5th Grade

1953

I look so innocent.

Poor Mr. Yeager.  He was just back from being an Army Captain in Korea and apparently had become a teacher under the G.I. Bill.  We were his first class.  Too bad...he got me!!  Reading was the big thing in those days.  I could read when I entered 1st grade.  So, I finished the 5th grade reading syllabus by the end of the first  week of the term.  So, he gave me the 6th reader.  That took me a week also!  Now he didn't know what to do with me.  So.....he made me the "special monitor" for "everything" in the entire school!!  I was actually allowed to get up and leave the room...just about whenever I wanted!  After all, I had things to do!  

If you ever wondered who did what in school....It was usually ME:

I was the one  who waited outside the school at about ten in the morning for the milk truck to arrive with the day's milk for the kiddies.  Then after signing the appropriate paperwork, (remember, I'm ten years old) I would proceed to distribute those little half-pint cartons (remember those) throughout the school to those kids whose Mommies had sent in the extra few cents each week to insure that their little ones would have their milk every day at mid-morning.  (....and, so that I could get about an hour or so off school each day to perform this labor.)

I was the one who made that "ding-dong-ding" sound over the PA system each morning.

I was the special messenger for the Principal.

I had the run of the school!  

Now please don't confuse me with that "audio/visual" kid.  That's wasn't me!  That kid was a real geek!  In fact, he was still on the "A/V Squad" in COLLEGE!!   I swear to God, I met him years later in a hallway at Brooklyn College....he was still pushing that cart with the projector on it!