Excerpt

Boy, the fourth grade was something else. Mrs. Nellie Brawley was my teacher and the widow of my daddy’s first cousin, Ralph Brawley, but being kin didn’t carry any weight with that woman. She didn’t know me from bean dip and that was obvious right off. I thought it would be in my best interest to just sit there and behave myself like I was expected to do.

We started learning about world geography and that soon became my favorite subject. I couldn’t imagine ever getting to travel to all those exciting places we were studying, but through my geography book, I had a round-trip ticket.

Even learning to spell the word geography was challenging for some fourth graders, but my sister, Laura taught me an easy way to remember how. GEOGRAPHY: George Ervin’s Oldest Girl Rode A Pony Home Yesterday. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. It’s funny how such inane things from fifty years ago stick in your mind.

Mrs. Brawley asked our class one morning which continent we lived on and I proudly blurted out, “South America!” Well everybody laughed at me answer and I didn’t know why. Heck, I’d heard all my life that we lived in the South and I was pretty doggoned positive we lived in America. It seemed like the logical answer to me. I was very careful for a long time after that blunder before I hastily raised my hand to answer another question.

We studied all about South America that year, but I never did figure out why they called it Latin America. What in the world does South America have to do with Italy? Anyway, I thought Italy was where they spoke Latin. Before I got a few things straightened out in my mind about the two different Americas, we moved on to Africa.

I don’t know why so many African countries have changed their names since I was a child. For example: when I was in the fourth grade, I learned that Leopoldville was the capital of the Belgian Congo. Now, there’s no Belgian Congo. I’m just grateful the continents never changed.

Even the best students sometimes did things in class that were totally unacceptable. Boys particularly, were known for throwing “spit-wads”. It was a nasty stunt, but it helped improve the penmanship of many young boys when they were caught executing the infraction. Writing their names in cursive several hundred times on the blackboard was the usual punishment.

The most outstanding event of that school year took place when Mrs. Brawley left the classroom for only a minute. Joel Norris chewed up over a half-sheet of notebook paper, got it good and gooey, and threw it straight up into the air. That monster “spit-wad” stuck to the ceiling and just stayed there as we all looked at it in awe. When Mrs. Brawley came back into the room we were all snickering, but she never did figure out why. That prized “spit-wad” stayed stuck to the ceiling the rest of the year, but she never saw it. It just goes to show you that you need to look up once in a while—you’d be surprised at what you might see.

The ceiling was painted during the summer break that year, so when we got back to school in the fall, we all rushed to Mrs. Brawley’s classroom to see if the “spit-wad” was still there. It sadly wasn’t—the painters had removed the testament to a young boy’s folly, but Joel was still a hero in the eyes of his male peers.

I still hadn’t enjoyed much success in the world of romance as the end of the fourth grade was drawing nigh, but I did narrow my list down to just a couple of girls that I though was cute. Lynda Wilhelm was my first choice, but she showed little interest in making a longtime commitment. I was still bashful anyway and thought it best not to pursue the issue.

I had the measles during that school year and was kept home for several days. Mama gave me some good, clean notebook paper to draw on while I was out sick. I remember drawing a cowboy riding on a bucking bronco on the street of a western town. Since it was drawn on a sheet of notebook paper, I later threw it away—I kind of wish I had it now.