First Grade

What could be more exciting than to be a big “KID” and getting to go to school with all the kids you know in the neighborhood and be old enough to stay with your class mates all day? Also, being the oldest and first to go to school, a list of school supplies that I would need – was of real importance to me! Naturally, we all went to the nearby stores on Florissant Avenue, and Bryan Hill School was several blocks down from where we would be shopping. Seems like a great area with everything you need, so close to home.

The one thing that I just had to have was this special pencil box. It may have been twelve inches long by about three inches wide and maybe two inches in height. The top had a snap type opening in the front, with the top lifting up and back, revealing a drawer that you could pull out for extra pencils and even something that you just might want to hide. At the age that I was, and having two younger brothers, I felt that I needed a secret place that only I knew about? And, that is exactly what I did. I had a small box of stick matches, which no one knew that I had and I put them in the pencil box drawer. Did I hide the matches? NO!

My youngest brother “TOMMY” – was nosy and must have watch me with my pencil box and knew what I had and  that it was something we should not have? So, the next day, after I had left for school, and our parents were still in bed, “TOMMY” took the matches from my pencil box and decided to have fun all by himself? Tommy starting to light a match and watch the flame, and so short a match started dropping them, and being so close to a window, the curtains caught on “FIRE!” Tommy was now scared and left our room with the “FIRE” catching on fire a paper bag of Tommy’s blocks.

Tommy is now sitting in the kitchen on a wooden red stool, not making a sound and not letting anyone know what he had done? He is as quiet as a “MOUSE!” But, the falling blocks are making a noise and the fire-smoke has my father’s attention. He runs to the room and with a wet towel, knocks everything burning down and has the fire out. Any other time Tommy has a lot to say, but now he is not talking at all! I’m guessing he would like to say that I had done this, but I’m at school – I would have loved to hear and see what was said and done, but it all was put on “HOLD” till I came home from school!


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