Yep, field
trips.
Black days on any
calendar as far as I was concerned.
And this is coming
from a guy who found creative was to miss school whenever possible.
Planned field trips
always set off a long list of activities that I wanted nothing to do with. No way, no how.
Listening to rules
Notes home from the
teacher
Reading rules
Permission slips
Repeating rules
A report to be
written about what we saw and learned
Did I mention Rules?
And let’s be honest,
when you are a boy in school, there is no, and I mean absolutely NO good that
ever came of communications between home and school. After-all, if you slipped up, the school
might actually find out what your mother’s signature looked like.
Then came the
lunches (all brown bag) all stuffed into a box, and packed under the bus, in a
smelly old compartment that last housed the muddy sweat stained football
uniforms, jock straps, and fungus filled shoes of some bunch of guys several
years older.
Never thought about it that way,
huh?
Well I did.
I would always hang
around, just out on the edge of the class, trying to judge when the very last
moment to hand over my lunch would be.
Anything to reduce the possible contamination time.
Too soon and it got
crushed by all of the lunches piled on top of it.
Too late and the box
was stowed and the lunch got crushed by whoever my seat partner was on the bus.
Roll call came next.
Some new junior level
teacher or parent was assigned that duty.
Thankfully.
After-all, they
didn’t have reason to recognize my name.
For the longest time I thought my real name was “Ogodknot” cause first
day of every class every year when the teacher was calling role and got to my
name they clearly called out; “Oh, God, Not Another Vandermolen!”.
And at least the new
teacher/parent didn’t have an existing neuroses caused by one of my older
brothers.
Then pile onto the
bus. And sit. And wait.
And wonder. While the teachers,
guardians, and bus drivers figured out how to get to where we were going.
A boy can only take
so much of that. Then, a poke to the
ribs, or a wet willy to the guy in the seat in front…..
And more listening to
rules
All of this just to
go to some natural history museum filled with bugs and critters, or art museum
filled with paintings and vases.
Boys don’t care about
art, unless it resembles blood spatter.
And vases? Not even interesting once they resemble blood splatter.
And more listening to
rules
And natural history?
Who was kidding who
here?
I knew bugs better
than any museum display. I spent more
hours than I can possibly count as a boy, bug net in hand, catching and
studying every moth, butterfly, mosquito, gnat, cricket, pill bug, tomato worm,
ant, snail, squirrel, and raccoon around.
If it walked, crawled, hopped, flew, or oozed it had already received
its full share of my attention.
Heck I had personally
pulled every conceivable part off of every bug in creation long before I was
old enough to go on my first field trip.
Copyright © 2013 Marty Vandermolen
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