I entered Pleasanton Elementary School in 1942, one year into the Great War. I loved school. Why do kids today pray for snow or a holiday so they won't have to go to school?
First grade was a blast. Only one bad memory comes to mind. We were frantically decorating the classroom for Valentine's Day, and Mrs. Jenkins had us cutting red and pink and white hearts out of sheets of construction paper to put on windows and the elaborate Valentine box. What fun.
Attacking my red sheet with my snub-nosed scissors, I placed the pattern squarely in the center of the sheet and started cutting, glancing around to see how others were doing.
Mrs. Jenkins, looking stern behind her wire-framed spectacles, strolled around the room, peering over our shoulders. Suddenly, she stopped behind me and practically shouted, "What are you doing, Chester?"
"Cutting out a heart," I replied, smiling broadly. I loved Mrs. Jenkins.
"You've wasted a sheet of paper," she blurted. WHAM! She slapped my face. Bless her heart, she was really angry. I'm sure she had purchased the construction paper with her own money.
She looked hurt, then frightened. What had she done? Even though Mrs. Jenkins' smack on my cheek smarted, I didn't want to get her in trouble. I never told my parents about the smacking.
But I never cut another heart out of the center of a sheet of construction paper.
But I never cut another heart out of the center of a sheet of construction paper.
