School Days

Each morning at the beginning of class, one child would be chosen to come to the front of the room, next to the teacher, and hold the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance. We all stood at our desks, hands over our hearts...more or less...and recited the Pledge. In some years we also sang "America the Beautiful"...though I don't remember singing the National Anthem...perhaps it was judged too difficult for young voices.

Although the classroom in the picture is not ours, the similarities are striking. The long blackboard on one side, the row of tall windows on the other, and the desks mounted on wooden planks. The upper windows were opened on hot days with a long pole with a "window hook" on the end that the teacher kept in the corner. The desk seats folded up to make for easy entry and exit and were especially handy when we had to get under our desks for the "duck and cover" atomic bomb drill.

The desks had a hole in the top...for an inkwell which we actually used one year. Each of us had to bring a bottle of ink, Schaeffer's Skrip...which had a little built-in well inside the bottle for easy filling of a fountain pen. I think we learned how to write with them...and then they were through. Can't imagine doing that with a room full of kids...

Of course we pulled the pigtails of the girl in front of us...particularly if we happened to like her. We also were not above putting gum on the seat of the person in front of us...though that meant serious trouble. We were not allowed to chew gum in class. When we did...and we did...and when we were caught...and we always were caught...there were two forms of punishment.

Usually, we were instructed to stick the gum to the bridge of our nose...much to the delight of the rest of the children...and keep it there for a length of time judged sufficient by our teacher. This would be followed by marching up front and dropping the gum into the teacher's wastebasket. Occasionally, under "special circumstances", we would merely be required to spit the gum into the basket.

As I've said, the recess at lunch was the longest of the day. In the warm weather, a few of us boys would sneak out of the gate at the far north end of the playground...it bordered on the street...and run down the 3 or 4 blocks into Crystal Bay to the old store. Naab's Hardware was on the right, (where we bought our fishing poles), and a little general store was on the left.

In front of the store, on the concrete , was a coke machine. It was one of those that resembled a chest. You had to lift and hold the top open, choose your flavor from those available, and slide the bottle through a series of rails into the jaw-like release. Then you put your nickle or dime into the machine, and hopefully, it would let you pull the bottle out.

We didn't go to the store for pop, however, we went to buy Chum Gum. Chum Gum came in a package of 5 sticks, just like Wrigley's, but the packaging was less fancy. Rather than the foil package, Chum Gum was mere paper...and each stick was also wrapped in thin paper. The good thing about it was that it only cost 2 cents a pack!

We'd each buy a pack or two, start chewing, and head back to school before we were missed. Chewing Chum Gum became a game among the boys. Before we were to go inside after recess, we would take the entire pack, 5 sticks, and put it in our mouths. On a young boy, 5 sticks of gum shows relatively easily...not to mention the drooling sugar coming out of the corners of our mouths as we attempted to chew. Some guys would eventually try more than a pack...this was considered very, very neat.

Mrs. Anderson, our 6th grade teacher, had an especially sharp eye when it came to gum-chewing. She was a small woman, perhaps not much more than 5 feet tall, thin, impecably dressed, with dark curly hair showing just a little gray. She wore glasses sometimes...gold, wire rimmed spectacles. She was very tough...and a very good teacher.

Mrs. Anderson caught me with more than a pack of gum in my mouth one day. "Charles", she said in that stern voice that meant trouble..."do you have gum in your mouth?". I could barely pronounce the words "Yes, Mrs. Anderson"...I managed, having to swallow as much of the sweet liquid in my mouth as I could to keep from drooling excessively. "Come up here and spit it in the wastebasket", she said.

Standing and lifting my seat, I made my way up to the front of the room...muffled giggles from the kids accompanying me... I stood there, next to her desk, returning her no nonsense look with a kind of gleepy half-smile...then bent my head over the wastebasket and let it go. The wad of gum was huge...enormous...the best ever...and the wastebasket was empty. The loud "CLUNK" was greeted with laughs from the class...and I think I even saw a tiny smile in the corner of Mrs. Anderson's mouth.

Afternoon recess would be spent in the classroom writing " I will not chew gum in class" 100 times on the big blackboard...it was worth it.