Language and Reading

When we moved to Burkburnett, i was seven and had a first grade education in spanish, and i was put in second grade at Hardin Elementary. I enjoyed going to school, from that first day that i drew a crowd during morning recess, in the playground. It was a cloudy day in September, so i didn't have to worry about nosebleeds from being
under the sun too long. The word spread that i didn't speak english, so they all gathered 'round to get a look, i guess, i don't think i minded.  

I was given to Mrs. Mullins to deal with; she must have had a good deal of patience to get me started, not only learning english, but this new educational system with its bells, lunch tickets, lunch lines, and books, so many books. In Matamoros, i remember having just one textbook; the one depicting Cortez putting Moctezuma's feet to the fire to find out where the Aztecs hid the gold; Cortez was a punk, if you ask me.

There were 27 of us students in Mrs. Mullins room, and, i'm sure, at least a dozen of us from that class graduated high school together.
They were all great kids in that class, and all through elementary, the kids that came and went in my class.

When i got to fifth grade, without any setbacks that i can recall, something happened: i was put in remedial reading. Not immediately,
it may have been just the second half of the school year. Apparently, i was failing regular reading class where you read a story and then answer comprehension questions. I think spelling was included in that subject, that would not surprise me; i'm still a bad speller. So, during reading, Carl, Beatriz, and i would get up while the rest of the kids stared at us (which i was kinda used to) and walked down the hall, to Mrs. Lindsey's classroom, who taught what was called: special ed. She, and her young assistant, taught the mentally disabled and helped kids who had difficulties reading. So, we did that for what seemed like the longest time; it wasn't for the whole year, but i seem to remember one of my companions saying that they could do without the stares.

A couple of months before the end of the school year, we got a new
student in Mrs. A's class, and soon after, he was joining us on our daily trek to Mrs. Lindsey's classroom. The new guy, RJ (nothisrealname), was a blond-haired, freckled faced, thin boy who, judging by the way he dressed, had a sense of style. He had hazel eyes, i know because he used to work that fact into conversation for some reason; and, he bore a striking resemblance to Katharine Hepburn, not the young Katharine in the black and white pictures , but what she looked like in 1972, the year i'm writing about. I liked RJ, right off the bat he talked to us like we were old friends, and he told us everything we needed to know about himself. His step-dad was air force, they probably moved around so much he'd learned how to make friends fast. He called us something like: "my fine feathered friends."

So, this one day we four went over to Mrs. Lindsey's classroom, but she told us that she wasn't done with the class that was still there and could we come back in 15 minutes. When we walked back into Mrs. A's room and told her, well, she had a cow: she told us that she was about to give the class a test and we would be disrupting them. Towering over us at about six feet tall and with her high pitched voice on full blast, she told us to just wait out in the hall until Mrs. Lindsey was ready for us. So, we went back out and sat on the floor for a while.
Beatriz was crying a little bit, she was pissed, Carl and i just sat there like a couple of clods. RJ put his hand on her shoulder, patted her back and talked to her; he said the usual stuff and then he said some more stuff that had us all giggling like....well, like school children. That was impressive to me because it was something i couldn't do then and still have troube with: saying the right thing. We all have our talents.

Over all, i was an average student. I had my fair share of A's in english of all subjects, some D's, mostly in math, plenty of C's, and lots of B's; my grades were all over the place. My only F, in high school, was the result of a "teacher" who did not teach, so i did not try. When i got to fifth grade i could read, i just didn't comprehend everything i read. Before fifth grade, i was at a level that i could handle, i suppose, and maybe by fouth grade i just barely passed reading and spelling. There came a time in Mrs. Lindsey's class when she started telling me to go sit by a book shelf and just read what i wanted because it was obvious that i didn't need help reading; i remember listening to the other kids struggling to read, thinking: i don't have that problem.

One of my problems was that i was still behind in language skills. We only spoke spanish at home, and how much could The Flintstone's and
Gilligan's Island improve my language skills? Once, we were watching cartoons or something, and i asked my dad: what does "stay tuned" mean? I knew that they were telling me not to change the channel, i just wanted to know why "staying tuned" meant that. My dad, who had a third grade education, told me it meant that there were more catoons to come. Later, when we learned about the radio and the tuner, i figured it out, learning about the word "tune" like i learned about the word "vieja". What i needed was to be taught how to use a Funk 'n Wagnells and a tutor wouldn't have hurt, either.

P.S. RJ told us that his stepdad would be transferred during the summer, and we never saw him again--military life.