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Coming of Age in America
Part 12


In 1958 my mother informed me that I had to start going to school like my older brothers. Also, I had to start wearing shoes every day.

Going to school meant I had to say goodbye to Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Green Jeans and Grandfather Clock. Life was getting complicated.

In order to attend school I had to be fully vaccinated. I had been to the health department on North Court Street before, so when my father led me through the front doors I had a feeling something was up. My fear only heightened when I saw Nurse Estes walk into the room holding a huge needle.

I started to run but my father snatched me up and spread me out on a table. Together they managed to yank down my pants and she proceeded to aim that large needle at my butt.

Somehow I was able to bite myself free. Kicking and screaming I escaped the room, ran out the front door and was halfway up the sidewalk heading to Main Street with my shorts down around my ankles when someone tackled me from behind.

The next thing I knew there were three people holding me down while Nurse Estes shoved that darn needle in my butt. I hated her. I hated them all. I had been violated and as far as I was concerned they could take that little good behavior sticker and cram it. I limped around for two days after that.

Then they took me to Libby’s Shoe Store to get a new pair of shoes which wasn’t much of bribe to go to school. After that they dragged me over to Foster’s Department Store for new shirts and jeans. Still not much an incentive to go to school.

But when they took me to the Ben Franklin store and I got to pick out a book satchel, pencils, glue and tablets with Roy Rogers on the front, that got my attention. The king of the cowboys was on my tablet and I felt like I was growing up.

Another thing they told me; I couldn’t bite anyone I didn’t like at school. After what I’d experienced at the health department, I knew there would be consequences. Besides, they said it was a rule. I would soon learn there were going to be a lot of new rules I hadn’t heard of before.

The year I started first grade was the year Egypt and Syria merged to form the United Arab Republic, Khrushchev became the premier of the Soviet Union and Eisenhower was still president. The Supreme Court ruled that the Little Rock, Arkansas schools must integrate and NASA initiated Project Mercury which aimed at putting a man in space within two years. Truman Capote released his book, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Elvis was inducted into the army. The movie, Bridge Over the River Kwai was on at the theatres while Billboard’s Top 100 debuted Ricky Nelson’s Poor Little Fool in the number one position. A postage stamp cost four cents and I was officially a first grader.

While I was in elementary school Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine for polio and the entire county went to the cafeteria to get a sugar cube with the vaccine dabbed on it. I was thankful Nurse Estes wasn’t around to give me another shot in the butt.

That first year I learned my ABCs, how to count and became proficient with a box of crayons. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected, but I soon learned that it was all a setup for the eleven years that followed.

No one at the school knew what attention deficit disorder was back then, but I probably had it. The only medicine for it was a paddling and my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Fulton, had spanked me so much she was tired of it. Finally she assigned me to stand in a corner of the room. That corner and I became good friends that year.

My first bus driver seemed to always have a four or five day old beard. At first I was hesitant to get on board, but after my brothers convinced me it was safe I got on and followed them down the aisle.

There is always that one kid in every crowd that has to be a bully. It was no different back then. Johnny fit the bill on our bus. Johnny wasn’t really a bad kid, just conflicted. He was being raised by an elderly aunt and uncle who didn’t have much control over him.

One day Johnny decided it was a good day to pick on my middle brother. My oldest brother was sitting nearby and started to take up for him when the driver looked up in the mirror and misinterpreted the situation.

He pulled the bus over in Calvary church’s parking lot and told the two of them, “If you boys want to fight, get off and get it over with.”

The last thing my older brother wanted to do was fight the big guy, but he had no choice. The driver marched them off the bus and told them to have at it. Johnny took a swing at my brother and missed. Then my brother returned a lucky punch and upside his head.

Tears began to flow and he said he’d had enough, and wanted back on the bus. They shook hands and away we went on our way home.

The bus did pretty well when the roads we traveled down were dry, but during rainy weather it was always a little hairy. A few of the roads we had to travel didn’t have much gravel on them and became slick.

The worst was a dead-end road across from the church. At the very end of that road lived a family of five girls. It was the last drop off before the bus stopped at our house.

As we drove down the road towards their house, I could hear the driver mumbling. Everyone tensed as we went down a grade and into a curve at the bottom. Every once in a while, we could feel the rear tires slip a little, but we made it to their house and dropped them off.

The return trip out to the highway was a different matter. As we rounded the curve and began going uphill, he had to give it more gas to make the grade. When he did everyone could feel the rear end of the bus begin to fishtail.

We made it about halfway up the hill when the bus began to slide sideways on that slick, slimy road surface. Whomp! It was as if we were riding on ice, the bus slipped off the top of the roadbed and into the ditch. There was no getting out.

He knew better than to even try. We were there until someone missed us. Rain was pouring down so hard we could barely hear ourselves talk, not that we weren’t trying. Some kids were cheering, others were upset that they were going to be late getting home.

There were no cell phones back then. The nearest house with a phone was a mile away, and the bus driver couldn’t walk away and leave all of us kids on the bus by ourselves, though he would have liked to. Between the rain pounding on the roof and the kids getting louder and louder he had had enough and barked out, “Shut up and sit down!”

With the bus sitting in the ditch at a forty-degree angle he made his way to the rear, growled for the kids on the back seat to scram, threw open the emergency exit door, plopped down, and began to roll a cigarette.

So there we sat. Him smoking a Prince Albert, us silent and wide-eyed. No one dared to say another word.

After sitting there nearly an hour, parents began to notice their kids weren’t home. The phone lines lit up and someone sent out a search party for us. My father was among the first to arrive since we were the closest drop off to the bus. He told the driver he would call the bus barn and send out a wrecker to get him out of the ditch.

The last I saw of the driver he was still sitting at the back of the bus, rolling another cigarette.

(To be continued)


Joint birthday parties for my brothers and me. Left to right: Me sitting in wagon. Tonny Algood, Jimmy Boswell, SueAnn Boswell Ryals, Terry Algood.

Fishing Rodeo at Lester Hamill's Pond. Left to right: Jimmy Boswell, Unknown, Me, Kaye Calvert Jordan, Unknown, Butch Whitt. Back Row: Unknown, SueAnn Boswell, Unknown boy by boat motor, and unknown boy behind water cooler.

Me sitting in wagon. Billy the Goat, Tonny Algood.

Davy Crocket birthday party. Left to right: Me, Lee Mitchell, Peggy King Yarbrough.

Fern King, Lee Mitchell's grandmother, Peggy King, and Hope Chaney.

Me sitting on J.B.

Postcard of the old high school built about 1911?

_______________
Rick Algood
August 29, 2021

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