For some reason it seemed that things slowed down in the fifth and sixth grade. I am not sure why but it did seem that way. I discovered the idea that girls were no longer yucky but I was not sure why or what to do with one. The teachers in those grades team taught and we would have the Male teachers for math, history and Geography or science. The lady teachers taught reading and English. I loved reading but hated English. In the years prior to spell checker, I spelled things the way they sounded and that was often far short of the mark. I had a large vocabulary but couldn't spell a lot of it.
One teacher that I had was Mrs. Waller. I can remember her being this lady that was taller than most of us and always had a nice smile even if I didn't deserve one. One day much later, I passed Mrs. Waller in the hall I wondered what the hell had they done to her. She shrunk to just under five feet. I didn't think that most of the change was me.
Back to the fifth and sixth grade part of this story. I developed a horrible crush on one of the girls from the rich neighborhood. One day in the summer I went over to her house and they had a trampoline. Everyone took turns on the trampoline and I was invited to jump with them. I am not sure why, but I jumped one time ad flew way off the trampoline. Someone had broken a bottle of some kind and I cut my foot on broken glass. It wasn't really a bad cut but when Janet's mother was told of the cut, she insisted that I come in and wash off my foot and let her put a bandage on the cut. Oh no, did I just let that cat out of the bag about who I had a crush on? Oh well that was closer to 60 years ago.
In School, one of my favorite subjects was recess. Any time the weather was any where nice we would escape the class room and go to the ball diamond out back. I was involved in Little League by then and I loved to play baseball. Several of the guys brought their ball gloves to school and I remember that Tom Tanner had a new glove that he would not let just anyone use when his team was at bat. Stingy Bastard he was. Like I was going to hurt that new baseball glove. Well, I did spit on it every chance I got. Back in those days, ball players spit a lot and no one was really sure why. I really was jealous of one of the guys that had a gap between his front teeth and could really spit accurately and far. On the days when we could not go out to recess, we played games in the classroom. I don't remember any of the games only that there was some form of elimination and I seldom made it to the last few standing. I would digress to reading a book and I was happy to do that.
I think I mentioned the library and my fondness for it. One thing I also remember was that they had a lot of magazine and my Uncle advertised in the Boy Scout magazine. His ad was "Be on top of the World on a Unicycle." Right there was my cousin riding a unicycle. I could always win a bet that my name was in a magazine because of my crazy cousin. We had a unicycle but I never really liked to ride it because a bike was so much faster and I fell down less.
During those years, I played baseball in the Beech Aircraft league. Our first year we were the Meadowlarks and for some reason I hated that name. Through out the year, our losses mounted until it was pretty clear that unless another team didn't show up for a game we would not win a game al year. I started in the outfield but soon won a spot at first base or catcher. I was one of the guys that could almost always catch a ball thrown to or at me and The other first baseman was the alternate catcher. I think the reason I was the catcher at the end of the year was that I could a fair percentage of the time throw out a runner stealing second. I always seemed to get the guys if they tried to steal third. It didn't hurt that one of our pitchers also played third and was really good at catching the ball. The Meadowlarks went in to the tournament at the end of the year with no expectations. For reasons unknown to anyone, we won our first game and moved on down the bracket towards the finals. Our first loss put us in the consolation bracket but the first and second place team in the league had to play each other. They did and by the time the second place team came up against us in the losing bracket, their attitude was poor. We managed to beat them and played the number one team in the finals. Yes, sadly we lost that game but we did have a couple of wins to take us into the next year.
No one really knew how the teams were thrown together but somehow the meadowlarks had changed into the Tigers and we had what looked like real uniforms the next year. We did a lot better and made out way through the season with only a few losses. A lot of that was due to our pitcher growing about 6 inches and gaining control of a curve ball. I had to fetch a lot of the pitches out of the dirt but few got past me. One of the games I did play first base, a batter hit a dribbler up the base line and I charged the ball. I got to the ball fairly fast but the pitcher didn't look like he could cover first base. All I could do was to take the ball and tag the runner as he ran by me. Did I really hit him in the nuts with my fist and the ball? Yep, took him out right then and there. The other coach wanted me thrown out for un sportsman like conduct. When the umpire stopped laughing, he said it was a fair ball and in play.
One of the things the guys in our neighborhood loved was to go on bike rides. We would form up like a miniature band of Hells Angles and go off on our bikes. I remember on one trip, my bike got hard to ride and when we stopped to see what was wrong, I almost couldn't spin the front wheel. The hub was so hot that you could not touch it. Next to the road was a ditch with water in it. I dipped the front wheel in the water and watched as steam came off the wheel. When we managed to get it home. I took it apart to grease the wheel, Needless to say, the ball bearings fell out on the ground and the hub was so bad that I had to replace the entire wheel. I found a wheel in the neighborhood parts pile and rode that sucker until Christmas.
For some reason one year in the like of Luke, Mom decided to let me have a really nice present. I picked out a race bike in the Sear's catalog and Christmas morning there it sat by the Christmas tree. I saved a few dollars that next spring and bought a light kit so I could ride it at night. That bike was one of the nicest things I had ever owned and I rode the heck out of it. Until the day, when I went out of the school and it was gone. Shock of all shocks, someone stole my bike. After asking around the neighborhood, I found out that Billy was riding a new bike that had been painted with house paint. I stopped him and saw that other than the fact he had removed the fenders, it was my bike with a coat of really crappy pink paint on it. I promptly took it away from him and took it home. Even Zip Strip could not return the paint underneath to anything that looked normal. It did take the pink latex paint off but my racing bike looked rode hard and put away wet.
A few days later, my friend across the street had an old bike that he could no longer ride. It looked OK but needed wheels and a seat. We put the two bikes together and mad a pact when we would share it . One day after a couple of weeks, I came home to find that my friend had taken the bike off on a ride and it was my turn to ride it. I found him at one of the neighbor kids house and we got into a fight. My First punch broke his glasses and cut his nose. Fight over and my parents had to pay for a new frame for his glasses, Bummer. That ended the bike share but not our friendship.
Through the grapevine, I heard that there was a new Boy Scout troop going to start meting at the local fire station. The Scoutmaster was the guy that was the headman at the Koch Estate there in Wichita. He was a WWII vet that had a metal plate in his head. He was a really good guy and helped us in a lot of ways we didn't even know until later. The first thing he did was get the Marine Corps to donate some used sleeping bags to us because none of us had any real gear. He also got some second hand tents and we were on our way to being campers. That next summer we set up a fruit stand and managed to make enough money to outfit ourselves with a trailer and cooking utensils. When it came time to go to camp the next year, Mr. Koch offered to pay our way but the troop leader wanted us to earn our way. We worked a lot of days at the Koch Estate bucking hay and cleaning the flower beds. Come time for camp, we all had enough money to pay our way and a few bucks for some extras. For that reason and that reason only, the name Koch has never been a bad thing to me.
Back to the girls. It was a hoot to hear the other guys talk about girls and what they wanted to do with them. Between all of us, we had no idea what really happened other than hugs and kisses. Some of the guys had had the talk with their days but even then without training aids or pornography, there was no way we had any idea what really happened or how much fun it would be somewhere out in the future. If life was a mystery, girls were a mystery wrapped in stupidity and ignorance.
For the most part, the fifth and sixth grade evolved into the Junior High. Minneha had Kindergarten through the ninth grade all there in one school complex. Moving on to Junior High next installment.
LUKE
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