School Daze; Was Summer Birthdays

[msbeadsley]

I remember feeling as if it wasn't fair that my birthday fell during 
the summer, too. Although the birthday kids didn't get *parties* per 
se, we sang Happy Birthday to them; sometimes there were cupcakes, 
too, but only at morning milk break (milk break! Did you have milk 
break?). It was two cents (this was in 1965, when I was in second 
grade) for an eight-ounce (I think that's right) container of milk. I 
got a nickel for milk every morning and hoarded the change, until I 
noticed one morning that one girl had stopped getting milk. I asked 
her why and she didn't answer me. Turns out (teacher told me 
privately, to deflect my concern and curiosity) that this girl's 
father was out of work and the family couldn't afford the two cents 
every day. (The school lunch program took care of lunches but not the 
morning milk; I thought then and still think that's nuts, that there 
was funding to cover lunches every day (thirty-five cents, I think) 
but not another two cents). Next day, I bought two milks and just 
happened to pass this girl's desk on my way back to mine and also 
just happened to leave the second milk on her desk. When I got back 
to my desk, I snuck a glance over at her. She was staring at the 
milk, not looking up. Then, very slowly, she stuck the straw in the 
milk and drank it. And for a while that's where two of my three 
cents' "change" went every morning. Until one day when that girl went 
up ahead of everyone else and laid down her own two cents for milk; 
and every morning after that, on her way back to her desk with her 
milk, she'd smile at me.

After that, I didn't care so much about my birthday falling during 
the summer. I had my three cents back, no matter whose birthday it 
might be.

That was the same year that one day, when some of the boys in our 
class were naughty, the teacher threatened to paddle them. This was 
the first time in school I'd heard of this, and I had a shiny little 
epiphany and said, "Excuse me, but if you have to resort to physical 
violence to keep order in the classroom, you're in the wrong 
profession." And the teacher just walked out of the room without any 
of her usual parting words about being back in a minute or that we 
should be good and stay quietly in our seats. As the minutes 
stretched by, I started to worry. Considering the looks on some of my 
classmates' faces and the way Mrs. Anderson (yes, I still remember 
her name) had left, I began to think that I'd made a tactical error 
and that she'd gone to get a *bigger* paddle. (Of course, after so 
long to ruminate, I expected to be on the receiving end. I thought I 
might even be killed, she was gone so long. I was, after all, only 
seven years old and still figuring things out.) But then one of the 
other teachers came in and read to us, saying that Mrs. Anderson had 
had to take care of something. Mrs. Anderson came back a while later 
and never mentioned paddling again, and the naughty boys, figuring 
they'd gotten off lucky, behaved for the rest of the year. I kinda 
felt the same and followed suit.

It wasn't until I was almost out of high school that my parents told 
me that the school had called that day years earlier. The upshot was 
that Mrs. Anderson, being a first year teacher, had been off having a 
good cry during her absence. (After everyone had conferred, they'd 
decided that, under the circumstances, perhaps not calling attention 
to the incident was best.) Hearing about this ten years later, I felt 
bad; I had actually liked her best of any of my grade school 
teachers. But...I couldn't help thinking that she'd probably given up 
pretty permanently on corporal punishment, too.

Sandy, waxing nostalgic and wishing she had more time lately