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Story 4

The Road Will Push You

Having finished first grade at ole Bethel Grove in Memphis, I really only remember the third grade in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

I surely wasn’t a faultless child. Besides, I wasn’t going to be ignored. I would get a name for myself. A few of the boys started talking big, so I thought, Just “spit” on the floor! Dad and John “spit,” so why not me? Besides, “this is a way I can get in with the guys.” I was always having to always get in with all these new guys in all these new places.

So with a careful gathering of “spit” in my mouth and rolling it around, I let it fly down with a splatter on the floor. The boys laughed; the stern lady teacher didn’t.

“Here she comes,” Bobby said.

With fire flashing out of her ears, her teeth gritted, and those big brown eyes “smoking.”

“What in the world do you mean—do you have no manners?”

And other such questions.

I was caught. I was guilty. I was ashamed.

Of course, I knew better. But to get a place among the “boys,” I did it. Mrs. tooth gritter paddled me.

I carried a note home, and as I expected, Mom and Dad would be hurt and upset. They disciplined me with some old-fashioned discipline.

I never did it again.

The road will push you. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Ms. Fire Eyes spanking was just an “ole-time whipping.” I got one in almost every school. The difficult matter in going to so many different schools and more than once, two schools in a single grade is the education and learning gaps I have.

Often remarking about that to make fun of myself, someone will say, “That’s not true.” In 1958, after we left California, we landed in Dundee, Illinois, in March. They were studying Illinois history, and I was lost. They being more advanced in math; I was lost. Besides, their accents were strange. Two months of school were lost, and it was enough to open up some new gaps of loss of schoolin’.

Having gone to two different schools in the third, sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth grades, I have learning gaps! Some of these moves kept us out of school a few days to a couple of weeks. Education gaps!

How have I made it? I’m not sure, but I’ve got no excuses.

We were happy moving. The good side of following the highway is the education we got in meeting people, learning how to handle ourselves, seeing America, and love of family. But the road will “push you.”

Look, there’s no excuses even for a trailer boy.