they will put me in a room and ...

Growing up in Chilliwack........1943......#6

Oh man, the first day of school..fourth of september.....the very first day...jees and I'm so little...I would not be six until December....mum is pulling me up the steps and I am screaming " murder" please I don't wanna go"..." they will put me in a room and strap me with a whip"..."I don't wanna go.....please".........My sister Faye was in grade six.....she told me it is a terrible place...O ya...Mother had quite a time dragging me up those big steps (aside from class pictures that was one of the only time I can remember being on those steps).....they were huge...By the time it was for me to attend school......my sister had instilled in my head a picture of sheer horror...I was really scared to go.....but once I got through the shock of getting into a classroom...and watching my mother abandon me...I realized mabey this was not so bad.....the other kids seemed to be meeting their fate without much concern..... I completely forgot what my sister had told me and wow..this was a cool place....as I am writing this I can remember the smells of the classroom....there was always a touch of sweet from the mimeograph chemicals...the mixed food of bag lunches had an unmistakable odor (some kids had tin lunch kits with comic book characters on them) paste and art supplies had a scent of their own and I can't leave out the oil floors......all this stirred up by a the current crop of kids became the unmistakable odor of grade school.....Mrs. Anderson rang the bell every morning on those huge front steps...it was a big golden hand held bell like Santa Clause in front of the Liquor store had..aww bigger than his...you had to get past Mr. Manuel before that quit ringing or you would be late....There was a girls side and a boys side..that suited everyone just fine...but the girls got to own the front as well.....they had the big sidewalk in front of those big stairs to play hopscotch on..We could see them from a distance...no need to go to close ............you may be called a sissy..........the playground seemed huge...One of the fun things about school was playing marbles at recess and noon hour....we watched the bigger boys playing big ring ...a cool game you had to evolve into.....and take your lumps as a beginning player...marbles were big...oh, yep the marbles could be big or small..but the game of marbles was big...played seriously ...probably a valuable lesson in the give and take of life...Sidney Moorehouse brought a shoebox one day...he put a hole the top centre, slightly over regular marble size..."the idea ",he said ..."is to stand over the box and drop a marble ...aiming from your nose ...into the box...through the hole...if you did it you got paid 5 marbles plus your dropper"...wow that looked easy enough...but it wasn't easy....what a payoff for Sid...it brought out the gambling greed of most kid humans and he made a fortune...the next day there were lots of young entrepreneurs packing shoeboxes under their arms...so just like the real world it was over run with a good thing until it was a drag..and put away and forgotten...I only remember the boxes one season...............The grade ones and twos ran in bands ..there were small trees growing on the perimeter of the grounds...they had posts around them..a box like structure...they were our wagons and spaced perfect to run from one to another trying not to get hit by an arrow or shot off your horse...man that was fun...constant interruptions from teachers to stay off the chuckwagons did not deter us....there was a cherry tree in the property where Henderson's Funeral Parlor is...I don't think the cherries even got ripe before they were gone...that was the big guys territory..but they had to brave the possibility of a dead guy walking out of there and chasing them away. When Mrs. Anderson rang the bell, the busy grounds emptied quickly and there was always a dog or two sitting there patiently looking at the big steel door their pals had just vanished in.