School was good at ole Pecos Elementary.  The teachers were normally mild mannered and helped with the transition from your home to the big world outside.  There were some who scared the hell out of everybody but they were actually good people.  All of us were terrified of the electric paddle chair that resided in Mr. Kelly’s office but I knew of few people who were actually mortally wounded by the dreaded contraption.  School days were just a series of new learning experiences.  However, I did have my favorite times during the day and feel that I am not alone in these choices.

I liked recess.  I liked it even though I was rarely ever chosen as the captain of any team that made up the sports we played.  Those who were chosen as captains remained the captains of every team for the rest of our schooling in PISD.  That is an unwritten law I guess.  If you are the first captain chosen then you are named for life.  I am okay with that. My ego never required stroking to that extent.  I just like to be on the team.  My favorite game that we played involved two teams at opposite ends of the big playgound.  In opposing corners there was a square marked on the ground and pieces of rubber hose were stored there.  The object of the game was to retrieve a hose from the opponent’s home base without being tackled and captured.  You were home free once you got to the square where the hoses were and I think you got to retrieve a member of your team who had previously been captured.  That game was fairly rough-house and I dont remember the girls getting to play.  However I do remember a couple of the girls who could have been excellent players had they been allowed.

I like lunch hour.  My Roy Rodgers lunch pail was carried religiously and contained gastronomic marvels.  Baloney and cheese sandwiches, a moon pie and a small thermos of hopefully chocolate milk.  No carrot sticks and celery in those days.  Just good ole carbs and sugar.

I remember and liked reading time.  Usually after lunch period our teacher would have us lay our heads down on the desk while she read to us.  I never actually went to sleep as some of my fellow students but remained rivited to the story she was reading.  The best part about this was the book was usually a book that was entertaining instead of being enlightening, such as a text book.  The Hardy Boys books jump to mind.  Nancy Drew, not so much, however, to be fair and politically correct she was the darling of many. I always thought this was a time for the student but determined later in life that the reading time was actually for the teacher.  A time of peace and relative quiet, where possibly she would recover and reorganize.  To wonder maybe why she had chosen this as a career???

Life cycles are funny.  We start life as described above and then we go into a period where we no longer get a recess, a lunch hour as we knew it then, nor a nap/book reading time. We hit the ground running early in the morning and hustle and bustle all day and go home to our home life.  Home life during this period is not a time of playing around the neighborhood but is a time of chores, etc.  Grown up things.  Now I am in the third cycle of life where things have swung back the other way.  I can now take a recess during the middle of the day.  I can sit in a park and dream of the games I played when younger and more full of pep.  I can eat a baloney sandwich and drink chocolate milk if I want and I can actually take a nap in the afternoon if I should so desire and the telephone doesnt ring.  No one reads books to me but if I went down to the book store I could buy or rent an audio book and then I would be in perfect harmony with my days in elementary school.  Oh, and I dont have to worry about Frank Kelly busting my ass with an electric paddle.

Chuy the student