In Oviedo, Florida I attended grades 1-4. Several memories from then include a mysterious
swamp not far from school. There was a secluded
pond there with water hyacinths so thick a child my age could walk on them—and a
few of my friends and I did, surely a thing which would have been considered
dangerous by our parents. On another
occasion on the school grounds a man killed a rattle snake. One afternoon I attended a movie in the school
auditorium—of course not air conditioned.
The monochrome movie pictured a few men who survived after a plane crash
on a small raft the middle of the ocean.
I got seasick watching the movie and in the hot, crowded auditorium projectile
vomited at my seat. Once during
recreation, I found a gold watch on the ground.
I exclaimed, “Look what I found.”
That afternoon we were waiting outside on the sidewalk for final dismissal
for the day. Someone who had seen me
find it exclaimed to the teacher that I had found a watch. The teacher had me reluctantly produce it and
turn it in to lost and found. The owner
of the watch was identified—a boy a few years older than me. He gave me an undeserved reward—a sundae at
the local drug store. When we kids were
just learning to spell, a teacher challenged us to come up with longer words. I learned to spell “banana” and “bicycle” (practicing
over breakfast at home) an accomplishment of which I was immensely proud. I learned my first lesson that authority
could be wrong in the first grade. I
wore that day a white dress shirt. The class
was a scene of bustling activity as we prepared for an outdoor May Day celebration. The teacher was preparing a poster on which she
applied light green colored chalk. She
accidently brushed the poster against my white shirt which immediately showed
the transferred chalk. In exasperation
she blamed me. On some evenings I saw
adults go crazy at high school basketball games (all grades attended one school). It made a lasting impression on me that adults
could give over to passionate, boisterous enthusiasm. These school memories constitute only a few of
the lasting assets I obtained while living in Oviedo.
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