In my eighth decade, I increasingly reminisce about the people it has been a privilege to know. I refer to myself as a public educator with almost 60 years working in schools, curriculum, and instruction. My world revolves around schools and teaching. I estimate that I have known 1,000+ teachers and 12,000+ school children. In quiet moments, they all come back to mind. So many and so varied. Pictures in yearbooks ignite memories and the events of years ago are as clear as my yesterday. Yet, there are two people who form my schoolhouse book ends. Completely different from each other, they touched and shaped my sense of friendships for all time.
Carol personified intelligence and Bobby the epitome of sincerity. People seldom get better than Carol and Bobby and I see these two clearly when I start trekking back in time.
As the saying implies, Carol was born put together. Tall for her age, she was blonde and blue eyed and pretty. She was not overtly outgoing. Carol carefully selected what she did, who she did it with, and how she did it, and then excelled at all she did. She was aloof if all you wanted was pretty. And she was your friend if you invested in knowing her. Somewhat prim, her shy smile was a gift that lasted weeks. I always knew Carol and she always knew me.
Kids form their own groups in grade school. No adult lined us up and assigned us to groups that would become our friends. We kind of looked at each other, got to know each other, and to use a phrase from today, leaned in towards each other. It was not a neighborhood thing; our group was spread out and lived blocks apart. It was not a family status thing; fathers in our group were doctors, businessmen, and tradesmen. All mothers were homemakers. It was a magnetic kind of thing; we were drawn together and stayed together.
We were Baby Boomer kids and there were a lot of us. In our three-section, K-6 elementary school with 30+ in each section, Carol and I were in the same section from kindergarten through 6th grade. Later as a teacher, I would observe principals and teachers use test scores to balance classes. They assured a range of student abilities in each class. I think that is what happened to us. Carol and I were informally tracked from kindergarten through sixth grade. I give my belated thanks to Miss Phillips, our principal.
It was the early 1950s and girls wore dresses with white ankle socks to school. Boys wore blue jeans and Keds. Young girls stayed neat and clean while boys ran and played hard. It also was decades ahead of equity in education issues and in that paternalistic time boys were expected to be school leaders in all things. Yet when grades were posted and honors given, girls did well and Carol always was at the top of the lists. And even we boys knew who to team up with in class. When group work was assigned in class, every student wanted to work with Carol. They wanted her because she helped everyone in her group “get it right.”
There were kids in school who were really smart. Smart as in they knew things. In fact, they knew a lot about the thing they knew best. We had kids who were a whiz in geography or science, and kids who were artistic and could draw and make beautiful works. However, those kids were not the full package of smarts. They were selectively smart. Intelligence and smart are not the same thing. Carol was supremely intelligent. She saw the kernel of a problem, seemed to understand all of its facets, and could explain it so that it made sense to others.
I remember her Carol in kindergarten. She sat with a straight back and head held high and saw and heard everything and everybody. When our teacher told us to form a large circle, we circled up a lot in kindergarten, all eyes went to where Carol stood or sat and that was where the circle formed. We knew she was special from the get-go.
Early on I knew that Carol would be the star student in our class, so I weaseled my way to sit near her in our checkerboard of student desks. I thought that proximity would to the best student might rub off on me and it seemed to; for a while it did. What I really did was copy her traits. When given an assignment, she got right to it. She did not raise her hand often and never waved an arm when our teacher asked for volunteers. When called upon, she hesitated for an instance, formed her answer, and spoke by restating the question in her response. Of course, her penmanship was perfect because she wrote slowly and efficiently. She knew what to write, unlike most of us who started writing trying to find an answer before we ran out of paper or time.
I could keep up with her in language arts and social studies, but not in math and science. She processed information quickly and correctly. I think Carol saw answers where I saw confusion. Third through sixth grade are a sweet spot in my memory. As I became a Cub and then Boy Scout, swam on the YMCA swim team, and played baseball spring, summer, and fall, Carol was my in-school constant. We talked every day. We shared stories. Knowing and being near her made me a better student and a better classmate. I trusted Carol explicitly and knew she would tell me the truth of things without exception. A friend like Carol is an exceptional friend.
Junior high and high school changed us, as I think they were designed to do. I was in Carol’s language arts and social studies classes but not in her math or science classes. The same was true in high school. We saw each other, talked, and shared stories every day. She developed boyfriends and had a girlfriend. She was a musician and I was a jock. But we stayed close friends in class. While her intelligence expanded and her academic honors increased, she stayed the same best “put together person” I knew. If my parents placed their confidence in Walter Cronkite and his reporting of the evening news, I placed all my confidence in Carol and her explanation of our world.
For each of our thirteen years in K-12 classrooms and activities, Carol and I were the same friends we always had been. She was best student I would ever know and she always will be.
College and distance ended our time. She went to a small, private, out-of-state college and I went to a state university. Carol majored in economics and later earned a master’s degree in Russian literature. She founded an insurance consultant company and wrote a highly regarded book. We did not speak again and the fault of that is mine to bear. Carol died in 2002 at the age of 54 years.
My junior high class schedule card told me Room 410 was my new Home Room. I was to report there on my first day in junior high and then every day for three years. There were 650 students in my K-6 elementary school. There were more than 1,200 students in my grade 7-9 junior high school.
In Room 410 I sat at four-student table next to Bobby, a large black kid in jeans and a T-shirt. Bobby was the first black I met in a school classroom. Black kids played on teams from the neighborhoods closer to downtown in our summer baseball league. That was the extent of my knowledge of black people. We played against each other but never spoke, played but never shared, and played and went our separate ways.
Bobby said “Hi” and I said “Hi” back to him. Home room was the beginning place for students in our school every day. It was a school and grade level organizational time not instructional. Our home room teacher told us to introduce ourselves to the other three students at our table. I do not remember the other two. I shared that I was one of five boys in our family – no sisters – and that I lived one mile from our new school and would either ride my bike or walk to school every day. I was looking forward to playing sports in junior high. Bobby seemed reluctant to share. He quietly said he was the oldest of seven brothers and sisters. Then he was quiet.
When we were handed school forms to fill out, Bobby did not have a pencil. I gave him one of mine. When he did not understand the question, I explained it. We were assigned hallway lockers and given school padlocks to secure our locker. My locker was next to Bobby’s, and I helped him with the combination. He had nothing to put in his locker.
Bobby and I did not share any classes. And Bobby did not go out for the seventh-grade football team. I thought he would, partly because he was a big kid, and I just hoped he would. When I asked him to meet me after school and I would take him to the locker room to talk with our coach, Bobby said he needed to go home right after school.
Bobby and I talked every morning during the first month of school. In early October, Bobby was absent from home room. I was not worried about his absence on the first day or the second but after the third day I asked our teacher if she knew if Bobby was okay. I thought he must be sick at home. She told me that Bobby was fine and was in a new home room. Strange, I thought, but what did I know.
Our junior high had a large cafeteria and four lunch shifts. I was a sack luncher and bought a half-pint milk carton every day to go with my sandwich, carrot sticks and cookie. There was a milk counter at each end of the cafeteria. I knew that were classrooms on short hallways behind the milk counters, but I did not know anyone who went to those classrooms. Down the hallway, there were open doorways and I could see students walking from room to room. I had never been in that basement corner of our school.
I was buying my lunch milk one day in early December when I saw Bobby. He was standing in the hall, about 40 feet away, looking at me. We mirrored each other in our smiles and waved at each other simultaneously. I turned to the lunch lady when she asked for my nickel for the carton of milk and when I looked again Bobby was gone.
The next morning, I asked my home room teacher about the classrooms behind the cafeteria. She told me something that was completely new to me. Those classrooms were for special education students. They had a small and separate school within our school. I asked her what was special about special education, and she told me it was for students who have difficulties learning in regular classes. And that was all she said.
I asked my mother about special education, and she told me that some children are born with mental disabilities that make learning in school difficult and there are special classes that teach those students differently than how I am taught. I was hearing a lot of small answers for a larger question.
For weeks I looked for Bobby down that hallway. I saw others but no Bobby. In January, after our winter vacation, I bought my lunch milk, stepped around the milk counter, and walked down the hallway. Looking in the doors, I saw students in wheelchairs in one classroom and students weaving baskets from straw in another. In the third classroom I found Bobby all by himself. When I called his name, he looked up, shook his head, and waved me off. He said in a faint voice, “I am in time out.”
“Steve, can I help you?” It was one of our football coaches. “I was looking for my friend, Bobby” I said. “Bobby is in time out because he was causing a problem in class” Coach said. “Problem? Bobby? He is never a problem with me,” I said. With a smile and kind voice, Coach told me to go back to the cafeteria.
I never saw Bobby in school, junior high or high school, again.
In the 1960s I could earn my University of Iowa tuition, room and board, and spending money, and more, from summer employment at the meat packing plant in our city. The “more” at the packing plant was my education into the working men and women who did not live in my neighborhood or attend the university. These were men who tutored me in the killing and butchering of cattle, hogs, and sheep. They were my surrogate parents in the world of work. It was hard and honest work that required sweat, attention to safety, and unique camaraderie. Our mutual safety and well-being rested in the person working on either side.
We talked while we worked. I learned stories of men who were born in the south, served in World War Two, and moved to Iowa after the war for new beginnings. Throughout all stories, I heard about underlying bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination. These were not stories told in my neighborhood or in my classes at the university. Their stories were the gist of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King. They were stories of people who suffered discrimination because of their color and race. Work at the meat packing plant, we called it “the Pack,” was a job they could get, and hold, and create a life around.
At the Pack, the only prejudice was for a person who would not work hard and safely. I worked, ate my lunch, took my breaks, and learned every day from black men who became my friends.
That is where I re-found Bobby. At the age of 21 he was a large man and did a large man’s work. Bobby worked in the beef offal section. His job was to fill in where needed. Because of his size, he easily pushed the carts of lace fats from offal to the rendering room. He carted out the kidneys and the livers. I saw him cleaning cow stomachs, washing intestines, and cleaning silage from the floors. He was good with a knife, a smile, and willingness to do whatever was asked of him.
One day as I was filling in for a man in offal on the stomach washing stand, I felt a tug on the back of my full-length rubber apron. After a second tug, I looked behind to see Bobby. It was a face I knew. He was all smiles. I smiled back at him instantly.
“See you at break” I yelled above the constant and loud noise, and he nodded and pushed another lace fat cart down the aisle between stands.
Bobby and I took breaks and lunch together for the rest of my summer employment. Slowly, Bobby filled in the years. He dropped out of school after seventh grade. Due to being retained in a grade level several times, he was a 16-year-old seventh grader. He said that school was too hard, no fun, and not worth his time. At 16 years he got his first job at the Pack and had been working there since. Although he wanted to hear about me, I wanted to learn about him.
Sometimes we learn from a person and sometimes from what others say about that person. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was Bobby’s friend. “He is the kindest soul on earth!” “He has a quick smile, a great laugh, and helping hands.” “I can’t tell you how many times and in how many ways he has helped me. Most importantly, he has been my friend.” “Bobby is family.”
Bobby lived with his aunt. His parents told him that if he was working at the Pack and not going to school, he needed to live elsewhere. He would not be a good influence on his younger brothers and sisters. His aunt took him in, renting him a room with breakfast and supper for $1 per year. Even though he was no longer in his parents’ home, Bobby saw and played with his brothers and sisters every day. He did not go bars or hang out with older single men. He loved his family.
He owned and drove a car, but he did not have a driver’s license. He could not pass the written test. He had a savings account at the Pack’s credit union, though he gave more than half his weekly earnings to his family and aunt.
I worked five summers at the Pack. The first day on the job each summer, I used my morning break to find Bobby, and each June it seemed like we had not been apart since the prior September. While I was getting a college education and preparing to teach English and social studies, Bobby worked his jobs at the Pack.
Before I graduated from university, I was offered teaching contracts in four different school districts. I accepted a job at junior high school out-of-state. Reality, though, was that I had no money to get from graduation, across the summer months, to the start of my teaching job.
I returned to the Pack the day after graduation and my friends and Bobby. I was assigned beef offal, of all places, for my first day. At the morning break, I was surrounded by men and women in their rubber aprons and Pack hats who congratulated me on my graduation. My working friends were happy with my educational success. Although none of them attended college, and some had not finished high school, most had children who were college grads. Educating their children was hugely important for Pack workers. And Bobby was right there in the middle. Smiling as always.
It was a short summer at the Pack. I needed to move hundreds of miles away, settle into an apartment, and attend new teacher orientation. On my last day at the Pack, Bobby and my friends took me to the closest bar for a lunch of sandwiches and lemonade (for Bobby and me). Knowing what was planned, I had arranged to pay the bill. And, at the end of the day, I left the Pack never to return.
Life is life. I taught junior high English and social studies for five years, earned a master’s degree, and took a job as an assistant high school principal. The meat packing industry changed. Meat packing was mechanized and robotics replaced human hands. After several years, the Pack closed and the city razed its buildings; the contaminants in the ground were monumental.
I read Bobby’s obituary in 2005. He never left the neighborhood. Bobby died in a car accident, he was driving. I feel the same about Bobby as I do about Carol. I could have but had not kept up our friendship.
My bookends stayed with me throughout my career in school. Because of them, I was highly aware of intelligent children and challenged children. I knew hundreds of children like Carol whose significant intelligence lit up their classrooms and teachers. Carol was my reminder that the “stars” in school need friendship and nurturing. The pressure of being the top student can be unkind and harmful. And I knew thousands of children like Bobby who did not need basement and hidden classrooms, but teachers who saw their assets instead of their deficits. Bobby is my reminder that all children can learn if we know how to teach them.
So, I will write it again. Life is life. As I did not stay in contact with Carol and Bobby, neither did they keep in contact with me. The former is my fault. In my sunset days, I spend moments considering the latter. Although I remember and cherish my years with them, perhaps their time with me was not that special to them. That is sobering.