turn out the lights and think a time in their head when they want to get up and do it. They only have to try. Luce could already reach the stovetop, and it is no mystery to make a pot of especially good oatmeal if nobody stands over you worrying about whether you’re wasting too much brown sugar and butter.
The lady schoolteacher with the flashing glasses turned out to know a valuable thing or two, such as how to teach you to read. Though she had her faults, like everybody else. For example, how she chose to deal with a pale quiet country girl in a faded flower-print cotton dress who had never seen ice cream before. Thinking to take it home to share with her little brother, the girl carried her dessert ice-cream sandwich from the lunchroom back to class and put it beneath her desk, where it melted all over her books and papers and made a thick muddy puddle on the wood floor. What that mistake got her was grabbed by her upper arm and marched out to the hallway. Everybody became quiet. And then bam, bam, bam. The long paddle was an inch thick and had twelve holes bored in it.
In addition to the regular paddlings, there were horrific arithmetic flash-card battles where half the class stood on one side of the room and the other half on the other. The teacher went down the lines calling for answers, pitting side against side, holding up big white cards with heavy black number problems on them, either plus or minus, depending on what area of ignorance she decided to probe. You got one wrong, you sat down in shame. The last one standing was the winner, though Luce was not alone in wondering what you won other than a feeling of glowing superiority. And further, you were culled into reading circles called Red Birds, Blue Birds, Yellow Birds, and Black Birds. In no particular order. Except it was obvious, even to a bunch of first graders, what the order really was. And discovering that little deception was, in itself, a valuable lesson about authority to tuck away for future use. Even though Luce was never anything but a Red Bird.
In recompense for such moments of terror, there were lots of framed pictures hung around the room to admire at your leisure. Pale stunned Washington, with his strange white side hair, and sad wise Abe, with his weary, baggy eyes and patchy beard like a bum. Also, Blue Boy, who would have been stomped into a mudhole at recess if he’d shown up with even a trace of the attitude he expressed on his smug face, not to mention that outfit. The State provided many free storybooks, especially the ones concerning Jack climbing the beanstalk and the Pied Piper leading the children away to a happy land inside a mountain. There was also a record player and stack of records, including a set of 78s with an accompanying picture booklet telling the compelling story of Peter and the Wolf. Though you could play them only on rainy days when recess was impossible and the class was half crazy by midmorning from the physical pressures of confinement.
Also in the category of reimbursements was this: sometimes the teacher had about all she could take of education and would request that the students read quietly while she went up the hall to have a smoke in the lounge. In her absence, everybody went wild. The deep country boys, the ones from kerosene-lit cabins way up some dark holler, would dance on the teacher’s desk just to show it could be done. Little rebel boys three feet tall in blue jeans with cuffs turned up nearly to their knees so they’d be able to wear them for a few years. And too, if you’re counting happy moments, once a month they all marched quietly in a line down the hill through a stand of dark pines to the town library, where each one got to check out two books all their own for two entire weeks.
Yet, as much as she began to enjoy school, Luce figured that she must never forget the main lesson she was learning, which was very simple. The way they get you is, you trade your freedoms for
The lady schoolteacher with the flashing glasses turned out to know a valuable thing or two, such as how to teach you to read. Though she had her faults, like everybody else. For example, how she chose to deal with a pale quiet country girl in a faded flower-print cotton dress who had never seen ice cream before. Thinking to take it home to share with her little brother, the girl carried her dessert ice-cream sandwich from the lunchroom back to class and put it beneath her desk, where it melted all over her books and papers and made a thick muddy puddle on the wood floor. What that mistake got her was grabbed by her upper arm and marched out to the hallway. Everybody became quiet. And then bam, bam, bam. The long paddle was an inch thick and had twelve holes bored in it.
In addition to the regular paddlings, there were horrific arithmetic flash-card battles where half the class stood on one side of the room and the other half on the other. The teacher went down the lines calling for answers, pitting side against side, holding up big white cards with heavy black number problems on them, either plus or minus, depending on what area of ignorance she decided to probe. You got one wrong, you sat down in shame. The last one standing was the winner, though Luce was not alone in wondering what you won other than a feeling of glowing superiority. And further, you were culled into reading circles called Red Birds, Blue Birds, Yellow Birds, and Black Birds. In no particular order. Except it was obvious, even to a bunch of first graders, what the order really was. And discovering that little deception was, in itself, a valuable lesson about authority to tuck away for future use. Even though Luce was never anything but a Red Bird.
In recompense for such moments of terror, there were lots of framed pictures hung around the room to admire at your leisure. Pale stunned Washington, with his strange white side hair, and sad wise Abe, with his weary, baggy eyes and patchy beard like a bum. Also, Blue Boy, who would have been stomped into a mudhole at recess if he’d shown up with even a trace of the attitude he expressed on his smug face, not to mention that outfit. The State provided many free storybooks, especially the ones concerning Jack climbing the beanstalk and the Pied Piper leading the children away to a happy land inside a mountain. There was also a record player and stack of records, including a set of 78s with an accompanying picture booklet telling the compelling story of Peter and the Wolf. Though you could play them only on rainy days when recess was impossible and the class was half crazy by midmorning from the physical pressures of confinement.
Also in the category of reimbursements was this: sometimes the teacher had about all she could take of education and would request that the students read quietly while she went up the hall to have a smoke in the lounge. In her absence, everybody went wild. The deep country boys, the ones from kerosene-lit cabins way up some dark holler, would dance on the teacher’s desk just to show it could be done. Little rebel boys three feet tall in blue jeans with cuffs turned up nearly to their knees so they’d be able to wear them for a few years. And too, if you’re counting happy moments, once a month they all marched quietly in a line down the hill through a stand of dark pines to the town library, where each one got to check out two books all their own for two entire weeks.
Yet, as much as she began to enjoy school, Luce figured that she must never forget the main lesson she was learning, which was very simple. The way they get you is, you trade your freedoms for
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