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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

When I Was In The Sixth Grade




          The above photo was taken in May of 1959.  It shows my entire sixth grade class, with our teacher, Mr. Warren, to the right (YOUR right) of the principal, Mr. Long.  I am located in the middle row at your extreme right.  That little boy with the strained smile and the upswept hair- is yours truly. 
            Memory provides me with the names of almost three quarters of these people.  The scowling boy in front of me, sitting on the bench, recently got in touch with me.  He's a successful attorney with kids and grandkids.  He was always affable and known as a superb athlete.  When I tap his memory, things look very different from the way they look in my own memory.  My classmate remembers not only the shoes he was wearing that day, he remembers the shoes I was wearing that day.
            Most of these kids were eleven or twelve.  Sixth grade was the last moment of innocence before we were pushed into Junior High School and the fierce competition that would ride on our backs like flying monkeys all through high school.
            WE HAD NO IDEA THE HELL THAT WAS WAITING FOR US!
            Some of these kids look dumb as telephone poles and others look like they're plotting to bomb the school.  I'm positive that at least one of the boys farted.  I'm also positive that at least one of the girls suppressed a fart, thereby precipitating her very first menstrual period.
            The guy standing next to me, whose name was Lansing Boyles-Hertz, invented a working time machine in 1967.   He went back to see his father during the Battle Of The Bulge and accidentally shot his dad in the head.  Lance wasn't seen after that.  He erased his own existence.  The tall guy in the top row is in the Witness Protection Program.  The boy standing just below the teacher is doing time for arson, and the guy next to him is now the Rabbi at United Hebrew, St. Louis' largest Reformed congregation.
            That was the sixth grade.  At the time there were only three billion people in the world.  A mere fifty two years ago.
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2 comments:

  1. Can you believe that in just forty years, the population has doubled? I don't even think I would be able to name most of my class from then, but you're right- we had no idea what we were getting into with high school. It just makes you really realize that time does fly.

    Sara

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think the population is expected to double again
    in another thirty years. That's very scary. Bats and bugs know how to control their numbers according to available resources. Why is humanity so thick in the head? Thank you for reading my post, Sara. I appreciate it very much.

    ReplyDelete

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