3rd Grade

Important Message: I won't be posting again until the 21st. I'm going to Houston, BABY. Now on to the 3rd Grade.

In the 3rd Grade I was in Mr. Sutton's class. The year started out ok, the classroom was the same size as Mrs. Palmatier's, but Mr. Sutton had these 2 big, comfortable chairs in the front of the classroom where the reading circle was. During "reading circle" time, it was a literal race to get to those chairs, because if you didn't you had to sit on the floor. I later realized that it wasn't a big deal to sit on the floor, but oh how I was envious of those kids that made it to the chairs before me.

We made individual Plaster of Paris busts of George Washington and Abe Lincoln, that were painted silver and we could take home to keep. Mine are long gone, but you can trust and believe that the clothespin reindeer is STILL on the Christmas Tree every year.

3rd Grade was also a difficult year for me and the year that I learned that not everyone is nice. And yeah, I'm just going to call people out on this one. Do I care? Not one iota because it's true, whether they remember it or not.

We were incubating chicks in this class room and the incubator looked like a large styrofoam cooler with a clear plastic lid on the top. It was warm inside the incuabtor and humid, you could see the mist on the lid, and there were about 6 or 7 fertilized eggs in there, that would hatch and we'd have chicks. Pretty Cool, don't you think? Well, it is to a 3rd Grader.

We were allowed to look into the incubator, but of course weren't allowed to touch it or lift the lid because this would be dangerous for the chicks.

The incubator was set up near the reading circle area, see where I'm going with this?

As luck would have it, my cousin, "W", who was in high school, was a reading volunteet and during her study hall time, she would come down and she'd lead the reading circle. So, one day she came down, got settled, got the book for the reading circle and told us to come on up for reading time. So of course, there was a mad dash for the reading circle. I finally got to a big chair first (by the way, 2 people could sit in one chair, they were that large), and before I could sit down, Lisa Soifer (the town's dentist's kid), shoved me out of the way, I bumped into the incubator hard enough to jostle the eggs, but not break them. They did roll a little though.

My eyes got huge and I looked at my cousin, while Lisa sat there all smug. Before I could even say "sorry" (it wasn't my fault to begin with), Mr. Sutton grabbed my arm and yanked me too him, put his face down close to mine and with his close set eyes and yellowing teeth (he was old then), said in a pinched voice, "you.will.not.be.participating.in.reading.circle.today." I said, "I'm sorry, it wasn't my fault, Lisa pushed me." He didn't want to hear that and I had to sit out in the hallway for reading time. But before I went to the hall, my cousin said "Mr. Sutton, "JR" was pushed into the incubator, I saw it happen." To which Mr. Sutton replied "and just WHO are you?" My cousin said "I'm her cousin.", and all the color drained from Mr. Sutton's face. You see, it was perfectly ok to grab a kid during that time, but that didn't mean it would go over well at home.

This wasn't to be my last altercation wuth Mr. Sutton.

At the end of the year, we were cleaning out and off our desks and Mr. Sutton had passed around a bottle of diluted window cleaner for us to use. Now, we all knew that you sprayed it on your desk or a papertowel and NEVER in someone's eyes. I mean were all 8 and 9 after all.

As I finished my desk, I held the cleaner up and said, "does anyone need to use this?" Mind you, the cleaner was not being pointed at anyone, my hand wasn't even on the trigger. Like a flash, Mr. Sutton came out of nowhere, grabbed the cleaner from me, pointed it at me and sprayed me in the face. I swear to all that is holy, may I be struck down if I am lying.

I started to cry as he said, "there, how do you like it, you don't spray people with this." I said between tears and sobs of embarrassment as I wiped my eyes, "I didn't Mr. Sutton, I was just tryin' to see if anyone else wanted to use it." School was dismissed for the summer and I had Little League practice. Yes, Little League.

My grandmother took me, asked me how my day was and I started crying and told her what had happened. I remember her saying "that no good louse", and she told my mom. My mom took me to the hospital, remember, she worked there, so she had the hook up, and the doctor recommended an Optometrist just to be on the safe side.

My mom stopped by the school to see Mr. Sutton. Now, she's not a large woman, but she's tough and when she found out what the situation was, she asked Mr. Sutton if he'd like her to spray window cleaner in his face and asked him what it was like to be a bully.

We went to the Optometrist. I wear glasses, partly because of that, partly because of the years. But hell I look DAMN good in them.

Looking back, I realized that Mr. Sutton should have retired before he did, but I hated that man, for years and wished him nothing but harm. He too has died and even though he wasn't my favorite, years later, I felt sadness and great sympathy for that man.