A few memories about grammar school for the kiddos:
( I last wrote this/created this circa 1 October 2017.)
Kindergarten. We had one little toilet area behind a wall with no door. We all shared it, boys and girls. Good thing I only attended kindergarten in the morning, because I did not use it all year long. I did not have confidence that I had enough privacy. And privacy was paramount for me!
First grade. I collected a few acorns outside during recess and put them in my pencil box in my desk. They sat in there all year long. At the end of the school year those acorns had white maggoty weevils in them; I had to hide them to avoid being caught with these gross little invaders.
Second grade. We did a field trip to one of our classmates' home on Ballantine Drive, about 5 blocks from school. On the way home we all tried piling into a station wagon car, instead walking back as we must have arrived; the battery was died and could not budge. Our second grade teacher Mrs. Wade was very upset with us at the end of the day, holding us over at our desks after school ended. I can't recall the point of the field trip. Cooking?
Third grade. Mrs. Swinford was pregnant a bit of the school year, we did some copying of photosynthesis notes, which was quite an exercise. We worked a lot on our times tables, up to 13. I got to my 12s.
Fourth grade. Mrs. Key was older and considered a bit of a crusty one, but she was fair. One lasting impression is that we would watch these weekly film strips about world events. Some of those stories and images stayed with me.
Yes, fourth grade. Who wrote "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing"? Judy Blume? Yes, of course. I looked it up in Wikipedia. Some of those writings set the stage for the aplomb to follow.
She made it famous, noteworthy. And I, little Eddie Clinch from 1026 Manor Road, was a Fourth Grade Something.
FOURTH GRADE
A pivotal time in any youth's upward sojourn.
I was a fourth grader, too; I had achieved it. I was living the life of the story books.
I guess I wish to make a special note about Judy Blume. My older sisters owned a number of her books, at least one of such was treated in high regard, almost reverentially (Are you there God? It's Me, Margaret) . This author amounted to being the chronicler of our times. By making that grade, achieving the status of fourth grader myself, I was then among the notable people that were celebrated in art and literature. But unlike the protagonist's statement of nothingness, I was fairly confident that I was "something".
Life was good.
My elementary school Elm Heights had only one fourth grade class. Some of our colleagues were held back in 3rd grade, maybe three or four. I remember Nicki Houston as one of them. She and her family were members of my church who lived a few blocks away on the other side of Bryan Park. Another was Shea Holden (how do I remember these names from nigh forty years ago?). Shea was red headed, like her older brother, who lived in an impressively large house up Maxwell Street from Jeremy Houston, some five to six blocks away. There might have been a third or fourth held back by Mrs. Swinford, also girls, but I cannot recall specifically. I recall being slightly mortified by the prospect of not advancing after a whole year of class. During the course of my fourth grade year, and later in 5th grade, I looked back at those young ladies, observing that they seemed to morph into the ages with which they were assigned.
Not me: onwards and upwards to "somethingness".
Fourth grade! I was the last of the three Clinches to make my rounds through our august 1926 two story brick building. I was living the dream.
I suppose one way to break down the fourth grade class was by boy and girl. Most of our girls moved on from third grade, across the hall, namely: Dalia Rosenfeld, of course. She was one of my best friends in third grade; we sat next to each other much of the year. There was Marnie Ward, a girl I suppose I had been crushing on since at least first grade. I was jealous of my friend who lived closer to her house when they would walk home together after school. Marnie was close friends with Angie Mitchell, who was bussed in the from the country, like about one third or a fourth of our fellow alumni. They came from miles outside of Bloomington, as my dad would call "the Boonies", or the country kids themselves would joke as the "Boondocks".
Another girl from the country was Kim Marsh. She plays a special role in fourth grade sometime around Valentine's, I guess. There was a girl who lived on Woodlawn (the main road leading from my house to the school), named Leanne Coons. I had a special penchant for her in third grade but that did not last as long as the Marnie thing. What other girls? My mind drifts across my home neighborhood in south central Bloomington, but no others come to mind now. Molly Gleason? Yeah, maybe her. She lived really close to the aforementioned Jeremy.
Then there were us boys. Four of us decided not to participate in the fourth grade choir, and we were: myself, Lance Allen, Ross Dinnsen, and Peter Hoff. We thought we were kind of cool for that. What made it sweeter was that we got extra time to hang around our nice student teacher Miss Lachman; I thought she was fantastic and pretty, in that order.
Seems girls and ladies play a part in matters, huh? But I admitted to no one that I had these crushes, and spent most time and matters with the guys. Lance and I became football buddies during recess, and recess was a big deal. Highlights of days and weeks. Pete and I lived close to each other, he being a couple blocks passed Bryan Park on Hawthorne; he moving in that school year, so we played a lot and were pretty good friends.
Oh! Just past him was Ballantine, where maybe David Backler was held pack in third grade, too? Is that what happened? I think so. Wow, the memories may be percolated! It wasn't all girls.
Then there was Patrick Lumbley, living on the other side of Bryan Park, Jacob Smith, the aforementioned Jeremy Houston, Michael Chapman, Mike Martin, Andy Hamilton, Danny Baugh, Evan Thomas, Mike Playford (aka Squeaky) and Thomas Matthew. Jonathan Murray, a close neighbor friend, had moved with his family to Bethesda, Maryland, I think after third grade.
Was that it? Maybe so for fourth grade. I guess we still had Danny Halpern, who had not moved to California yet. Oh, and Elizabeth Noyes. She lived closer to the Indiana campus and the school.
Could that have been it? I need to look back on photos. Paul Lowengrub! Of course! And Chris Rollins and Frank Pershing. Were we all jammed into one fourth grade class with Mrs. Key? Apparently so.
Angie came from the country, and Darcy McCune (a church member that had been a kindergarten buddy after school), and Kim Marsh were the girls bussed in. Mike Martin, Danny Baugh, Andy Hamilton, and Playford also came on that bus into town every day. The majority of us were townies. Philip Rogers was hard to count because he was sent to Howe Military Academy, I think.
And there we were: the Elm Heights lone fourth grade class! Although, upon further reflection, maybe what had happened was that there was a special 3rd/4th grade class established for the lower achievers of my third grade class "held behind" combined with the smarter 3rd grade students who had just finished 2nd grade downstairs. Yeah, that sounds right!
So Nicki, Shea, David, and maybe Michael Playford, or Chris Rollins and Frank, if that was truly them, were not as retrograded as I was thinking. Good for them, good for all of us. And then newcomers like Leora Baude and maybe Mollie Gleason, were advanced into 5th grade later...
Back to my fourth grade class.
Kim was a nice girl, but I was not particularly interested in her. Good thing, because when she gave me a secret Valentine's card with a picture of her running on the beach, maybe in the Bahamas or somewhere exotic like that, I was pretty sure that there would be no subsequent actions taken on my part. It was awkward, as fellow students tried to encourage me to do whatever, acknowledge that it was her, "go" with her, who knows. She got the picture that I was not going to move things forward, and that was fine. Nothing gained, nothing lost.
I was still the same fourth grade something.
I just (May 2018) recalled, there were a couple more girls in that combined 3rd/4th class that I had not mentioned. One of them was a young lady that I cannot remember her name: she had probably moved in new that year of third grade, possibly along with a cousin that I also can recall less of. The first new girl was famous in my mind for her reply to my buddies Jake and Pat in third grade, when being pelted by their snow balls in an inauspicious corner of the building (away from adult eyes), she audibly emoted in righteous anger and spirit," Some people, can be so gross, without even knowing themselves. And that's YOU TWO." Jacob quoted it back later to me, and it in some degree perplexed and impressed us all.
The things that you remember!
Perhaps Michael Chapman also withheld from choir time like Pete, Ross, Lance, and I, and it was usually later in the day. So we numbered either four or five boy non-choir misfits. One of those times, trying to stay out of trouble and flirt with Miss Lachman, I was playing with a small stapler; I managed to inject a staple into my thumb. That was traumatic, to a degree. I thought it was a reason for true medical attention. I went downstairs to see if the nurse had any proper treatment for such a mishap, eventually figuring out that I needed to carefully work its way out of my flesh. And I accomplished that more or less on my own, I think, perhaps with the coaching of the nurse. I can't recall if we had a nurse right then, maybe it was only the principal's secretary.
Life lessons of fourth grade, for sure.
I stayed healthy during fourth grade for the most part, unlike third grade when I contracted mono-nucleiosis, I had to remain indoors for weeks and and I got more serious about books and reading. I garnered a like and feel for football. Lance Allen was the primary root of that. It involved things that I fancied as cool skills: running, catching, and evading tackles. Out-running hits. Lance and I continued those dreams for a few more years.
Mrs. Daniels from the 5th grade at the end of the hall helped me publish my first book, an Easter themed classic known as "______________________" (ugh, I need to dig this out of storage like the rest of my past life and memorabilia). The first book of at least two, with many more to come? In a life now of some 47 plus years? Maybe I did peak before middle school...
Also, it was probably the year (I think the spring) when we housed the brother and sister Joey and Sofia Avila, the second to last foster group that we took in from my elementary school years. Sofia was a fifth grader, so maybe she was down the hall at Elm Heights for those six weeks; Joey was a great surrogate brother for those six weeks, who might have been in seventh grade. Those were overall good times for me, maybe a little more trying for the rest of my family. Joey was a nice buddy friend to play with. We played all types of games, including darts and ping pong. And obviously this was not easy for them as their family was going through problems that placed them with us. We had added on to our house by then, so the rooms were a little better to share. Joey and I shared bunks beside each other. My sister Jenny had to share with Sofia, I think.
Finally, as perhaps my coup de grace of the fourth grade, I was able to be one of the selectees for our school Spelling Bee. I wound up winning second place, right after a fifth grade girl. No small feat. It was embarrassing that I messed up on "saxophone"; I think I forgot the middle vowel altogether! However, I still earned second place for the whole school, I won a 15 dollar book certificate (I bought most of the Choose Your Own Adventure series at a downtown store), and I went across town for the Monroe County Bee as the alternate. I was not sure if I was going to compete or not that night, and I did not, but I was ready just in case.
Ahh, fourth grade something memories.
Being ensconced in a small room with my fellow spelling bee teammates proved impactful, perhaps. Exposure to mere college age and beyond words seemed to have enlivened my brain. The world is vast in prose and language. Just our English tongue alone.
Back then the international news stories involved the Solidarity Movement in Poland, the Pope from there, John Paul II, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the US hostages of Iran, and a myriad of other issues that I cannot specifically remember. But the stories and images of those black and white reels (which I managed to save when being disposed of) sit in my subconscious soul, even today, 40 years later.
The world is grand and complex, but pictures and stories make it comprehensible, in bite-sized chunks.
Fourth grade somethings are a part of this planet, and there are things to do and know that count for then and the future.
That is something that this former fourth grader can tell you.
For sure.
And then came fifth grade...
