Poised on the sharp edge of a knife
Your cardboard report card had a place on the back where the teacher wrote in your name “is/is not promoted to ___ grade for the 19___ school year.” Very ominous. Black ink.
Everybody held their breath. The sixth grade teacher was the best. He was a statewide finalist for teacher of the year later. He was also very involved in local history. This was the first time a teacher had the dreaded ~~~~FINAL EXAM~~~~~. One on local history, one on PA history. Surely this would be the ruin of us all.
This was the first classroom that faced down the hill toward my house (the only one in the school back then–you should see the place now). So we had a view that stretched for miles; we saw approaching storms well before they hit. Nothing is more unsettling than seeing pitch black clouds rolling in around 2:30 (ie, close to school day ending). Us walkers had to run like fools, praying for just ten more seconds til we reached the porch.
Our first day gave all of us a lesson in the word ‘uncomfortable’. Yea, if we thought about it, we might remember back when a kid wet his drawers in first grade. But this was different. When we walked in, there was a kid already seated who was older–as in sixth grade LAST year. Yes, he flunked. We sat down and no one said a feckin’ word. Holy shit–this teacher really did flunk people. As it turned out, he later flunked a girl in our class and a second one was pulled from school rather than have her flunked as well. Footnote: the kid he flunked who was now in our class did pass at year end, but his parents pulled him out of the district.
This is a year I get nostalgic about, don’t know about you. I guess maybe it depends if you’re a junior fossil like me or a younger folk. Boys just followed sports teams and racing cars. We wore what our parents bought us. Girls weren’t concerned with bras, hemlines, and heel heights. Sex wasn’t in the mix–we really didn’t spend much time thinking about pretty/not pretty. And girls didn’t look at boys and giggle/whisper.
It was the last hurrah of our little insulated group of 30; most of us had been ‘together’ since Kindergarten. All the different teachers, valentines, crappy music plays, JFK’s death, art projects on our refrigerators, snow days, Halloween costumes, sliding over the shiny floors in our socks. We went through it together. Now we prepared to pass to the other side and nothing would be the same. Our identity was dying–sixth grade was a requiem for our five years of dancing in a little one floor, 8 room school. The sixties were drawing to a close. We didn’t know it, but changes were coming like a runaway train.
You pass through stages like a mist or a loose spider web and don’t give it a second thought, but it seeps inside, attaching to your soul and spine. People like me make some of their own stages and mists, knowing it may have a thrasher effect, but your skin hardens. The end is always wiser and wishful living. 6th grade is an easy touchstone, moving on against my will–then you look back after 50 years and sigh about how far you’ve come from simple things (for better or worse, right?).
I can’t explain why, but I always associate (ouch, bad pun) this melancholy song with sixth grade.