- Chapter Five -
More School Bells


Greg on my porch
Right after the third grade, I moved from Decatur to Lafayette. I only met one person prior to the start of school who would be attending the same school as myself. That person was Greg. He lived two houses down from me, and I met him when we bought some hay from his dad for our horse. I only saw him that one time in the summer, but he became one of my first friends as he was in the same fourth grade class as me.

Mr. Crum was my fourth grade teacher at Mintonye Elementary School. At the beginning of the year when we got out math books, I realized that it was the exact same book that I had used the previous year-I never told Mr. Crum this though. He had a unique way of teaching the math lesson. After a few weeks, he split the class into two groups-the turtles and the rabbits-each indicating how "fast" each person was at learning math. I, obviously, was put into the rabbit group with some students whom I cannot directly recall, but I know for sure that Greg was put into the turtle group. Mr. Crum was not liked by many of the parents-or students for that matter-for using his system of teaching math, and for various other reasons that I am unable to recollect.

I think fourth grade was the first year that I began to receive actual letter grades other than satisfactory, unsatisfactory, and whatever the X stood for. I got all A's except for in handwriting-which I got a B-and the second semester of science-which I received a D-. The reason for this grade was for one assignment-a final project if you will. This was a bug collection, and it must have been worth 35% of the grade because I know from regular assignments and all I must have been getting an A. This bug collection I mostly completed, and I remember Mr. Crum saying to put the bugs in the freezer to kill them or preserve them maybe, so that's what I did, until the day it was due. I brought them in a bucket and had my board to affix them to. Bug after bug disintegrated as I pushed my tack through them until I had only a bunch of crunchy bug particles. I decided not to even turn it in and got a nice zero as a grade for the project.

Fifth grade was the first year I had to move from teacher to teacher during the day. My "main" teacher was Mrs. Johnson, who also taught science. Mrs. Frauhiger taught history and Mrs. Byers taught math and also was my English teacher. In English class, the only thing I remember is being required to memorize poem after poem, and I really hate memorizing. Memorizing by means of using the information frequently is not bad, but the kind of memorization needed for memorizing literature I do not have the stamina for.


Webelos at Christmas Parade
Over this period of two years, I gained the acquaintance of many people whom I still know and are friends with. Most of these came from me joining the Cub Scout group. Greg joined it also, but he dropped out before coming into Boy Scouts because he was not popular with anyone, really, and was made fun of quite a bit at the scout meetings. Five of my best friends are part of the same scout troop as I, but only two, Luke and Jonathan, were part of the original Cub Scout pack-the other three I met in jr. high school.

< Previous Contents Next >