October 21, 2009

• Elementary Memories: E.J. Shirpser School 1960-65

  

  A photo of the graduating class of E.J. Shirpser Elementary School 1965. I'm in the 2nd row from the bottom, 2nd place from the left. My 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Frank, isn't in the photo.

  Our family moved from the Los Angeles suburb of Highland Park to El Monte, deep in the San Gabriel Valley, in 1960. I'd skipped kidnergarten, and had already completed my first grade year, when we moved. If we'd stayed where we were, I would have been in 2nd grade in the Los Angeles School District. However, the terms started at different times, and in El Monte, there were only two months left before summer, when classes changed over. (In L.A. in 1960, kids returned from summer to the same grade, and "graduated" mid term.) Thus, I was "put back" in first grade, and never really had the benefit of being younger than my the peers in my class. Since I was one of the shortest kids in my class anyway, it's probably a good thing I "caught up" with my age group, or else I would have been really tiny if my peers were a year ahead of me. The reason I skipped kidnergarten was because of my dear mother. (Bless her soul)  She taught me to read and write before I was 5.

  Being one of the shortest kids in elementary school had it's disadvantages. I was picked on by a few of the more rough and tumble boys in class. I wasn't that good at sports. During pickup baseball games before school, I was always far down the list of kids coming up to bat. I would get embarrassed because I wasn't that good, and some of the kids would intentionally drop the ball so I had a "chance" to go round the bases. Some of the kids were supportive, and some mocked me. Some even bullied me. I did have a "savior", however, a boy named Miguel, who pretty much "rescued" me from any altercations. He was a bit bigger than some of the bullies who picked on me, and used this advantage to cause them to shy away.

  I don't remember that I was less popular than most of the kids. At home, my mother was a bit of a "little Hitler." As I've written many times, she ruled the roost with a very strict hand. There were numerous rules around the house, and if we broke any of them, or even bent them a bit, punishment was quick and sometimes brutal. The "spanking stick" was our punishment, a 1/4" dowel about 2-1/4 feet long. Mother would basically cane us if we misbehaved. I still don't consider this abuse, although in the present day child protective services would possibly be calling on parents who "spank" their kids with a stick. One of the rules we couldn't break was leaving our yard. So any friends I had at school stayed schoolyard friendships. Since mother was active in the P.T.A. (Parents and Teachers Association) I did get to visit the homes and visit with the children of my mother's P.T.A. cohorts. One of these, Greg, was my best friend through most of grade school.

  I always got good grades in elementary school. My report cards are filled with A's and A+'s. Never content with the reading materials in my own grade, I was always reading two grades ahead. I seem to recall my first trip to the library was on a school field trip in Mrs. Christensen's 2nd grade class. The El Monte Public Library was one of those old library buildings with high bookshelves and a seemingly musty aroma. I'm sure my memory is faulted somewhat. Most libraries in Southern California, even in the 60s, were bright and airy. But I spent time deep in the stacks. With my new library card, I would go to the library many times with my mother and siblings throughout grade school, exchanging books on a weekly basis. I read adult novels while I was in grade school, along with books about the movies, one of my favorite subjects even back then. Mother encouraged me to read more adult material, and I was always lost in a book. Even though I did participate in schoolyard games, like foursquare, Moby Dick, and baseball, I much preferred sitting under a tree with a book, lost in other worlds much more interesting than mine.

  The collected classes of E.J. Shirpser School always went on a mass field trip to the Los Angeles County Fair in September. All except me. I wasn't allowed to go because I guess I had a weak bladder even as a kid, and the teachers didn't want me going to the restroom all the time. I spent those days in the school library reading. It took me years to get around to going to the County Fair. (And there are lots of restrooms. LOL)

  Schoolyard activities included playing marbles, at which I was pretty good, and trading cards. Trading cards would come with sticks of gum and were sold at the junior market and liquor store in back of the school. I would spend my allowance (and sometimes lunch money, I'm sure) on these packs of trading cards. One could always look through the packaging to see what the bottom card looked like, so when attempting to "complete" a series, I always was able to find packs with at least one of the five cards which I didn't have. My marble bag was always filled with clear glass "peeries" and I had a lot of great card sets, including, besides the Dodgers and the Angels, movie monsters and superheroes.

  In 4th grade, my teacher Mrs. Walter taught us to make papier mache objects. I guess because I was so small, I wanted to create the biggest art project. I made a brontosaurus, a long tailed and necked dinosaur, which my memory tells me was almost as big as I was. I really loved papier mache, and this started my admiration of art, which has never abated. My best papier mache work came years later, late in high school, when I created "Croaker" a full size human replica, which I dressed in real clothes, and added one of those Mexican porcelain skulls for a head. "Croaker" followed me from apartment to apartment throughout my 20s, sitting on my couch and frightening most of my visitors.

  During Hallowe'en in 4th grade, Mother made me the best Hallowe'en costume I've ever seen. It was quite creative, and I won the 4th grade contest because of it. I was a totem pole. (And I wish I had the photos of this costume) She painted faces on a long tube of cardboard, and holes were cut out for my arms and eyes. It was pretty simple, but very creative. I also won in 6th grade, as a "goon" wearing a storebought mask, but with a body costume my mother sewed for me.

  A little girl named Diane supposedly didn't wear panties to school, and some of the boys would put bits of broken mirror in their shoes, then walk up to her, so they could get a glimpse of what was under her skirt.

  I attempted to convince one kid, a boy named Marce, that I was from the planet Pluto. I "aged" some "documents" at home, writing in an "alien" language, as "proof" that I was from another planet. I don't know if Marce was duped by this hoax or not, but when we were in high school, he showed me my first marijuana cigarette. He probably thought I'd been smoking the stuff since 4th grade!

  I've always said that my 5th grade year was the one in which I became aware of my surroundings. I don't know if this is true or not, but I've always believed my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Burr, was a lesbian. She was small, with sharp features. We had a reading program in 5th grade in which we were assigned materials with different colored folders. A few of us raced through the program rather quickly. I seem to remember that the highest color was lavender. Four of us, three girls and me, "graduated" from this program long before the other kids, so we pretty much had "free study time" during reading. One of the girls in this group was Lucy, with whom I had a large crush. She was "going" with my friend Greg however, so I didn't have a chance with her. The only time I can remember doing anything "bad" which would really displease my mother was going over to Lucy's house on a dare after school.

  My siblings and I were not allowed to walk anywhere except down the three streets from the school to our home, on Shirley Avenue. We would part with the group of kids who lived up Shirley when we got to the end of Rose Street. We'd turn right and they would go left. Lucy persuaded me to go left one afternoon, and because I was smitten with her, I complied, ignoring the jeering catcalls of my siblings, who went along home. At Lucy's three or four of us had a party. I wasn't allowed to ride a bicycle, and attempted to ride one down the street from Lucy's house. I fell and skinned my knee. Of course I knew that I was going to have a date with the "spanking stick" when I got home. Surprisingly enough, I "spilled the beans" to my mother as soon as I got home, and I guess she was impressed that I didn't lie to her, because I can't remember any punishment. I've always been perfectly honest in all situations. I simply can't lie.

  I did have a girlfriend in 5th grade Her name was Susan. I never even kissed her. I liked Lucy, but she was unavailable, and Susan had a crush on me. My most vivid memory of our "relationship" was ditching a school assembly to play tether ball on the playground. We were caught and had to spend time in the prinicpal's office. I remember Mr Wayne, the principal admonishing me greatly because my mother was high up in the P.T.A. and I wasn't the kind of kid who "got in trouble."

  I was in 6th grade the year President Kennedy was shot. I was home from school with a cold on November 22nd, 1963, so I watched the whole thing as it happened. In 6th grade, I had to get both glasses and braces, to correct my vision and overbite. When my adult teeth started growing in during elementary school,  my nickname became "Bucky Beaver" because of my overbite. I would wear braces for most of the next four years, because after I got them off the first time, I was in an auto wreck which broke my jaw, and had to have them affixed again after my jaw was healed. I've never been able to see without glasses, and even had to have cataract surgery at age 53.

  My sexual initiation was with my sister's friend and her younger sister when I was in sixth grade. My sister  Mary Jo was a couple of grades behind me. Like me, her friends were mostly the kids of Mother's P.T.A. cronies, and we were allowed to visit the Hulls, who lived down our street, because Mother was friends with Billie. I recall that Billie Hull was quite striking. She was divorced, and didn't have a man around the house. Her daughters were in first and fourth grade. My brother Daniel once told us that he knocked on Billie's door and she answered the door completely nude. Her kids were quite precocious too. When I and my sister were over visiting the girls, we'd all get in the closet in the older girl's bedroom and "inspect" our bodies. I even told the youngest that she was my "girlfriend" for a while. I ended the "relationship" when it got out at school that I was "going" with a first grader.

  Even though I lost my mother when in my 20s, I have lots of great memories of here when I think of my time in elementary school. She was on the planning commitees for the box socials, and the carnivals, and pretty much did all the artwork for the P.T.A. Mother never got to be P.T.A. President, (She felt she didn't deserve to run things) but she was Secretary, and won an Honorary Life Membership award. She was my room mother quite a few times, and she baked cupcakes for my class and created art projects, mimeograph flyers and posters for the school. She was quite a scrapbooker, and although my sister took most of the scrapbooks and family albums when our family split up back in 1974 after my father died (and Mom was still in the nursing home because of the stroke) I did get to keep the scrapbooks which highlighted my own school years. The photos I've saved are in these scrapbooks, and I've included a couple in this entry.

  I've written some of these memories before for my autobiography and for My Sexual History essays. If I think some more, I can probably come up with a dozen more memories, but this is getting a little long. This Friday, the 23rd, I'm attending a group reunion of classmates from Rosemead High School, and Celia, a classmate of mine through most of elementary school, invited me and some other Shirpser classmates. It will be interesting to see these "kids" after all these years.

  

  The school photo of my fifth grade class. I'm on the bottom between Wendy, on the left, and Lucy (with whom I had the crush) on the right. Both these girls were in the "accelerated" group of readers along with me. My "girlfriend" at the time was Susan, first row, 2nd place. This is the only color group photo I have from elementary school. Celia, who invited me to the reunion, is on the bottom row, 3rd place. I mentioned Miguel in the story above, and he's to the left of Celia. My friend Greg is 3rd row, 4th place. Marce, also mentioned in the story, is 2nd row 3rd place.  (Believe it or not, I can remember the first and last names of most of these kids, who are all "seniors" like me now! AAAAaaarrrrggghh.

  Posted:  October 20, 2009 5:42 AM

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