Yesterday our friends from Morocco were passing through town and they asked Barb if they had left a bag with us on their way home last year. Sure enough, Barb looked int he storage closet downstairs and there it was. They had asked all along the way if they had left it with friends or family and we just had forgotten the bag. The funny thing is that their girls, the Special K's, were in the closet where the bag was last week and they didn't notice it. Barb made an Asian pear pie for Julie's Mom so we got it all matched up and delivered it to Julie. Julie is teaching 6th grade this year and needed to go to the Teacher's store here in Topeka. She had some things on order but she wasn't sure they would arrive in time for the start of their school at the start of next week.
For the start of school, I will reprint a story from my childhood experience at Minneha Elementary in Wichita, KS.
Elephant Legs in the Cafeteria
As a child in Wichita I attended a school that was trying to
grow as the “Baby Boomers” flooded the district with new students. Our little four-room school at Central and
Webb road grew into a three building complex up Webb road that housed the
elementary, secondary and Junior High school.
I attended Minneha from Kindergarten through the ninth grade.
The families that sent their kids to Minneha were from three
pretty distinct social strata’s. The
really rich kids came from Eastborough, which was a private community with
their own police force. The upper
–middle class kids came from Forest Hills and the rest of us came from
Dog-patch, which is one of the poorest sections in our school district. Some of my friends felt outclassed by the
rich kids but they didn’t bother me. I
could out run, out wrestle and darn sure out cuss any of them so they pretty
much left me to my own devices. What
does a little kid know about class anyway?
I made friends with all of them and beat-up as well as got beat up by
the bigger kids no matter where they came from or lived. I guess early on you
could tell the differences from the clothes and probably later on by the
smell.
By the time I started second grade, there were three or four
classes in each grade. All the class
sizes were 25 to 35 depending on exactly how they split the classes. The new elementary school building was
completed as I entered the second grade and just in time to be filled to
capacity.
I am sure that there was a lot of thought on how they split
the classes and they were sure to not put Denny L and Dennis Petty in the same
class. The same went for Eugene and some
of the other neighborhood kids. Some
learning could happen if the real troublemakers were split into small
groups. Kind of a divide and conquer
approach to mass education.
The new building was an architect’s marvel with new and
innovative designs throughout. It was
open and airy with high windows that let in a lot of light. The main halls between the classes were
probably 35 feet wide with a narrower hall in the middle by the offices and
cafeteria. It looked kind of like a
giant hourglass lying on its side.
One of the highlights of our day was recess. I’m sure that the teachers used it as an excuse
to let us blow off the stink and calm down from the sitting in one place as we
were pounded with new facts and the processed called math. Social studies meant
learning not to spit on the playground and not killing each other when we
played. Our games took on creative names
like “smear the queer”, full contact soccer and bombardment with the kick
balls. The smear the queer was kind of
like tag only everyone was it and the queer had a flag and we all tried to take
it away from that person. The game didn't get fun until someone got knocked
down and everyone piled on. Bombardment
would go on until someone went to the teacher crying. Usually it was one of the smallest kids in
the class mad because they didn’t get to hurt anyone else. You get hit and you are out of the game.
Each day somewhere around noon, we were taken down the hall
to the cafeteria. It was also a bright
open room filled with smells of cooking food and laughter of children. After
you went through the line and got your plastic tray full of food, each class
sang the Doxology. “Praise God from who all blessings flow. Praise father, son
and Holy Ghost – AMEN!” And to think
today they can’t even say a prayer in school.
Kind of like singing for our supper except it was lunch but we were little
kids and who knew?
I don’t know what it was about school lunches that I liked
the most but I liked about everything they served. The cooks would add a little extra sugar to
sweet things and always had lots of butter for bread and butter
sandwiches. I lived for the call of
“Seconds” and always ate at least two or three extra bread and butter
sandwiches. I don’t remember if we had much mystery meat
that was served later on in High school but the one meal I do remember was
chili and cinnamon rolls. I don’t have a clue what elseWas served that day except a carton of milk. I lived for that treat about once a
month. To this day I could eat a lunch
of chili and cinnamon rolls but now I would want to wash it down with a Pepsi like we had at home.
Four, one foot thick pillars to held up the cafeteria roof
to make it appear open and yet strong enough to stand up to a snow load. Someone had the bright idea that to keep the
poles from showing fingerprints they needed a linoleum wrapper from the bottom
to about six feet up the side. That gray
wrapper had a curious design and even a more serious bad smell. You guessed it. We called it elephant
hide. Because there were four pillars
they looked like, smelled like and were appropriately called elephant legs.
Each day as we would finish our lunch, it became a contest
to see who could stand by the pole and sniff the smell the longest. In our terms the smell would “gag a
maggot.” I don’t remember anyone
smelling it so long that they actually puked, but it was close. The braver (read stupid in adult terms) you
were the longer you could stand there and sniff the pole. As one of the instigators of that little
game, I had to prove my mettle first.
I’m not sure if the term champion would accurately describe
the winner of that game. Only the brave
could or would last long standing there by those poles. I always did my best to be one of the guys
that lasted the longest. I’m sure there
was no written list of people that could do stupid things the longest but my
name would have been there in Gold letters had there been such a list.
The smell the pole game would end, as it was finally time to
be herded out of the cafeteria. We would
go by the slop bucket and clean our plates of things no one would eat. There was some kind of bread and tomato mush
they served that to my knowledge no one ever ate. The can looked like someone had been killing
chickens on that day as it as running red with non-eaten tomatoes. I like spinach but I’ll tell you that I was
one of the few that did. When ever it
appeared on the menu the slop bucket would be green. It would have looked like Christmas if ever
breaded tomatoes and spinach were ever served on the same day. We would adjourn lunch to be sent out on the
playground. Real smart to let them stuff
our stomachs with food and then go outside to run and play. I’ll bet there was at least one
merry-go-round puke each week.
I’ll end this little ditty with a warning to parents out
there that you must pay attention to the “Law of Unintended Consequences”. If you build something that is smelly stupid
or just not normal, do not be surprised if kids don’t find something stupid to
do with it. Remember the “Elephant Legs”
in the cafeteria.
MUD
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