by Wilbur Witt
I remember the first day of school like it was yesterday. Mom would always take us to Levine's and buy school clothes and new Dan River sheets! We rarely washed sheets because we had one those old timed wringer washers, and sheets weren't exactly a priority. The smell of new clothes was all over school. Everybody had it, which was a mark of being brought up in PoDunk, Texas. We got new shoes, too, and back in those days the clerk in the store always used one of those foot measuring things that assured a proper fit. Always tennis shoes. REAL ones, not those flashy, fashionable hundred dollar jobs the kids clamor for now, but the canvas ones, always black and white that would fit not matter what size the guy at the store read on that stupid scale because if you got a new pair you would NOT be stupid enough to bitch about a poor fit.
I had several drawbacks in school. First off I was poor, and I mean Texas poor. Dimes looked bigger to me. I didn't have to worry about dimes, though, because I always got a free lunch for working in the cafeteria. Next, I was a nerd, before nerd was cool. And I was a dumb nerd. I was a nerd because I had absolutely no social skills whatsoever. Which means I didn't have any girl friends. Oh, there was one, Grace Barnes. She always wore these long dresses, and she was thin, making her look a bit like Olive Oyle. I was to shy to ever tell her I liked her. I was very shy. I hated physical education because the very first time I undressed I had these underwear my mother had bought me with little cowboys on them and the goat ropers beat my ass in the showers.
School, itself was a blur to me. About the only talent I had was writing, but I hated English and Literature classes. Funny thing, only after many years did I remember what the teachers in those classes were trying to teach me, and it all came back crystal clear. One teacher even told me that i was so stupid that I'd never be able to communicate in the English language. Yet every year I would write a book. I'd get one of those three ring, two hundred page notebooks, and write a novel from start to finish with absolutely no planning at all. I'd pass it around and all the kids who were actually impressed. Then, in my senior year I wrote a novel about a bomb being placed in a school. Now this is 1968 people! I devised a plot, a motive, and only made one teeny tiny mistake. My bomb design would work, and the principle read my book! That was the last book I wrote in school. The next time I wrote anything was around 1973 when I wrote the short story, "Vick."
I was not a scholar by any stretch of the imagination. All my school books may have as well been written in Greek. Everyone always remembers their favorite class, or teacher. I can't honestly say I had a favorite class unless you count lunch, and as I said, that was free. There was a cheerleader, Jane Toliver, who ate with me every day. In forty sum odd years I can't tell you why, but she was nice to me. I hope she had a happy life.
I missed school when I graduated. I think that's the only time in my life I was truly depressed. I never went back. I pass by there now and then, but I never really look. I never got invited to any reunions, but it follows suit. Still, those years shaped me. As time went by I reached back into them and drew out what I needed. The memories are always there. Today, the inspiration for this blog was my grand kids going off for their first day of school, and I caught the scent of new clothes. Hope they aren't nerds and I checked their underwear.
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