I skipped the kindergarten drama and went straight to first grade. I do not remember the first at school for disabled kids but I do remember my first day in the public school system. It was a little odd to me; my classmates were staring at me like I was from outer space. I thought it was because I was a new guy. Well, they were all new too. I was just put together and doing the same things a little different. A day or two later I was just another first grader getting to trouble like every body else. One day I was asked to pass out the pencils to my classmates and it felt like it was taking an eternity as I moved slowly around the classroom. In time, I got the job done but that was the last time I was the equipment distributor. To my knowledge, I never had a teacher treat me different or special as a student. I was rewarded and punished like all my classmates. I have to say friends came easy to me despite not being the best in gym class or fast on the playground. The teachers were pretty creative with me. I would help referee games of kick ball, keep score and count other’s push-ups and sit-ups. There was even after school fun.
As luck would have it I got to hang out after school with the football team during practice since my brother Chase was a player. The coach would give these motivational speeches and I can still remember the echo off the walls as he talked about enthusiasm and teamwork. Even at that young age we were getting a taste of locker room humor. Farts start to be funny for guys around this time. The players were older than me and it was like having an insider’s pass to a pro team. Being a rural school, everyone loved football team and there I was several grades behind the players but and still attending practices, meetings and home games. I had no role on the team other than observer. I did not let that stop me from helping keep the locker room a funny place. It was cool. I never had to worry about getting hurt in a game or being cut from the team. Being an observer, that’s one of the best things about being handicapped but I’ll get into that later on. I did a bunch of other stuff as well.
I went to friend’s houses for sleepovers and had friends come to visit me. Mom and Dad taught me never to invite myself over to someone else’s house and to always ask them before I invited someone to our house. I never got homesick on these excursions and adapted well to in new surroundings. We did all kinds of fun things; games, building stuff, fishing and even some backyard camping. Childhood is not all school, fun and games. We have to learn some hard lessons. One that sticks out perhaps the most to me is when I decided to steal another kid’s little toy airplane.
Robbie showed it to me on the bus going home one hot afternoon as the school year was drawing to a close. It was the greatest thing I had ever seen. His stop was before mine and I realized he had forgot handing it to me. As he got off the bus, I thought I’d hang on it for him until the next day. I took it home and enjoyed playing with it that evening. The only problem was I broke it in several pieces. The next morning there was Robbie on the bus holding out his hand.
“My plane.” He said knowing he had left it with me.
To this day, that was one of the most mortifying moments of my life. I apologized and had to explain how I had broken it in several pieces. I have to say much to his credit he let it go. He was a good kid and in no way deserved to have his little plane stolen and destroyed. Mom and Dad never found out but had they done so his plane would have been replaced and I would have had to apologize to him again and perhaps even his parents.
Mom and Dad were school teachers but they did not teach in just any school. They taught at a place called the “Optional School.” This was the school where all the problem kids were sent from the entire city. Mom taught basic writing and Dad taught Job Preparedness. Their students were high school aged and had every imaginable barrier one could think of, broken homes, abusive parents, no parents homelessness and God only knows what all else. On teacher workdays, Mom and Dad would take Chase and I to work with them. We had this seemingly endless old school building to run around in and explore. On some occasions there would be students there with no place to go and they would play games with us. We never had a problem. Chase got bored one day and was complaining to Mom when the principal overheard him.
“Mom, I’m so bored. When can we go home?”
“Not for awhile. Find something to do.” She said.
Hey Chase, I got an idea.” It was the Principal who was in earshot.
“Yes Sir?”
“Go run around the building ten times.”
I don’t know if he was kidding but chase took him seriously being the football player and weightlifter. He took off outside and after awhile came back in wet from head to toe with sweat. It was summer time after all and he was completely wiped out but no longer complaining. When I was not wondering the halls, I’d sit on the couch and watch the staff interact with each other. One guy seemed to think if he was there he was working even if he was only hanging out chatting and sipping coffee. Chase and I were not the only ones going to work with Mom and Dad. They took our dog Ralph so many times, the principle awarded him an attendance certificate.
Unfortunately, poor Ralph found the wrong crew to fall in with. On the way home one afternoon, Mom and Dad realized something was wrong with him. He was not acting right at all. Once home he could barely get out of the car and could not get up the two steps to go into the house. They worried some asshole may have poisoned him and rushed him to the emergency vet. Mom told us what happened when she got back.
“They checked him over and could not figure out what was going on. They asked where he had been earlier and we told him where we worked and that Ralph had been in the car on his own some that afternoon. The vet had an idea. He rolled an orange ball in front of Ralph and no response. The diagnosis was not so bad,”
“He’s okay. He’s just high. When he comes down, he’ll be fine.” The vet said.
Sure enough he was okay soon after they brought him home. We never knew what drug poor Ralph was exposed too but Mom and Dad thought it was a little grass. Unfortunately, that ended Ralph’s academic career. They would not take him after that. The worry was some asshole would give him something much worse the next time. So Ralph stayed home from then on.
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