Trim and grass cutting chores behind me, I took pause on the backyard swing allowing the warm gentle breeze to cool my brow. Children's' shouts and laughter coming from the Catholic grade school less than one hundred yards behind me signaled one of those end-of-school-year play days.
I recall those yesterdays when the school year was wrapping up? I remember the boys 'getting' to help with chalk board and desk cleaning chores as the young girls helped the teacher place charts and other wall displays away to await a new fall class. Of course, only private schools can do those hands on student-volunteer duties; public school mommies and the ACLU have protected student rights thus insuring a new generation of folks who are clueless regarding service to others.
I can remember, as I helped with those school chores, wondering if my labor might remove that grade-card box that my teacher checked every grading quarter, which indicated little Melvin could 'use time to better advantage.'
On that last day of school, Miss Spayheart would toss from her third floor classroom window all the marbles, pocket knives and other confiscated trinkets to the lawn area below. It was a mad scramble by most boys to get to those goodies come dismissal bell. I did not grovel for such stuff but headed up the hill from lower Washington Park (East St. Louis) in a quest to put some distance between me and Charles L. Manners' grade school. Sandlot baseball...bubble gum cards and penny pitchin' here I COME!
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