The Reality of Fifth Grade

 

And then the reality of school kicked in, as well as some reality in the life of Jeff. I had stopped taking my Tofranil at the beginning of the summer, with my dad saying something about it was just too expensive and I had to learn to “grow up” and go it on my own.

The day before my first day of fifth grade, my dad sat down with me to tell me a few facts of life. The first thing he said to me was that I was now the only child in the family that was going to a private school, and that he didn’t want me to think I was anything special, but that he expected me to make the best grades in the family. I told him that I had never ever made the best grades in the family, and I didn’t see why he expected me to do so at this point. My dad could be a real hard ass. I would come to realize later in life that he was always harder on me throughout life because he felt I was the one child that reminded him the most of him. I also found out later that his older brothers, my uncles, had always been hard on him. While I didn’t appreciate my father’s tactics, I later realized he was working with a very limited tool box, himself, and that this was the best I was ever going to get.

My dad said it was up to me to get myself back-and-forth to school. No matter if it was sunny or if it was rainy or if it was freezing cold, it was up to me to get myself to school. My dad told me to use the time traveling back-and-forth on the bus to do my studies.

I actually enjoyed the adventure of waking up earlier than everyone else, the challenge of getting to school on time, and looking out of the bus windows at the world outside. I used to park my bike at the Tastee Donut shop on the lake side of Veterans and then crossover at the green light. It was a whole new world of people riding a bus to and from wherever they were going. At ten years old, I was always the youngest person on the bus and I usually would say ‘good morning’ to everyone when I got on at the Veterans Blvd and Green Acres stop. I would take the Veterans bus all the way down to the cemeteries where I would transfer to the City Park bus, which would take me around to Wisner Boulevard, where I would get off at the Friederichs Avenue bus stop. Then I would walk three blocks into City Park to finally arrive at Christian Brothers school, all the time carrying a book bag filled with what felt like about ten pounds of books. To be perfectly honest, I tried as hard as I could to do my homework, but the competition of watching the people and everything else that was going on outside the bus windows was almost too exciting for me to ignore.

The first few weeks of fifth grade were quite fun and I enjoyed meet- ing a whole bunch of new friends. I especially remember Conrad Kuebel, Kurt Kitziger, Doug Finegan and Scott Stuart. I remember Conrad because his parents were friends with my parents, and I remember Kurt, Doug and Scott because they were by far the smartest kids in the class, and all three sat near me, which would come in handy as the first semester progressed. Conrad was a friend, but also a smart ass. We got into it one day near the pond, with Conrad ending up in the pond and I ending up running laps around the pond for pushing him in.

Brother Gregory was my fifth grade teacher and he expected us to be prepared. I wasn’t always ready for class and my grades suffered. As I mentioned, I had stopped taking the Tofranil at the beginning of the summer and I wasn’t concentrating at all. To make matters worse, I was exhausted all the time from the traveling back and forth. It was in fifth grade that I finally decided to look over the shoulders of my classmates for answers, in other words, I began cheating just to get by. Without cheating, I’m pretty sure I would not have passed. At mid- year, my parents pulled me out and I began the second half of my fifth grade year at James Madison Elementary school, where my brother Pete attended, and it was within walking distance of our home on Cleveland Place. I looked at it as yet a whole new world of adventure, and I was finally going back at school with girls.

On yet another good note, I was lucky enough to be picked to sell the game programs for that year’s Sugar Bowl, which featured an incred- ible quarterback for the Ole Miss Rebels named Archie Manning. Someone even created a song called ‘Archie Who’ and the whole city was excited to see him play. After I sold out of my game programs, I went inside the stadium and got out on the field, standing right behind the Rebels’ bench and Archie Manning, himself. Archie led Ole Miss to a 27-22 upset of Arkansas, and I was so excited that afterwards I asked him for his chin strap. He smiled and handed it to me. It was almost like the Mean Joe Greene/Coca-Cola commercial, except that commercial didn’t happen until 1979, almost ten years later. But, it was my very first chin strap of what would eventually become a rather impressive collection. Today, it’s rare that I don’t tell this story to one of the Manning kids whenever I see them around town. As a matter of fact, I just told the same story to Olivia Manning, Archie’s lovely wife and the grandmother of the current quarterback phenomenon Arch Manning, when I ran into her at Langenstein’s, earlier this past Summer.

© 2022 Jeffrey Pipes Guice

My Wonder Years: A Book