My first day of school in the first grade...

[Ol Smoke]

I am six years old and my family just moved to Del Norte, Colorado.  I remember walking to the bus stop down by the road with my brother and sister.

I have a shiny nickel and a dime in my pocket for milk at recess and my lunch.

The bus stops in front of my school and I get off with the other kids (who I don't know) and we get in a line and a teacher escorts us into the school.

My mom has filled out all my papers and I give them to the teacher.  We go to a classroom and she tells each of us where to sit.  Behind me to my 

left is a redheaded kid with freckles, on both sides of me are girls.  In front of me is a kid in a cowboy shirt. 

After a while in the classroom, we are escorted out of the school and down to the cafeteria to get our morning milk.  We are in the same order as 

the seating was.  We are stopped just before going into the doors.  The teacher goes inside to do something and leaves us alone.  It is at this time,

the redheaded kid comes up to me and says,  "Give me your milk money!"   I said, "No".  He pushes me and I fall into the kid with the cowboy shirt.

We bump heads.  I am now insane.  I grab the redheaded kid's shirt with my left hand, and start punching him with my right fist.  He falls back onto the

sidewalk, where I let him go.  I then kneel down by his side and start hitting him some more, until he starts crying.

 

The next thing I remember is,   I am sitting in this room waiting for my mother.  I have been expelled.

 

 

When I get home, my mom calls over to the mill where my dad works and tells him that I have been expelled for fighting.  Dad comes home and asks

me what happened.  I tell him.  Dad and I are now in the car going to my school.   My dad goes into this room with another woman, and then I hear him

yelling at her.  A few minutes later, they come out.  Dad leaves.  The woman escorts me back to my class.  I never had any problems after that.

 

We moved to Yreka California about 6 months later.  Here my dad built the planer mill for the new lumber mill.  We lived in Yreka until the middle of the 

2nd grade, when we moved about 15 miles to Montague.  There I finished the 2nd grade and 3rd grade.  Then we moved to Dierks, Arkansas and that

is where I rode the car hoods down the hill.  The next year we moved to Crosett, Ark  for 3 months, then on to Silsbee, Texas**.  Then we moved back to

California to a town called Gazelle.  Dad repaired the planer at the mill in Yreka.  Then he got a job resetting a planer in Klamath Falls, OR and moved

in the middle of my 6th grade year to there.  Just after I finished 6th grade, we moved about 50 miles away to a town called Bly.  Dad built the planer mill

there.  I started the 7th grade there and was in the middle of the 8th grade, when we moved to Albany, OR so dad could install a new planer in the Philomath

Lumber mill about 15 miles away.  Three months later we moved to Philomath.  In the middle of my 8th grade year, we moved to Chiloquin, OR so dad

could build their planer mill.  We got permission from the local Indian tribe to use the housing on the Indian Agency until we could find a house.  About

6 months later we moved into a house in Chiloquin.  I finished high school there.

 

And that is why I have lived where I am for the past 39 years.   You see,  I was only 3 months old when dad moved us to Longview, Washington.  I have 

spent more time in the back seat of a car on Route 66, than I ever did in any house we ever lived in. :-)

 

**It was on this move that we wrecked the trailer twice.  I have a story on here about that.

 

There is also a story on the forum about our wreck in the '50 Ford.

 

 

The ending to this story is this.  After about 3 or 4 times of moving during my early school years,  I developed this little flaw in my character.

On the first day that I attended a new school, I would find out who the toughest kid was in my class.  Sooner or later that day, we would meet to settle

the score.  That way I only had to fight one kid...instead of all of them.   Like the guy in the movie said, "500" will make you a legitimate tough guy. I

only got to 397.  So I am still a lovable kid anyway.

 

My next story will be about Chiloquin.  The heart of the Modoc-Klamath Indian nation.  It's gonna start getting serious now.

 

 

 

 

[Dddrgn]

The way you tell stories like this is always interesting, because of how foreign it is to me, being only eighteen. I honestly can't imagine moving that much, let alone fighting in school.

[Chameleon]

Love these stories Smoke! Brings back memories.. My first day of kindergarten (Which I did not know was from the german language http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=kindergarten ) my mom brought me to school. I was only 4 years old, all the other kids were 1 to 2 years older than me. I was one of those smart kids that skipped grades.

 

  Anyway we stood at the door of the classroom, my mom talking to the teacher, Ms Castle, who was a tall slender older woman with glasses the size pint jar lids. She leans over and tells me to go meet the other kids and make friends. Being much smaller I was very frightened of everyone in the room, but I made my way in. Before I could even say a word, this very large and imposing young girl comes running up to me, without a notice, she grabs me and picks me and begins to swing me in circles. As you can imagine this scared the absolute crap out of me.. I started screaming for her to let me go and I guess as to not get caught by the teacher she stopped and sat me down..

 

  As soon as my feet hit the floor, I kicked her in the stomach as hard as I could.. She fell over and began to cry.. My mom had already left by this time, but the teacher who apparently only saw the stomach kicking ran over and grabbed me, took me to her desk at the front of the room, brought out an old worn paddle, and let me have it about 10 good times.. I was in to much pain to explain, and far to embarrassed to look any other kids in the eye..

 

I made it through that day, got off the bus and ran into my room, afraid of what my mom may do if she found out.. Back in those days, the teacher got ya first, then your parents got ya when you were home..  I never mentioned any of it to my mom and as the day turned to night, I thought I had gotten away with it. But then, the phone began to ring, I could hear from my bed room, the sound of anger and surprise in my moms voice. This girls mom had called my mom and began to explain that her daughter had been crying all day and into the night holding her stomach and finally told her that the new kid had kicked her.. I knew I was in for it.. The phone slammed down and I heard the beating hooves of my mother making way to my bedroom..

 

Needless to say I got a pretty good whooping and had to go to school the next day with my mom beside me and apologize.. It was a horrible way to start out my first ever school experience.. hehe girls are mean