To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.
.........................................Albert Camus
The year was 1949; I was five years old, and the youngest in a family that had four sons, no daughters. Mother had always wanted a girl, which is understandable with three boys (hard tails as we were referred to) already present. In anticipation of my birth she had picked out several names she liked, being so sure that I would be a girl. Rosemary was the one she most favored. Had I been a girl I would have surely gone through life with that name. Daddy however had other ideas. He was a staunch republican and wanted to honor Thomas E. Dewey and John W. Bricker, who were to run as the republican nominees for president and vice-president in the 1944 Presidential Election. He was going to name me John Dewey Daughtry. Lucky for me Mother knew that the local town idiot was also named John Dewey, so she vetoed that name. Determined, daddy chose my moniker from this same pair of losers and had it on my birth certificate before Mother got out of the delivery room. I have often wondered if Daddy had been a Democrat, would my name have been, Franklin Truman Daughtry, after Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman as they were the nominees from the Democratic Party, who won the election. Coincidentally, Thomas Dewey always wore a moustache and I too have always worn one. What can this mean? You are probably right, nothing at all!
The First Day
So there I was in the fifth year of my life and in the first grade. My birthday was in November but I was allowed to enter school, even though I didn’t turn six till the 22 of November. This turned out not to be such a great thing as Mother and Daddy had neglected to teach me very many things, such as how to spell my last name, where I lived, what my phone number was, or even how to wipe my own ass, which I put off till the first grade because I had a maid that did everything for me including the wiping stuff. All of that seemed a somewhat nasty business and I wanted no part of it. When the first grade teacher realized I didn’t have any of those essential skills and those vital pieces of information she assumed, (rightly so) that I was mildly to severely retarded. There was really nothing much I could do when she said “Write your first and last name on your paper”. I frantically looked around at the other children quietly doing what they were told and hoped to see one of them writing down their last name thinking that perhaps I could just copy what they wrote. Who knew you had to know how to do anything before you went to first grade, certainly not me. To be fair about my lack of education when I entered the first grade I would have to admit that I was a wild child. Few would have the nerve or tenacity to try and teach me anything. Mother was the one to whom the fault would have to fall on but you must remember I was the fourth boy of four boys. She must have felt like she had been there and done that over and over. She was born the second child in a family of ten children in what was then deep country where time was short and needs were long. Much of her youth was spent trying to tame her younger siblings. She learned early that I was an accomplished liar and measured everything I did by that fact. I must tell you that I loved her desperately and wanted to make her proud of me. I never quite did. She was always a little suspicious of me and usually expected the worst. In that respect I rarely dissapointed her.
There in the first grade in my little wooden desk it became apparent that none of the children sitting close enough for me to copy were going to write my last name. This was the first time I realized how much education was going to compromise my life style and dedication to just having fun. Later this would become more and more evident. Being the shrewd little boy that I was, I simply copied down onto my paper what the neighboring student had written on hers. The teacher then said,”Write your phone number and your address too”; which I suppose is common knowledge for most first graders. I knew nothing! The last name I copied from my neighbor’s paper and the address from the little boy on the other side, as though it were mine. Yipes! I didn’t know shit! Later that day the teacher asked why it was that I lived with Rosalind when we had different last names. Not knowing what to say I told her that my parents were dead. She said that she thought my last name was Daughtry, I said it was before my parents died. This little piece of deception went along quite well until later that day when my mother came by to pick me up for lunch. You might say that the shit finally hit the proverbial fan, right then and there. Mother was embarrassed because of what all I didn’t know (there was a whole lot) and, I am positive, not quite sure how to cover up the fact that she had not taught me anything. Later that day when I got home after school, mother sat me down determined to teach, in one afternoon what she hadn’t bothered to teach me in the first five years of my life.
The Second Day
The second day of the first grade I decided that I would just not go back to school any more. Early in the morning before everyone in the house woke up I rolled myself in the blanket at the end of my bed and went sound asleep. Somewhere around 11:00 the maid found me when she came to make up the bed. More shit! Mother took me back to school after a pretty good thrashing, apologizing to the teacher who, at this point was a pretty confused woman. Things did not improve in the coming days.
The Third Day
The third day of school I brought what we called a “log Roller” marble to school. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever owned. To clean it and it always needed cleaning, I put it into my mouth and swished it around in my saliva and then dried it off on my shirt. This third day of the first grade however the marble, for some reason escaped the sucking grip of my tongue and slipped just down into my wind pipe. What followed was even more embarrassing that than anything that preceded it. My face, being deprived of oxygen began to turn blue and I had a desperate and panicked look on my face. The teacher leaped up from her desk and raced down the aisle towards me. As you might imagine this caused me even more distress and I swallowed really hard. The Marble was lodged down in my windpipe and all air ceased to pass. It was inaccessible for retrieval, well beyond the reach of fingers! I began to make strange little involuntary sounds when I tried to explain what was wrong, it sounded like "eerhrg" and "geeeakh!" The teacher seemed to be even more distressed that I was and that was considerable! Thank goodness she had the presence of mind to whack me in the middle of my back. The marble was dislodged and went, I knew not where but I think I swallowed it. At first I thought the prized marble had shot from my mouth, sailed across the room and vanished through the open window into the play yard just outside the window. The emergency was over. She wanted me to explain what had happened so I thought about telling her that I was recently orphaned but you know that can only be used once or twice before they quit believing you no matter how sincerely you say it. She, of course had fallen for that once already and sent me to the principal’s office. This was the first of a long line of visits I made to the Principal’s in the elementary grades. For years I continued to look for my crystal log Roller but it never showed up. Can’t tell you how many times I tried to cough it up. I really wanted it back bad!
The Fourth Day
The fourth day I awoke after my near death experience the previous day, determined to do better at school. Wrong! The next day just after lunch a little girl named Camille threw up her lunch right in the middle of class. I was in clear line of site when it happened and I had an up close and personal view of the entire mess. There were whole little pieces of Tangerine in with the rest of the mostly unrecognizable conglomeration. My stomach started to churn and feel very strange and I thought I was going to throw up too. I didn’t, but the little girl who sat just next to the spot where to puddle occurred began to heave and she too emptied her stomach contents on the floor beside the other. More Tangerines! The teacher seemed to have lost her composure to say the least and took the rest of the class out on to the playground for an unscheduled recess. Arriving back to the room the janitor had carefully removed the mess, we began again. One of the children in the class raised her hand and said that she had to go to the restroom, then another and then another. The teacher had about had it at this point (this was not one of her better days) and loudly exclaimed,"The next one of you who ask to go to the bathroom, I am sending to the principle's office!." Well, that let me out of asking even though it felt as though my bladder would explode. My penis had gotten so hard that the front of my pants looked really weird! I began to panic! In a foolish act of desperation I pulled my wooden color crayon box out of my desk and pretended to be looking for something therein. Luckily I had on shorts and I placed the crayon box between my legs. I twisted my penis down to where I had a pretty good shot at hitting the box with the urine. It worked and my bladder was slightly better, how ever crayon boxes really do not hold a lot of urine and who knew they would leak. Well, the urine began to leak out of the box, pool under my desk and lo and behold began to migrate ever so slowly up the aisle towards the teacher’s desk. I craftily looked up at the ceiling and began to softly whistle. Crap! Then it happened. I got tickled and try as I might I was unable to hold the remaining urine I just let it go. And go it did! My pants were soaked and the urine trail began to travel at what looked to be a North Easterly direction about thirty miles an hour directly up towards the teacher’s desk centered between the two rows of student desks. Everyone in the class realized what was going on except the teacher. As unbelievable as it now seems not one child said a word. The teacher finally noticed and emitted an audible gasp. She took everyone out for another recess, except me. I got to go home for the afternoon. Upon arriving home I stuffed the soiled pants and underwear into the bottom of my closet where it would not be discovered for many years, I hoped. The next morning with a fresh set of clothes and some small recovery of my dignity I returned to school, hopeful that the new day would be better and that all the children would have magically forgotten my tragic accident. No one said a thing, not even one of the students, not even the teacher. As certain as I was that there would be some sort of terrible retribution for what I had done, nothing happened. luckily this was the first grade and things that happen in the first grade, apparently stay in the first grade. As surprised as I was, they did not call the police nor was I arrested, as I was almost positive I would be.
The End
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