than I did way down in Oklahoma, thanks to your much-more-fully-equipped snow clearing crews. A three inch snow canceling school? I wish!

Hey, things even out. I was scared witless of tornadoes as a kid, due to being located just a little ways from the heart of Tornado Alley. I DESERVED my occasional snow days. 😉