It's a Wonder I Can Think at All

Today is the first day of school for Maddie. G-man started yesterday. I hated school from the first day of kindergarten. Actually, I didn't go to kindergarten, but Caldwell Playschool back in the day before kindergarten was a requirement. Anyhow, I hated it. I know hate is a strong word and Mom preferred me to say "I didn't care for it," but I hated it. I wanted to be back home with Mom eating chicken pot pies and watching TV.

I had already decided on a career before I ever started school. I always wanted to be a garbage man. I thought I would be good at hanging on to the back of the truck as it went from neighborhood to neighborhood all over town. Also, I always liked going to the dump with my Dad. There was lots of neat stuff there. I knew that's where the trucks ended up.

This picture is from 1977 on the first day of school. I was going into 5th grade and my sister was going into 2nd. My teacher was the dreaded Mrs. Gormley. A short, wide woman who was plenty of old to have been my Mom's teacher in an earlier time. She was feared by everyone on campus. Maybe even the Principal Mr. Hicks if that's possible. (Just guessing.) They don't make 'em like that anymore, and probably haven't for some time. She had a horrifying scowl. Her chastisement of unruly boys was unrelentless. She wore those half glasses on a chain around her neck and at the opportune time she would put them on for effect. I doubt she even needed them.
Even saying all of that, I grew to love her. She was the first and only teacher (or person) who noticed I write my "eights" backwards. I still do to this date. I couldn't break it. She spotted it one day as I was writing on the chalk board. She gave the most convincing speech I ever heard for peer pressure. I still remember her booming voice saying "you tell them you're darn right I'm chicken." At the end of school during the final awards assembly she thought I had been overlooked for the honor roll and she got up and stopped the whole thing until she got it straightened out. (I was on the all-A honor roll for the first time in elementary, and they were calling out the A/B roll.) It took several years before I could admit it to anyone, but she was my favorite teacher of all time.