The New School Experiment

In my second grade year, my parents decided to enroll us in an experimental school. Actually it wasn't all that experimental; amatuer was more like it. The year we attended was, I believe, the first year of its existence, and it might have been its last although I don't know for sure because the next year we moved to Pennsylvania.



We were living in Edmond, Oklahoma and friends of ours from church had decided to join this school. So we did too. It was a private Christian school and all the teachers were parents of other students. I don't know if they were paid or unemployed, but few of them seemed qualified. One teacher I remember was our science teacher, that is when we had science, which was whenever he felt the urge, or we pestered him. Science usually amounted to stories of his time in the Navy. It seems like he'd been in a war, but I can't remember which one. I have a feeling it was WW II. The only thing I remember us ever doing that was remotely scientific, was when we dug up an ant hill and put the contents into a big mason jar so we could watch the ants work. This we found fascinating, so that whenever we had science after that, we'd just pull the ant jar out and have a look. Occasionaly we'd throw spiders and scorpions in for the ants to attack, dismante and then presumably, eat.

We met in an abandoned school, or maybe it was an old church. Either way, it wasn't designed for us, and I think we were the only ones there. There were only about 30 students in the entire school, so we were grouped into small groups that were at least close in grades. My group included something like Kindergarden through the third grade. There were five of us. I don't remember how far up in grades it went, but it couldn't have been beyond middle school as my sister was one of the older kids and she had to have been in the sixth grade.

This was the year I had Mononucleosis, the kissing disease. I was not happy about this, most of all because I was told it was called the kissing disease and I hadn't been kissing anyone. I was also not allowed to do anything remotely active so that my spleen didn't burst, which usually isn't a problem because one of the main symptoms of Mono is that you're really tired. Some patients have to be hospitalized, especially children. I had no such luck. I was never tired the entire time I was supposedly sick, and so was just a second grader who couldn't run, jump or play.

I do remember one time when an older boy threw me down on the ground and my sister beat the crap out of him. I may be exaggerating things as she might have simply slugged him and called him names. She was being very protective. Of course, if my spleen had burst, I could have very well died.

One of the girls in my "class" (I forget her name) had perpetually chapped lips. She must have licked them continually to the extent that all around her mouth was chapped. Because of this, her mother, who was a piece of work herself, would cover her lips, and all the area around them, with red lipstick. She looked like bozo the clown. I was constantly creeped out by her.

Her mother was one of those big-haired women who wore loud clothes and too much makeup. She was a stage mom, only without a child worthy of the stage. At lunch time, when the rest of us would be unpacking our brown paper bag lunches, she would swoop into school, bringing with her takeout from someplace she'd stopped on the way. She and her daughter would sit with us and eat fried chicken, or hot sandwhiches, or whatever she'd picked up, while the rest of us stared at our soggy peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches.

We had a school recital (I don't know what else to call it) which was kind of like a variety show. I was supposed to sing, "I'm A Yankee Doodle Dandy" and had learned the part and was prepared to sing it. But there was a part in the song, when I had to sing about my "yankee doodle sweetheart" and at that point, Bozo, the lipstick girl was supposed to walk up and stand beside me. This I could not do, so I backed out of the part and let my friend Sam do it. Instead I recited some stupid poem or something. I liked that song, but there was no way I was going to call her my "yankee doodle sweetheart."

It was a strange school year, to be sure, but I must have learned something. I do remember it was the year I learned how to write in cursive. Also, the following year we went to a new school in Pennsylvania, and I had to go to the next grade up when it came time for English class.

My new school had normal teachers, and buses and a gym and a principal and all the other normal things a kid expects his school to have. It didn't have red ant hills, and no one showed up with takeout, but no one told us war stories either and everyday was pretty much the same. It was when I first realized that normalcy is overrated.

Never underestimate the entertainment value of unpredictability.