First grade in Fort Devens happened at a school on base. Unlike the kindergarten, the grade school had a large playground and a gym. I believe there were 4 classrooms, two for first grade, two for second grade. It was a federal school. Children in higher grades were sent to a public school off base, in Ayer.
Of course, I was a baby boomer. There were always too many of us, all through my education, in public school, and in college. So there were too many of us when we all appeared for the first day to be sorted out. All the new incoming pupils had to mass in the playground area with parents or guardians and wait to be processed and given temporary assignments to classrooms. I think I had my first experience of agoraphobia that day. The crowd was overwhelming.
Initially my future wife-to-be Kathy and I were assigned to the same first grade class. Our teacher was named Parent. I thought that was weird. She was a nice woman.
The first few days were spent impressing upon us the importance of a test coming up and cluing us in to the testing procedure. There was multiple choice practice, so we got used to that sort of thing. Then there was a long test, or actually a sequence of tests. It was in fact an IQ test.
We weren't allowed to know the raw scores, but on the basis of the scores some of the kids were offered placement one year ahead, in the second grade. Kathy and I both were granted that opportunity to skip first grade, on account of acing the IQ test.
Kathy's parents went for it. My parents decided that I needed to stay back in the first grade with children my own age, because that would be better in terms of getting me properly "socialized."
So after one week Kathy and I were split up. It was probably for the best. During that first week we spent every free minute we had smooching and hugging, and completely disregarding anybody who had a problem with it, including Miss or Mrs. Parent. And we were still able to get together on the playground during recesses.
Because we were army brats the students that finished the year were not those who started it. Families moved away and were replaced by others all year round. I'd estimate about 10 left, and about 10 replaced them.
There were other kinds of attrition. At least one girl died of pneumonia. At least one boy was suspended for bad conduct. His name was Dave. That bad boy was my best buddy.
Dave organized a schoolyard gang. His peeps ran the playground. They stole lunches from the dorky kids. They made fun of the creeps and freaks. They ran from one end of the playground to the other, every lunch and recess, threatening anyone with whippings who didn't acknowledge their ruler-ship .
But Dave was not a bad kid. If you accepted his ascendancy you could be his friend and he would protect you.
Remember, I couldn't tie my own shoes yet. I also couldn't dress and undress myself. That was still the case. In the classroom Miss or Mrs. Parent and her assistants could take care of the shoelaces. Miss or Mrs. Parent also made special trips to the bathroom with me to help me.
Dave's first reaction to that was to decide I was a retard. He could tie his own shoes and he didn't need special help going to the bathroom. But when I told him I wanted to join his gang he only asked me if I would be loyal and obedient. When I said yes I was accepted, with all my flaws, and Dave personally took care of my shoelaces on the playground.
So I socialized very well, didn't I? The social landscape was harsh, but could be worked!
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Friday, October 12, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Widening Search
When I started my Quest for the Schofield Barracks Elementary School I thought it was going to be just around the corner at the end of the block. It wasn't. I looked all around the block. There were only homes. I had heard that the school was big. I expected to find children around it.
Instead of giving up, I widened the search. One of the things my Mother had taught me was not to step off the curb of the main thoroughfare by our house. The training consisted in taking me to it, letting me wander into it and then whacking me. I got the message. So I wouldn't cross that avenue or a parallel avenue like it a long block away. But the two avenues were connected by less trafficked smaller roads, that I now know were mostly 250 feet apart. After I was sure that there was no school on my block, I made the decision to risk crossing those streets. That greatly increased my range.
I left home every weekday that my Father went to work. I left as soon as my Mother wasn't watching me. I didn't keep to the sidewalks. I walked around houses, into backyards. I poked through openings I found in hedges. I followed alleys that the dump trucks used to pick up trash. Each day I followed a path identical to the path I followed the day before, except for new loops added to cover more ground.
The reason I tried to cover the same ground every day was because I discovered a source of food. It turned out that several of the wives staying home on weekdays were glad to offer cookies and pie and fruit to the stray cutie. So I learned to maintain a route that took me by all those houses. I would go so far as to knock at the door of the softest and most generous touches.
An amazing confluence of social and personal circumstances made the Quest possible. My Mother really didn't care that she couldn't find me for hours at a time. She wondered out loud about it, but she didn't want my disappearances to stop. She was glad to be rid of me. How the rest of the Army wives let her get away with it is a little harder to understand, especially for people who have never lived on an Army base in the Fifties.
There was in fact at least one woman, the one my Mother called the Meddling Bitch, who frequently called my Mother about my wanderings and told her she should keep better watch over me. After Mother hung up on MB a bunch of times, MB must have called some higher-ups, because there was at least one visit from the MPs about it when I was home.
But all that happened was, my Mother pointed out that MB raises the issue all the time, "but my son is never in any trouble, he's well-behaved, and he always comes home in time for dinner. Look, there he is, he's fine." "Well, he's awfully young to be wandering around by himself." "You aren't his Mother. You don't know him like I do."
That was the culture of that time and place. You didn't interfere with a parent's method of raising a child without proof that the child or society was in danger. As long as I didn't break into homes or beat preschoolers with a stick or get lost and spend a night outside and fall into a stream and drown in the dark, anything I did was between me and my parents. The MPs apologized for interrupting her day, left, and as far as I know never responded to another complaint about me.
My Mother came to be aware that there were women gossiping about what a horrible Mother she was. But Schofield Barracks in 1951 was a bastion for Parental Rights. If the Promise Keepers were around then, Schofield Barracks could have been their Promised Land.
I had no sense of time on my walks. I didn't know months then. But using maps and information I picked up later when I could ask about it, I know that I was still following my Quest until about the middle of October, after six or seven weeks of it. By that time I was beginning to lose hope of ever finding it. In all directions I had encountered avenues that I thought I shouldn't cross. My range was about 50 acres. The route I followed was twisted and crossed itself several times. It was at least a mile and a half long, maybe more like two and a half miles. Being a playful toddler disposed to stop and play in every puddle and look under every rock, I probably needed two or three hours to complete the route.
That was the routine when one day in October as I was at the Western edge of my route, I encountered a dark-skinned man working in what could have been a marching field. He saw me and walked over, bent down, smiled, and said, "Na wai ke kupu 'o 'oe?" Then he translated, "Whose little sprout are you?" I didn't know what either sentence meant at the time. I didn't know the word "sprout". But I liked the man's smile, and I liked the music his first sentence made, and I followed him until he met up with another dark-skinned man and the two of them spoke the same kind of music between each other.
Instead of giving up, I widened the search. One of the things my Mother had taught me was not to step off the curb of the main thoroughfare by our house. The training consisted in taking me to it, letting me wander into it and then whacking me. I got the message. So I wouldn't cross that avenue or a parallel avenue like it a long block away. But the two avenues were connected by less trafficked smaller roads, that I now know were mostly 250 feet apart. After I was sure that there was no school on my block, I made the decision to risk crossing those streets. That greatly increased my range.
I left home every weekday that my Father went to work. I left as soon as my Mother wasn't watching me. I didn't keep to the sidewalks. I walked around houses, into backyards. I poked through openings I found in hedges. I followed alleys that the dump trucks used to pick up trash. Each day I followed a path identical to the path I followed the day before, except for new loops added to cover more ground.
The reason I tried to cover the same ground every day was because I discovered a source of food. It turned out that several of the wives staying home on weekdays were glad to offer cookies and pie and fruit to the stray cutie. So I learned to maintain a route that took me by all those houses. I would go so far as to knock at the door of the softest and most generous touches.
An amazing confluence of social and personal circumstances made the Quest possible. My Mother really didn't care that she couldn't find me for hours at a time. She wondered out loud about it, but she didn't want my disappearances to stop. She was glad to be rid of me. How the rest of the Army wives let her get away with it is a little harder to understand, especially for people who have never lived on an Army base in the Fifties.
There was in fact at least one woman, the one my Mother called the Meddling Bitch, who frequently called my Mother about my wanderings and told her she should keep better watch over me. After Mother hung up on MB a bunch of times, MB must have called some higher-ups, because there was at least one visit from the MPs about it when I was home.
But all that happened was, my Mother pointed out that MB raises the issue all the time, "but my son is never in any trouble, he's well-behaved, and he always comes home in time for dinner. Look, there he is, he's fine." "Well, he's awfully young to be wandering around by himself." "You aren't his Mother. You don't know him like I do."
That was the culture of that time and place. You didn't interfere with a parent's method of raising a child without proof that the child or society was in danger. As long as I didn't break into homes or beat preschoolers with a stick or get lost and spend a night outside and fall into a stream and drown in the dark, anything I did was between me and my parents. The MPs apologized for interrupting her day, left, and as far as I know never responded to another complaint about me.
My Mother came to be aware that there were women gossiping about what a horrible Mother she was. But Schofield Barracks in 1951 was a bastion for Parental Rights. If the Promise Keepers were around then, Schofield Barracks could have been their Promised Land.
I had no sense of time on my walks. I didn't know months then. But using maps and information I picked up later when I could ask about it, I know that I was still following my Quest until about the middle of October, after six or seven weeks of it. By that time I was beginning to lose hope of ever finding it. In all directions I had encountered avenues that I thought I shouldn't cross. My range was about 50 acres. The route I followed was twisted and crossed itself several times. It was at least a mile and a half long, maybe more like two and a half miles. Being a playful toddler disposed to stop and play in every puddle and look under every rock, I probably needed two or three hours to complete the route.
That was the routine when one day in October as I was at the Western edge of my route, I encountered a dark-skinned man working in what could have been a marching field. He saw me and walked over, bent down, smiled, and said, "Na wai ke kupu 'o 'oe?" Then he translated, "Whose little sprout are you?" I didn't know what either sentence meant at the time. I didn't know the word "sprout". But I liked the man's smile, and I liked the music his first sentence made, and I followed him until he met up with another dark-skinned man and the two of them spoke the same kind of music between each other.
The Quest
[Continued from the previous post. Same warning. I'll be talking about sexual abuse I've experienced as a toddler. ]
Being home with my Mother got worse with time. The soap rapes evolved into finger rapes. She locked me in a closet periodically, sometimes for long periods. I don't know what she did that needed me out of the way like that. Maybe it was to take naps, or maybe she was going on long walks without me.
Then something good happened for a change. The little girls that lived on the block got to know me because two of them [pictured] belonged to the white family that occasionally took care of me. They started coming around every day and asking my Mother to have me to play with in our front yard. I believe this started sometime around the beginning of summer, maybe in June 1951, before my second birthday.
Basically, all the little girls took turns being my Mommy. They were all way better at it, too. It was heaven.
Some of it was a little too heavenly. I still had the increased libido symptom from the head injury. The girls wanted to change my diapers even when they didn't need changing. My Mother told them go right ahead, just keep using the same diaper if it isn't too dirty, and pretend it's clean.
I have a vivid memory of the very first time the girls changed my diapers. I had an erection, and the next thing I knew they were all gawking at it, with jaws dropped, and a couple of them were touching it. I was quite happy with that and squealed gleefully. Then the oldest girl, who may have been 7 or 8 and who'd actually been the first to feel it, said it wasn't right to touch it too much. They should just touch it to clean it (she thought she should be the one, since she was the most mature) and no more.
Not much later, maybe the same day, I remember my Mother telling them to have me go without diapers outside because she didn't want to have to wash them. I found myself standing in the middle of the front yard with an erection and four or five little girls staring. Then I looked over at the house and saw my Mother looking out from a window, with the same leer she had when she was raping me. I was frightened by it. At the time I couldn't know what the leer was really about. I now see it as the earliest indication for me that my Mother was capable of sexually abusing other children.
The girls played with me almost every sunny day, all through the summer. Then I started hearing them talk about something called "school". I had no idea what school was. I picked up the idea that it was a place they were all going to go and learn things. I imagined that they might take me with them. They talked about how soon it would be. It would be a week. Or it would be some days. Or it would be tomorrow.
Suddenly one sunny day no little girls came to play with me. I was back to having Jemmie Browning as my only Mommy.
That would not do.
I made up my mind I was going to go find this "school" where all the little girls went, and I was going to surprise them and they were going to be happy and get to play with me at the school just like they did in our front yard.
So with the start of the new school year in September, 1951, at the age of 2 years and 2 months, barefoot and still in diapers, I set out from our house in Schofield Barracks, without my Mother's knowledge, on a Quest for the Schofield Elementary School.
Being home with my Mother got worse with time. The soap rapes evolved into finger rapes. She locked me in a closet periodically, sometimes for long periods. I don't know what she did that needed me out of the way like that. Maybe it was to take naps, or maybe she was going on long walks without me.
Then something good happened for a change. The little girls that lived on the block got to know me because two of them [pictured] belonged to the white family that occasionally took care of me. They started coming around every day and asking my Mother to have me to play with in our front yard. I believe this started sometime around the beginning of summer, maybe in June 1951, before my second birthday.
Basically, all the little girls took turns being my Mommy. They were all way better at it, too. It was heaven.
Some of it was a little too heavenly. I still had the increased libido symptom from the head injury. The girls wanted to change my diapers even when they didn't need changing. My Mother told them go right ahead, just keep using the same diaper if it isn't too dirty, and pretend it's clean.
I have a vivid memory of the very first time the girls changed my diapers. I had an erection, and the next thing I knew they were all gawking at it, with jaws dropped, and a couple of them were touching it. I was quite happy with that and squealed gleefully. Then the oldest girl, who may have been 7 or 8 and who'd actually been the first to feel it, said it wasn't right to touch it too much. They should just touch it to clean it (she thought she should be the one, since she was the most mature) and no more.
Not much later, maybe the same day, I remember my Mother telling them to have me go without diapers outside because she didn't want to have to wash them. I found myself standing in the middle of the front yard with an erection and four or five little girls staring. Then I looked over at the house and saw my Mother looking out from a window, with the same leer she had when she was raping me. I was frightened by it. At the time I couldn't know what the leer was really about. I now see it as the earliest indication for me that my Mother was capable of sexually abusing other children.
The girls played with me almost every sunny day, all through the summer. Then I started hearing them talk about something called "school". I had no idea what school was. I picked up the idea that it was a place they were all going to go and learn things. I imagined that they might take me with them. They talked about how soon it would be. It would be a week. Or it would be some days. Or it would be tomorrow.
Suddenly one sunny day no little girls came to play with me. I was back to having Jemmie Browning as my only Mommy.
That would not do.
I made up my mind I was going to go find this "school" where all the little girls went, and I was going to surprise them and they were going to be happy and get to play with me at the school just like they did in our front yard.
So with the start of the new school year in September, 1951, at the age of 2 years and 2 months, barefoot and still in diapers, I set out from our house in Schofield Barracks, without my Mother's knowledge, on a Quest for the Schofield Elementary School.
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