The Day I Went for My Own Adventure

Read about my early days of beginning school and finish with reading about a business common woman is helping!

Can you guess who?!

School had been in session for six weeks, and was proving to be really unsatisfactory. In our family, I was an only child in a world of grownups. I had long looked forward to first grade. But once school began, I discovered an awful secret: I already knew how to read. I just hadn't known it. So all that anticipation fueled by my mother's delightful promises of "learning to read!" was wasted. I dreaded phonics drills every afternoon.  I despised practicing over and over, “Tip, Tip, no Tip." The first grade reader about Tip the dog and Mitten the cat moved at a snail's pace. Additionally, these two characters were the most benign and boring cat-and-dog duo I had ever heard of. Every day, I tried to pretend to myself that I didn’t know how to read; to fool myself into thinking it was interesting. That didn't work either. Repeatedly shaping letters of the alphabet with a fat lead pencil drove me to distraction. I could write at least well enough to please myself. Who cared if "b" and "d" faced opposite directions? I could do the arithmetic reasonably well, and I hated to color.

School was dull, dull, dull. I couldn’t imagine how I would ever survive the next twelves years in school. 

The bus rides were long and tedious. I was near the end of the route. After school, I always had a headache. At about 4:45, I was dropped off at the end of our lane. The kind, gentle man who drove the bus always told me to have a good night. I was just glad to step off into the gravel and trudge south to the house. 

For the past six weeks, ever since school had started, nothing was better than seeing the house waiting at  the end of the old sidewalk. I knew my mommy would always be there in the kitchen, waiting for me. I had absolute confidence in her reliability. Her faithfulness gave me the courage to branch out—um, maybe just a bit too far.

There was a little girl by the name of Debbie. She and I rode the same school bus. We sat in the same row in the first grade side of the first-and-second-grade classroom, she one one end and I on the other end of the second row. I felt we shared  some sort of kinship due to these two facts. This caused me to hatch a plan.  After several days of working out the details in my head, my plan seemed fool proof. I would put idea into action.

With a sense of excitement, I awakened  on the chosen day. I felt an immediate lift to my spirits! I was getting off of the bus today with Debbie! I would share the good news with Debbie at lunch.  After breakfast, I kissed my mom good bye, picked up my lunch box and trekked down the lane to wait for the bus. Tonight, there would be no routine. Tonight, I was going on an adventure.

The day started out in its usual dull fashion. Reading about Tip, adding up numbers, circling pictures that began with the same sounds and blends, listening to the second graders reading aloud. The morning felt like it would never end.

Finally, we assembled in our lines, marched downstairs to the restroom, washed our hands, and went to the lunchroom. I managed to sit by Debbie at lunch. She carefully carried her tray. I was swinging my rectangular metal lunch box. It was blue and red, painted like a space ship control panel.  

We reached the long benches and stood until everyone in the first and second grade room were gathered. Together, we recited the prayer, “We thank Thee God for this good day and all that makes it fair. Our homes, families, food and friends, and for Thy loving care. Amen.” 

Then, first and second grade students and teacher sidled awkwardly onto the benches and proceeded to eat lunch. I opened my lunch box, and I  took out my apple, orange, banana, meat loaf sandwich, and two oatmeal cookies. I poured milk from my space ship shaped thermos into the red plastic cup.  My mom believed in a substantial lunch. The  school lunch mashed potatoes covered with creamed corn, canned pear half, peas, monkey bread with butter, and a peanut butter-stuffed celery stick smelled hot and delicious. I took a bite of the meatloaf sandwich, chewed and swallowed.

Turning to Debbie, I said, “Guess what?” Debbie stopped chomping on her celery stick and looked at me with her round hazel eyes. “What?” she asked. Her top front two teeth were missing, and her “th” blends were adapted to the wide gap above. She had a little peanut butter smeared on her cheek. She waited for me to tell her “Guess What?” “I am coming home with you on the bus tonight after school. I decided to do that.” Quizzically, Debbie turned her head to one side, chewing her celery thoughtfully.

I continued, covering all the bases. “Now, you do have a telephone at your house, don’t you?” Debbie nodded her head vigorously. “Oh Yeth, We have a thelephone.” The missing teeth made essential conversation unnecessarily complex. “Tell me your telephone number, so we are sure you have a telephone.” I nailed Debbie with this task, to be absolutely certain that. should the need arise, communication between our homes would be possible. “I don’t know what it ith,” Debbie said, “but my mommy does.” Satisfied, I moved ahead with my plan. I turned to the second grade girl sitting to my right, and told her the news.

“I am going home with Debbie tonight on the bus.” The second grade girl looked at me disdainfully.  “So what.” Her voice was flat and disinterested. Too bad for her, I thought. She is jealous. “Boys and girls, hurry and finish your lunch. It’s time to go outside for recess.” The Teacher Voice brought me back to the moment. I gulped my milk, stuffed the rest of my unfinished meat loaf sandwich and my banana peel into my lunch box along with the thermos. With the rest of the kids, I scrambled over the bench and joined the line to go outdoors. Once we hit the outside door, I placed my lunch box beside the recess teachers. They nodded and I ran out to the playground.

Debbie and I took turns thumping each other on the wooden planks of the  teeter-totter. Debbie laughed so hard she could hardly hang on to the metal handle. It was great fun.

Soon, we heard the teachers blowing their whistles, calling us inside for the afternoon classes. I remembered to collect my lunch box and joined the line of students.

The afternoon sped by. Even phonics was less than miserable because of the anticipation of going to Debbie’s house.

At 4:00 o’clock, we were dismissed to go home.

At the door of the bus, I informed our kindly bus driver waiting there that I was to go home with Debbie tonight. He smiled at me, and nodded his head to show that he understood.

Debbie and I climbed up the steps of the bus and sat together in a green covered seat near the front. There was one empty seat ahead of us.

This was going to be even better than I had imagined. I felt my anticipation rising.

The bus stopped at the high school to pick up the adult students. My neighbor Sherry plopped into the seat ahead of me and Debbie.

“How was your day at school?” Sherry asked in a grown up voice.

“I am going to Debbie’s house today,” I replied, ignoring the question.

“Well, that’s nice. Does your mother know?”  Sherry inquired. I nodded briefly, believing I could evade guilt if I didn’t speak the lie.

“You little girls will have lots of fun,” Sherry smiled. Then she took out an enormous library book and began to read.

We rode along in silence for awhile, then Debbie said, “My brother Doug is four, my baby sister Susan is three, Sally is two and our baby is new.”

“We don’t have other people in my house. I am the only one.” I shared this information of our lack in a hushed voice.

“Doug, he don’t like to go to the outhouse. He is scared at night. He pees in the wood box, if Mommy don’t watch him.”

Outhouse? I knew what outhouses were and what they were for. In fact, we had an out-of-service one about twenty steps from our basement door. We stored garden tools like rakes and hoes and spades along with a sprinkling can in our old outhouse. But, this was a unique development. People using an outhouse instead of their bathroom? It sounded new and wonderful and exciting!

Suddenly, we were at Debbie’s house. She stood up and I followed. We stepped off the bus and watched it pull away. Feeling a little bit sick, I realized that I was at Debbie’s house. Stuck there. By myself.

I walked slowly behind Debbie. She opened the door to the kitchen of her house. Dazed, I stood blinking for a minute, wondering what to do next.

“Who is this?” a nice lady voice asked.

Debbie said, “I forget her name.”

“Is it Sherry?" I shook my head.

“Is it Patty?” The sweet-voiced lady asked kindly. I shook my head again.

“Is it Vicki?”

“It’s Carol.”   

Debbie’s nice mommy laughed and said, “I’ve never heard of Carol. Come in and let’s close the door.”

“Caw-wol. That’s your name?” Debbie smiled at me.

“Yes.” I tried to maintain dignity in the midst of utter humiliation.

“Can you call my mommy and tell her I am at your house?” I gulped and asked Debbie’s mommy.

I looked at the four other children, all younger than Debbie, in their house. The warm stove had an isinglass insert in the door. A single light bulb swung gently over the kitchen table. It smelled like a good supper was cooking. But it didn’t seem like home.

“Carol, do you know your telephone number?” Debbie’s mommy was asking me.

Luckily, I had memorized the number, in case I was ever lost. Which I wasn’t lost now, of course. I knew exactly where I was. “H 0 7, 3493“

Debbie’s mommy called my mother. It took a couple of tries to get my mother to understand that her only daughter was standing in the kitchen of a family that my parents did not know, several miles from our home. My mother would drive over to Debbie’s house to pick me up.

I began to feel somewhat anxious. Debbie’s mommy gave me a cookie. Then Debbie took me outside to see their litter of puppies. A fat mother dog was nursing a whole pile of black and white and brown puppies.

“Two of them is deaded, but that’s all the dinner plates Trixie has for them puppies anyhow.”

“I see.”

“Deaded” was not a word I had heard used before. Trixie had “dinner plates”?  This whole experience was opening my eyes to a new way of life.

Suddenly, Debbie started laughing. She pointed toward the house. “Doug is peeing on the sidewalk!”

Sure enough, Doug was relieving himself in full view, his corduroy little boy trousers down around his ankles. I noted that he did not have on underwear. Just the corduroy trousers, neatly patched at the knees.

And then I turned around, to see my mother moving quickly from our car towards Debbie’s house. I had not noticed her as she pulled the car into the driveway.

Doug finished peeing on the sidewalk. He stepped onto the grass, his little bare feet damp from the over-splash.

My mother smiled weakly at Doug, and stepped over the threshold into Debbie’s family’s kitchen. After a glance at me, my mommy disappeared into Debbie’s house. Never had I ever seen that look in her eye before. She was mad. Really mad. At me.

Doug, Debbie and I made our way into the becoming-crowded kitchen. Debbie’s mommy was smiling. Barely able to control her fury at me, my not-smiling mother introduced herself to Debbie’s mommy.

“Hello. I am Laura. And I am so sorry for my daughter’s behavior. She will be punished.”

I will be punished?

Debbie’s mommy said, “She was real nice. She can come back to play any time.”

“Thank you. Carol, get your lunch box. Apologize to Debbie and her mommy, say thank you, and go to the car.”

Obediently, I mumbled “I’m sorry,” then ”thank you.” 

I opened the car door and dragged myself into the front seat. My mother settled into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and drove out of Debbie’s lane.

When we reached the gravel road, my mother slowed the car and put it into park. She looked me full in the eye, and said,

“What on earth were you doing, Carol Jean?” I started to cry.

“That will be enough of that. You could have been kidnapped. What if they wouldn’t have had a telephone? What if they had been bad people?”

“Oh no, Mommy, I checked with Debbie to be sure they had a telephone. And Debbie's mommy is very nice.”

Speechless, my mother dropped the car into first, revved up the motor, clutched, shifted to second,  then third gear, and then everything kicked into overdrive. We were going fast--much faster than normal. Slowing slightly, we turned onto Highway 36 and headed west towards home. It was a silent ride the rest of the way home.

When we arrived at our house, thankfully my grandpa and great-grandpa already had left the farm. They were on their way home to their own house in Sabetha. I would only have to contend with the adult ire of my mother and my father.

Supper was a glum meal. Forlorn, berated and beleaguered, I listened to numerous recounting of the possible scenarios, crises and disasters that could have befallen me. It was emphatically stressed that these hypothetical situations could have become irreconcilable realities. Even our English bulldog Sarge sitting beside my chair refused to offer his usual doggy smile. With a sigh, he rested his sagging jowls over his front paws and closed his eyes.

Finally, mom and dad wound down. Dad went into the living room to read the paper and to watch some television. Mom cleared the table and filled the kitchen sink with hot, soapy water. She washed and rinsed the plates, glasses and silverware, finishing with the frying pans and lids. Silently, she handed me the dishtowel. I disliked drying dishes and she knew it. I was faintly miffed that I had gone from being the main character of multiple near-death sagas to scullery maid. In the time it takes to eat a cheeseburger and fried potatoes, I had hit rock bottom. But I knew better than to complain. I’d used up my good graces for many days to come. Sulkily unrepentant but silent, I pouted inside my head during the dish drying.  

After the dishes were dried and put away and the kitchen floor swept, I went upstairs to take my bath. That meant a couple of inches of warm water in the bottom of the old claw foot tub. I used the bar of yellow Dial soap. Our well water was so hard, there were never any suds with bathing. Mom came in with a pitcher of warm water and washed my hair, rubbing hard, and repeatedly rinsing my head. She toweled my hair as dry as possible, and then combed vigorously all over my head with a thin, rat-tailed comb. Much more roughly than usual, she combed, scratching my scalp with the sharp comb teeth. When my hair was just a little bit damp and pulled straight with all of the combing, mom seemed satisfied.

With a sigh she handed me my footed pajamas. They felt soft and kind in a cruel world.

We went downstairs to say good night to my dad and to Sarge.  I kissed my daddy good night. He seemed to be okay again. Sarge was still huffy. He rolled over and didn’t lick my hand. He was in a grouch.

Mom and I went back upstairs.

“Now, you go to bed. And don’t you ever do anything like this again. Do you hear me?”

I nodded.

I knelt beside my bed, and prayed my prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Thee Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee Lord my soul to take. If I should live for other days, then stay beside me all the way. Amen” I climbed into bed, mom kissed me goodnight, and she turned off the light.

I listened to her go down the stairs, and then turn off the hall light switch. Next, I heard her voice and the voice of my dad, laughing a little together. I heard the rustle from downstairs as they settled on the couch to watch television before going to bed.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room. I was forgiven. And I wouldn’t do any thing like this again. Ever. Of course I would do something else, but not exactly like this. I knew that in my bones. I would come up with something, but only time would tell what that something would be. There was so much to learn.

As I lay in bed, thinking about the day, the idea of having seven people in one house, and a mama dog with a whole bunch of all colored puppies made me think. Are all families mostly different? Are all families mostly the same? What makes a family? 

It was all too much to understand now. I heard the coyotes howling south of the house. My mommy turned on the yard light to scare them away. She knew, too, that I could see the light and would know she and my daddy were downstairs, taking care of me. I didn’t need to worry about coyotes or being lost or making mistakes. I was forgiven. That was important. That was plenty.

Now it was time for a good, long sleep in my own bed. Tomorrow would be a plain, ordinary day; Tip, MItten, phonics and all; and that would be just fine.

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Remembering my first grade self brings to mind the amazing care offered by local people for young children. One service I am most familiar is with is that of Gina Frazee.

Sabetha’s Gina Frazee has a clear goal in mind when she cares for children in her home: to help families prepare their children to be successful in kindergarten and beyond. Gina and her awesome assistant Jill welcome young children to spend time with them while the children's adults are at their places of employment.  The kids learn how to play and get along together, also have fun doing 'homework', painting and lots of outdoor play.

The one thing Gina’s service doesn’t have is a name. "We could never figure out exactly the right thing to call this place,  though we've tried over the years. 

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Common-Woman is hosting a contest from September 10-25 to help Gina name the business. Pop on over to the Giving Back page and scroll to the bottom of the page! You will see a form to fill out and submit if you have an idea for Gina!

The winner will receive a gift bag from common-woman, filled with local gifts and coupons.

The winner, each of the kids, Jill and Gina will all receive a free t-shirt with the winning name through JoyPop, sponsored by common-woman.