My Life
in Review: Have I been Lucky or What?
My Life
in Review: Have I been Lucky or What?
My formal education began in September, 1924 when I entered the first grade in the district elementary school, Caneadea District School #6. The white frame building had two classrooms serving all eight grades. The "little room" contained grades one through four while the "big room" was the setting for grades five through eight. At that time about forty pupils were enrolled averaging five per class. Instruction was provided by one teacher for each room. Each teacher's busy schedule consisted of four subjects per grade. The school day was composed of two three-hour sessions, nine to twelve and one to four with ten minutes for "opening exercises" (a joint session) and two fifteen minute recesses (morning and afternoon).
The third and fourth grade years left no vivid memories of highlight events or incidents, but I continued to enjoy school and the related activities. In fact, I preferred the school year to the summer because there were few playmates and except for the trios with Dad and Mother, little excitement to match that of school days.
The fifth year brought the thrill of moving into the "big room" and having a male teacher, Mr. Fred Byron, one-half of a husband and wife team, for his spouse, Bessie, took charge of the "little room." He was a kind, conscientious man and an effective teacher, especially in English and history. They became my favorite subjects. The titles of my first textbooks in American History were Explorers and Founders of America and Makers and Defenders of America. I also derived much pleasure from the sports activities during the recesses, especially baseball in the fall and spring.
A shocking incident highlighted that year. I have called it the "Big Stoop Story" and have recounted it more than several times in lectures in my college classes. The protagonist or antagonist (victim or villain?) was called "Big Stoop," always behind his back, never to his face. He was fourteen, nearly six feet tall, solidly built, well-muscled, strong and in the fifth grade for the third year. While we were aware that he was considerably less than an intellectual giant we looked up to him literally and figuratively because of his physical attributes and prowess. He was the only boy who could hit a home run on the ball diamond behind the school. If any of us could get the ball over the plate he could hit it over the fence. Thus, in the fall and spring he enjoyed near heroic status. Those Western New York winters were long—so long—and he was out of the spotlight but "on the spot" for his academic deficiencies. For him it was a winter of discontent and he became depressed, restive and surly.
That February a couple of eighth grade boys, eager to break the monotony and ennui of those interminably dull days concocted a plan to stir up some excitement and enlisted Big Stoop as a fellow conspirator. Their scheme could be called a tardiness strike. They put it into effect on a blizzardy February morning. With opening exercises underway about three or four minutes the first conspirator burst into the room stamping the snow off his feet, flapping his arms and noisily depositing his coat, hat and overshoes in the cloakroom. Then he swaggered back to his seat, About two minutes later the second boy repeated that performance and after a similar interval the third did the same. Opening exercises had been turned into a shambles.
Despite the complete disruption Mr. Byron was surprisingly tolerant. Taking the bad weather into consideration he could understand some justification for tardiness and rather mildly chided the boys for their noisiness. However, the next morning the boys resumed the same routine. When the second conspirator stormed into the room Mr. Byron discerned the pattern and perceived the plot. He rushed up to plotter, number two, grabbed him by the shoulders and roughly whisked him to his seat, jamming him down and shaking him until the bolts in the cast-iron base began to loosen and flecks of blood appeared on the plotter's wrist.
At that moment "Big Stoop" charged into the room and surveyed the scene with a sullen stare. The James-Lang theory of emotion claims that the more the emotion is expressed the greater it becomes. Mr. Byron was furnishing striking evidence of the validity of that theory. Letting go of the second conspirator (perhaps saving his neck, we thought) he rushed to the front of the room and clutched Big Stoop's right shoulder. The perennial fifth-grader shrugged him off as if flicking off a pesky fly. The teacher then made the biggest mistake of his pedagogical career. He kicked out with his right foot, directing it toward Big Stoop's backside. When his foot and leg reached a posture parallel with the floor Stoop swiveled around, grabbed it sending two hundred pounds of flabby pedagogue crashing to the deck with the powerful pupil on top.
We were spellbound with fright, fearing we might be witnessing a murderous assault. Mrs. Byron moved in to rescue her husband by pulling hard on Big Stoop's hair. Suddenly he relaxed his hold, got up and just stood there sullenly but somewhat shamefacedly. When Byron regained his breath and was able to get up he pointed to the door and wheezed, "Out." That marked the end of Big Stoop's academic career.
We were beside ourselves with shock and apprehension. When recess came we huddled outside whispering our horror-struck reactions. Then someone said, "There he is!" Sure enough across the road from the schoolyard in the old canal bed loomed the menacing figure of our ex-hero. We heard little about him after that. We did hear later that he had been arrested as a juvenile delinquent. Certainly his life was blighted.
I have often wondered whether a longer baseball season and a shorter winter would have made a difference in his life. And what if he had been less strong and a bit brighter? After all he did not organize the conspiracy. The boys who did were not thrown out of school. They were not strong enough to confront the teacher the way he did even if they had wanted to. Was he more victim than villain? In any case he provided the most dramatic event of my largely tranquil elementary school years.
I can recall no startling development in the sixth grade. The next year geography joined history as a co-favorite subject. Jerry McKinley and I took two eighth grade classes along with our seventh grade courses. Jerry and I became pals sharing our love for sports as well as our affinity for school. He was quite diminutive but had good athletic ability. In the summer we would try to scrape up enough players for baseball but could rarely recruit more than enough to play "three 'ol cat" (five).
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