Third Grade

 

My third year at Holy Name started on a good note because I was back in a class with both boys and girls. What I hadn’t quite realized up until that point was that my good friend, Stewart Douglas, had a beautiful sister name Shawn, who was now in my class. Her family lived over on Milan Street, which was a little further than my geographical comfort zone, but feeling it was a worthy cause, I would drive my bike across Napoleon Avenue, to her house to see if she was outside playing in her front yard. I was also occasionally successful in getting one of my braver buddies to go along with me, just so I could show them I had what it took to ring Shawn’s doorbell, though it was mostly sym- bolic. Although I never even held her hand, I still to this day consider Shawn a dear friend of mine.

My third grade teacher was named Mrs. Mall. She looked like Lucille Ball and she had a wonderful nurturing disposition. She had an amazing, almost motherly way with her students and she made third grade especially fun. I loved learning from her. I also enjoyed being a Cub Scout in third grade, especially working with my fellow Cub Scout friends in our efforts to earn arrow points for various achievement levels. I always felt that scouting had a positive impact on my childhood and it saddens me to think that today’s younger generation doesn’t appreciate the true value of scouting.

It was through my time with scouting that I got a job selling game programs at the Tulane Football Stadium on Saturday nights during the fall. It was a wonderful job for a kid my age and my parents encouraged me to go for it. I made about $3 commission for each box I sold, plus I got a free pass into the stadium to watch the game. I would quickly sell three or four boxes and head over to the Willow Street stadium entrance. I soon realized that I would see many of my classmates, who went to the games with their dads and uncles, and they would see me there, too. What they didn’t know was that I felt somehow different or less than them because my dad never really took me or my brothers to football games. It just wasn’t something my dad did with us, and I carried those feelings for a long time.

It was in third grade when I finally realized how competitive I was becoming, probably as a way to cover up some of my insecurities, and

I remember one unfortunate incident that involved a good friend of mine named Bubba Cobb. We had split into two teams at Tommy Beatrice’s house for a friendly game of capture the flag. Bubba had captured my team’s flag and was running back over to his side when I felt the sudden urge to tackle him in an effort to retrieve my team’s flag. Bubba was bigger that I was. I couldn’t get him to let the flag go from his hand’s tight grip so I grabbed his hand and bit it as hard as I could until he let it go. Bubba started crying and he looked at me like I was completely insane. I didn’t realize the full impact of my action until years later. I never did get to apologize to Bubba for my misguided actions, but I do hope one day to get a chance to make an amends to him. I am indeed truly sorry for the way I behaved.

It was also during third grade that the New Orleans Saints came to town, the newest team to join the NFL. This was big news for an 8-year-old because up until that time I had been pulling for Bart Starr and the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers. Truth be told, I loved Green Bay because one of my best friends Stephen Ehlinger knew everything there was to know about Bart Starr and the Green Bay Packers, and I always looked up to Stephen, so Green Bay became my team, too. But now my hero, Pro Bowl fullback Jimmy Taylor was coming to New Orleans to play for the Saints and I was all in. I was devastated to find out that I couldn’t sell programs that first year for the Saints games, who played at Tulane Stadium at the time. I did notice people in my neighborhood were charging ticket holders to park cars in their driveways. My family didn’t have a driveway on Palmer Avenue, but my neighbors, the Colomb’s, did indeed have a driveway. The good news was that they would leave town on Sundays to avoid all the hoopla, so my big brother and I decided to park cars in their driveway while they were out of town. We charged a couple of dollars less than the other neighbors and we always had a full driveway, until Dr. Colomb came home early one afternoon to find his driveway full of other people’s cars. That ended our little parking enterprise.

I finally won my first place blue ribbon for basketball that year, which I felt especially proud of because I only stood at 4’2” inches and weighed 48 lbs., but I made up for it with pure grit and an insane amount of competitiveness. I wasn’t going to settle for second place. But I messed up on the morning of the school track meet that year, yet again, I got into a fight on the playground. As yet another punishment, Sister Mary Marshall, the principle of Holy Name, wouldn’t let me participate in the track meet, and someone else won my first place blue ribbon in chin ups. I remember sitting in her office, crying and feeling totally depressed because I didn’t know why I was always get- ting into fights, not the actual fights per se, but that for some reason I simply could not stop myself from getting into so much trouble.

My parents decided we needed a place to go swimming in the summer, and the Jewish Community Center was both close by and affordable, so we joined. I went to summer camp for the first time that year. It was especially interesting because I had grown up literally thinking that everyone everywhere was Catholic, and this was my first experience with Jewish people. The camp was a blast and lasted all day long. I played hard because I wanted to win, and I quickly came to realize that the Jewish kids all stuck together, and they wanted to win just as much as I did, so the competition was heated, and indeed fun.

New Orleans was still safe enough, so my parents allowed me to walk home from the JCC by myself, as long as I walked with my brother, Pete, so I wasn’t really by myself. My big sister Stephanie went to camp at the Jimmy Club, and my friend Stephen went to Camp Arrowhead, which was a sleep away camp, so I was jealous, of course thinking that in someway I was less fortunate. Actually, Stephen’s dad owned a musical instrument store on Canal Street, so I always thought Stephen was one of the richest kids in town, and I was glad he was my friend.

© 2022 Jeffrey Pipes Guice

My Wonder Years: A Book