Wednesday, July 17, 2002
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Wednesday, July 17, 2002 |
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How I got the 2nd grade blues By BILLY MURPHY The summer before I entered the second grade, my family moved from England to Macedonia, S.C. It was a little community where they valued bacon and egg breakfasts and house trailers above all else. My dad had just retired from a 24-year stint in the Air Force. Our family had pretty much been world travelers by then. My mom was German, born in Dusseldorf. My dad had met her after the Big One, World War II. My older brother and younger sister had both been born in Europe. Even as a second grader, it was still quite a shock to my system moving to such an uncultured environment. I would ponder these yokel barbarians each night as I polished my Faberge' eggs. My first day at Macedonia Grammar School went over about as well as Britney Spears performing a concert of songs she wrote. First of all, they placed my twin brother and me in separate rooms. Thankfully though, they put me in the "smart" class. That only meant that the kids I sat with knew to chew boiled eggs before they swallowed them. Like a swan among buzzards, I languished in my new school. Every conversation with my classmates seemed to contain phrases like, "down at the feedstore" or, "my cousin Stinker." I did at least learn the fine art of spiking a totally perfect bottle of Coke with a pack of salted peanuts. Typically, in learning the lessons of life, I was about to swallow my piety like a slick, hard-boiled egg. After a lunch of green beans, turnips and conversations concerning the pros and cons of paved roads, we took on "vowels" in Mrs. Coker's English class. I was thinking, "I should be teaching this class." After all, I had just moved from England. Mrs. Coker was a rotund lady of about 60. Her flowered dress reminded me of the field that Dorothy and friends fell asleep on in "The Wizard of Oz." She, in it, was just about as hypnotic, too. She asked me if we had learned vowels in that English school where I went. Suddenly my prideful smirk took a nose dive. I had spent so much time being haughty that I hadn't bothered to be concerned with whether I knew anything or not. I didn't. I mumbled and fumbled until she rescued me and called on Claudia Ripley to give the correct answer (I would also later lose the fifth grade spelling bee to Claudia, perpetuating a crush that lasted for years.) This was only the beginning of my travails. The worst of all embarrassing moments would happen next. I sat next to a blackboard off my right shoulder. Mrs. Coker was droning on about something, so I decided to play with some of my new books. I was leaning over my desk exploring gamely when I overlooked a fatal geographical event. Mrs. Coker moved to the side blackboard beside my seat. Sensing something must be happening, I sat up. All went black. Mrs. Coker had moved close to my seat without me knowing it. When I sat up, I inadvertently came up under her dress. My little 7-year-old head and shoulders fit perfectly under her tent of a dress. I was engulfed in a sea of white and frills. Dazed at first, I didn't realize where I was. Then as my eyes adjusted I could make out the unmistakable shape of two nylon-covered tree-trunk-like legs. Mrs. Coker quickly pulled me out from under her dress. Much like a groundhog on his holiday, I emerged tentatively. I was quickly wrangled outside the class and I heard her say, "I don't know how you did things at your other school, but..." The rest of what she said was obvious blather about not telling the other kids and such. I was simply reeling. I had gone from looking down my nose at all the other kids, to looking into the face of death. It was a lesson I hope I carry to this day. [Visit Billy Murphy on the Internet at http://ebilly.net.]
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