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Back-to-school daze

By RICK RYCKELEY
Contributing Writer

Unlike most kids on Flamingo Street, I always looked forward to the first day of school.

Okay, so I’m a little odd. But there’s just no other day like it in the entire year. A new school year always means a fresh start, a chance to see old friends, make new ones, and most importantly - a chance that you-know-who would end up in someone’s else’s class besides mine.

The first day of school also brings with it its own unique sounds, sights, and smells. Back in the day, I loved riding the bus to school. Told you I was a bit odd. The school day for me always started off in grand fashion. As the big yellow bus screeched to a halt in front of our driveway, Mr. Holcomb pushed the handle to the doors - not as eager to start the school day as I was - they slowly creaked opened in front of our house with an angry hissss of air. He yelled, “All aboard”, as we scrambled onto the bus to find the best seats.

Mr. Holcomb was a retired train conductor with a salt-and-pepper handlebar mustache that curled so far up on the ends it almost touched his bushy gray eyebrows. He had hooked up an old train whistle to the ceiling of the cab with a long gold chain. On each street, at the beginning of the school year, he’d choose one kid to pull the gold chain and blow the whistle every time he started off from each stop. On Flamingo Street the chosen one my fifth-grade year was yours truly.

I even enjoy the smell of school on the first day. Like the smell of cinnamon rolls wafting from the lunchroom and drifting down the hallways - beckoning to all the teachers. They were a treat from Principal Baker - a way to start their year off right. Teachers were never on time to class the first day of school. They were in the lunchroom enjoying giant cinnamon rolls and cups of life-giving coffee. 

Last year our fourth-grade teacher, Old Mrs. Crabtree, said she had had enough. At 29 years, it was going to be her last. She was going to retire, and we’d just have to make it through the fifth grade without her. Guess she didn’t like the free cinnamon rolls.

Mrs. Crabtree wasn’t the only one I was glad not to see as I turned the corner and walked through the doorway of my new classroom at eight o’clock. Down The Street Bully Brad was nowhere in sight, either. Being as Mt. Olive had three fifth grades, there was one in three chances that Bradley MacAlister wouldn’t be in my class. One in three chances I wouldn’t start off my day being hit by one of his spitballs. And one in three chances that I wouldn’t be his personal punching bag for another year.

James Hancock, the school janitor at Mt. Olive, spent the better part of his summers cleaning the entire school. He’d give every wall a fresh coat of paint that stayed smelling fresh for the entire first week - leastwise till Bubba added his own unique smells. Most times right after lunch.

Years later when I returned to Mt. Olive and walked the halls once again, they seemed so small. But I knew it wasn’t because I was bigger. Nope. It was because all of the layers of paint Mister James had applied over the years.

Mr. James, as he liked us kids to call him, every summer washed all the messages off the bathroom stalls, and scraped the bubble gum out from under all the desks. Heck, scraping under Goofy Steve’s desk probably took him half the summer all by itself. That Goof - he loved blowing bubbles, but he wasn’t very good at it. As a matter of fact, he was the worst bubble blower in all of fifth grade. We all just got a kick out of watching him as the giant bubbles he blew burst all over his face. After one of the really big ones, he’d be pulling gum out of his hair for the rest of the day.

But if there was one thing that Mr. James took great pride in, it was his floors. And he saw to it that we had the cleanest and shiniest floors of any elementary school in the county. If there was an award for the best-looking floors, Mr. James would win first prize.

As I took my seat - third row over from the door, third seat back from the front of the room - and looked around, the perfectly thrown spitball landed with a splat in the center of my forehead. The half-filled classroom erupted with laughter. It was then that I heard it. A smoke-filled voice, crackled with age, bellowed for Bradley MacAlister to come forward and follow her to Principal Baker’s office. The voice belonged to none other than Old Mrs. Crabtree. Seems she had decided not to retire after all and she was going to be our teacher for yet another year. Oh joy.

As Mrs. Crabtree dragged Bradley down the hall by his ear, his pain and feeble struggle to free himself from her iron grip was reflected perfectly in the shine of Mr. James’ floors. From what I could see, my fifth-grade year had started off just as my fourth-grade year had ended - a spitball in the face, Bully Brad in trouble being dragged to the office, and the class laughing at me.

Kids hurriedly took their seats when Mrs. Crabtree returned, minus one class bully. The bell rang for the first day of class to begin and as I looked around the room, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Most every kid from our neighborhood was seated around me. Bubba Hanks, Goofy Steve, Neighbor Thomas, Tattle Tale Tina, Blabber Mouth Betsy, Slow Moe, and Candi. Candi had been my girlfriend since the third grade; maybe this would be the year I’ll actually tell her that she is. And Preston Weston III, that money bags from the Duke of Gloucester — one street over from our street - sat right next to her.

I didn’t know then, but it was to be the most adventurous year ever, in the classroom and out. But what else would you expect when you put all the kids from Flamingo Street into the same classroom? Looking back, it certainly was a grand year. And every week or so, you can read about it right here.