Free Gene Autry Hard To Top!

They fooled me the first year. My parents were the main culprits. But most everyone in town was in on it. I was so young. And gullible. You could have sold me the Brooklyn Bridge…..if you’d a’taken a magnet or a live bull frog as down payment.

I was wide eyed and ready for the first grade. Older folks had been priming me for weeks. “There is so much to learn.” “You are starting out on a grand adventure.” “Education is the key……”

My grand adventure waned pretty quickly as me and Dick, Jane and Spot muddled through that entry level reading book. We summed, ciphered and numerated until I ran out of fingers. And Miss Carolyn lined us up for the perfunctory Friday afternoon spelling bee whether we were ready or not.

I thought the second grade would be better. So I kinda went along the next August without too much fuss. It turned out to be more of the same only with bigger words and numbers. I spent most of my day looking out the window and pondering on what I could be doing at the big ditch down behind the house. I could have swung across that thing fifteen times while Miss Booth was herding us through the Blue Bird reading class. If it hadn’t a’been for lunch, recess and clay modeling the whole school thing would have been a total loss!

By the third grade August had leaped way up on my least favorite months of the year chart. It marked the end of the summer and loomed as an ominous threat to life as we knew it. It took us out of OUR “hang loose” mode and unceremoniously tossed us into THEIR “here are the rules” constraints.

Me and Ricky had figured it out one August. We were going to hop a freight train to Milan. We could get a job in an all night café. Or even better, we might catch on at the movie theater. No school and free Gene Autry pictures. Now, that was more of my idea of a grand adventure! He had an aunt down there. At the very least, she might hide us out until the school year was over. I don’t know what exactly happened to our plans. Rick got a stomach ache and Dad wouldn’t let me out of the house the night we were going to make our big break……

Mid August found us back in school. And the fourth grade turned out to be more of the same. I felt trapped. Kidnapped! Shanghaied! We’d talk about it over our sack lunches. Donna allowed that the knowledge couldn’t hurt us. She was right, of course, but I kept thinking about that big ditch. And I was having a little trouble by now with the idea of having to go through life lining up on the opposite side of the room from the girls and having a spell-off every week!  

Somewhere around junior high the light bulb came on for most of us. August was an essential month after all. School, even as it became more difficult, made more sense. Learning wasn’t necessarily fun….but it was necessary! And life expanded outside the class room. They encouraged us to go out for football and basketball. They provided coaches and uniforms. They let us practice against each other until we’d start fighting and then they’d take us over to Huntingdon or down to Gleason and we would fight those fellers for a while. Miss Paschall told us about Istanbul and Shangri-La. We had no clue where these places were, we just liked the way they rolled off her tongue.

I don’t remember exactly when they took the clay away from us.

Good friends made it palatable. And the pretty girls were a benefit. Teachers who understood and liked us certainly helped. We matured in spite of ourselves. And we branched out. Squeaky would sneak down the fire escape and come back with the best glazed doughnuts. When Latin got a little boring, we created the silent spit ball war. Match box football games would get you through fourth period study hall better than any of that Don Quixote, Count of Monte Cristo, Tale of Two Cities stuff! It’s a wonder we never blew up the science building. We did manage to set it on fire a couple of times….

You’d think a body would get used to August after a dozen of those back to school deals. I never could. I reckon the big ditch had a bigger pull on me than I ever realized. The August I went off to college was the worst. I had the necessity part down pat. I could talk that “broadening my horizons”, “enlarging my possibilities” etc, until the cows come home. The problem was I didn’t want to leave the cows…..

Life is amazing. And it is more like school than one would first imagine. While we are searching for the “grand adventure” or the “big enlightening” life kinda happens. It is pretty much day by day no matter how we try to speed it up or slow it down.

I have this discussion with myself every August. And I figure I’m better off than if I’d just stayed down at the big ditch or took that job at the Milan picture show……but I ain’t dead certain positive about it.

Respectfully,

Kes