3/24/23 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: Spring Football

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

I started the first grade in the fall of 1962 at Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Baltimore, Maryland. I did not go to kindergarten. Over the years I have heard various theories from my mother as to why this was so. No Catholic schools back then had kindergarten and we Catholics did not go to public schools for the most part. Although I was only 5 years old when I started first grade, I don’t remember ever being driven to school. The walk down Putty Hill Lane was less than a mile and my sister was two years older than me, so we walked together along with some other children in the neighborhood.

I don’t remember a lot about first grade. As I look back on old school photos, I know that there were over 40 in my class and my teacher was a religious sister in full black habit and regalia. The principal was a sister as well. Most of the sisters back then had men’s names. I am sorry that I don’t recall my teacher’s moniker.

As for my experiences in first grade, the years have dulled my recollections. I do know that I was a voracious reader and that the first book I read cover to cover was One Fish, Two, Fish, Red Fish, Green Fish followed by Green Eggs and Ham. At some point in my educational career, perhaps second grade, I distinctly remember being absent when we learned how to properly write an upper-case cursive “Q”. I have never quite mastered that one since!

Three memories stand out for me in first grade. That fall was the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and we did practice the “duck and cover” drill going under our desks in case the Soviet Union dropped the atomic bomb on us. Even in first grade, my old-style wooden desk, with the inkwell hole in the corner and the bench for the student in front of me attached firmly to the front of my own did not seem adequate cover for a bomb of any sort. When President Kennedy gave his speech to the nation, my father hushed us kids up so that he could hear the sobering address. The next day in class a girl cried because we were going to be blown to smithereens.

Another memory happened during the Christmas season when our teacher was showing a film strip projector (anyone remember those?) version of “The Night Before Christmas.” At some point during the showing the film broke. I was so into the story and so disappointed in its interruption that I said a bad word, out loud, in frustration. My punishment was to go to the principal’s office where I was forced to drink some liquid soap. While this may paint a sadistic and cruel picture of my principal let me counter that memory with another one. One Sunday my family and I were sitting in Mass waiting for it to begin when the principal and my first-grade teacher had the nerve to sit in the pew directly in back of us! For a portion of the Mass, I would not sit back against the bench, but at some point, my principal’s firm but loving hands reached up to my shoulders and gently guided me back. It was a loving touch that I will never forget.

Was school better back then or was it worse? You will hear arguments on both sides. Classes were larger, discipline more heavy handed, and learning disabilities were simply not dealt with. We don’t use the switch or liquid soap anymore, and we know much more about how people learn and how their brains function. The priests back then said the Mass entirely in Latin with his back turned away from the congregation the entire time. Mass is more approachable and understandable now, and the thought of missing a Sunday was unheard of back then.

Was my school experience or yours tougher than that of our children? To paraphrase the late New York Times columnist Russell Baker, we old people like to use the phrase “In my day”, a lot as we bore our children with tales of walking to school in the snow uphill both ways. The reality is that my parents loved me as much as I loved my children, and my children love my grandchildren. The reality is that teachers worked hard back then and work hard now. The main reality is that God loved us back then and loves us today and is there for us even when times are tough.

One day your children will be recollecting their early elementary school experience. I do promise that for none of them will there be a memory of going to the principal’s office to drink liquid soap! Have a great week.

Jim Silcott