Smart as a Peanut

‘You boys playin’ like your gonna go down to Cuba and fight the Russkies? asked Mr Young.
‘Yeah, we’ll show ‘em!” said my buddy Scotty.
Mr Young lived on Hamilton Street around the corner from me and next door to Scotty. He was one of the neighborhood dads; his daughter Jill was one of the girls who sometimes hung out with us. She was ‘okay’ for a girl anyway. Her dad seemed older than our dads. He had a slight build with a small mustache and was gray and balding. Our dads had not reached that advanced age of decline.
Mr Young worked for the city of Geneva and sometimes, if we were lucky, we would see him driving the city street sweeper. He was always friendly to us, giving us a wave as he drove the sweeper down the street.

It was Sunday afternoon in late October 1962. Scotty was my neighborhood pal and we were playing ‘Army’ once again. This involved wearing an old Army helmet that Scotty owned and a couple of toy rifles that we secured to our belts. Of course Scotty, whose dad had been in the Marines, had a real army helmet and a real combat belt. At least he claimed they were real. I had no way of knowing and I guess it didn’t matter anyway.
We were bundled up since the weather had turned cold. As we trudged through the elm leaves scattered on the lawns and sidewalks, we ducked frequently behind the trees and bushes. We were pretending to hide from the imaginary enemies we envisioned. We were weary soldiers in the fields of France, fighting the hated enemy.

That was how it was done on TV, we thought. We had gained plenty of experience in doing this from watching the television series ‘Combat’ and old war movies that were on Sunday afternoons on Channel 2.
Sergeant Saunders was the leader of his brave group of soldiers in those Combat episodes. Scotty and I would take turns being either the Sarge or ‘Caje’, one of his brave and loyal men.

We had heard that President Kennedy was going to announce some sort of ‘blockade’ around Cuba. The week before, some of the older guys (the sixth graders) were talking about it at school. They said that it was like a big fence made up of boats.
“Cuba,” one of them said, “was a little island in the ocean somewhere by Florida.”
“Why we (the United States) could drop 3 atom bombs on them and wipe ‘em out,” said Ronnie, one of the older boys. “And it would be over and done with!”
Sounds like something a grown-up would say, I thought.

That September, after Labor Day, I had just started the fifth grade at Fourth Street School. Typically, there were two fifth grade classes and two sixth grade classes. But this year, at Fourth Street, there weren’t enough students for two complete classes of fifth and sixth grades.
My fifth grade class shared a room with the sixth grade class. They even bussed kids in from Geneva’s east side to add more children.
Ronnie was one of the sixth graders in my mixed class and as we all knew, those guys were older and wiser than any of us fifth graders.

That Monday, I took my usual route to school; I walked down North Sixth Street turned the corner onto Hamilton Street and stood in Scotty’s driveway, under his maple tree, hollering for him to come out.
Meanwhile, two other buddies, Jerry and Willie showed up. They were brothers who lived on the one-way section of North Sixth.
Jerry was my age and while his brother Willie was younger, Willie was tougher and stronger than him and about the same size. Willie also used more swear words and got in more trouble than any of us kids.
“Did you hear the President last night?” asked Jerry. “There’s gonna be a blockade of all the ships goin’ to Cuba!” “My dad says there’ll be all kinds of ships out there!” (Jerry and Willie’s dad had been a Navy guy).
Just then, Scotty arrived, hustling out of his house with a knit cap covering his orangish red hair. Overhearing the talk of the Navy, he added, “Yeah, well my dad says there’ll be plenty of Marines on those boats, ‘cause the sailors won’t know what to do!”
I felt bereft of anything worthwhile to add to this conversation. My dad was an Army guy and all he had said about the situation was, “those sonsabitches!”

“Those are ships, not boats, dumbass!” said Willie to Scotty. A minor shoving match broke out between the two. We ignored them and walked down North Fifth Street past the vacant lot toward school.

As we reached Peyton Street, we saw Kurt, a bigger fifth grader pushing Wayne, or Peanut, as he was known to us. This was becoming a daily occurrence between Kurt and Peanut.
Wayne was a short studious boy who carried a briefcase to school everyday. We called him ‘Peanut’ because of his short stature. It wasn’t a name of derision but more of a name that more aptly fit him.

Kurt was the class bully and often picked on the smaller or younger kids. He was a year older than any of us and was in our fifth grade class only because he had flunked last year and was now repeating it. Peanut was his daily object to terrorize, inflicting various types of torment on the smaller boy.
This time, he was in the act of bullying and didn’t hear or see the leap that Scotty made, landing on top of him.
“Hey!” screamed Kurt. “Get off me!”
“Then leave him alone,” said Scotty quietly.
Scotty was only in the fourth grade; he should’ve been in fifth but had been held back because of an eye problem. He wore glasses and you wouldn’t think that he could be a tough kid. Kurt knew better. Scotty was as big as a fifth grader, but much stronger.
Like most bullies, Kurt was a coward. He got off of Peanut and ran off.
“I’ll get you guys!’ he yelled. Willie returned the verbal volley using a few choice swear words, much to all of our chagrin. I bet Peanut never heard those words, I thought.

“You okay, Wayne,” asked Scotty.
‘Yes, thank you Scott,” said Peanut, addressing Scotty rather formally while brushing off the leaves from his jacket and wiping his glasses. “I would have to run into Kurt, what with this cold weather and the missile crisis.

Peanut’s more studious leanings allowed him to talk in a much more grown-up manner; he was more informed and worried than we were about Cuba and missiles.
“Oh, Cuba’s nothin’ but a little island. We could drop three atom bombs on them and they’d be finished,” I said, parroting Ronnie’s words from last week.
“What?” squeaked Peanut. “Do you know what that could mean? There’s Russians down there delivering missiles by boat. And there’s Russians setting up those missiles. If we bombed them, it could start World War Three!” he explained, breathlessly, gulping at the same time. “Besides that, there would be lotsa people killed down there and then maybe the fallout would spread up here! We would all be doomed!”
Geez, Wayne, er, Peanut knows a lot more about this stuff. I thought. I should be quiet and not sound so dumb.

“Yeah, well we’ll fix those sonsabitches!” swore Willie, delighting in seeing Wayne’s shocked look at the use of swear words.
Geez, I thought, I just told Willie what my dad said and he’s already using those words before I got the chance!

“Hey you guys, ptff,” said Yorkie as we approached the playground of the school. Yorkie was another school buddy. He was over-liquefied; by this; meaning he had the bad habit of spitting saliva as he talked. Scotty and I once saw a small frozen puddle and remarked that Yorkie had probably made it while doing a lot of talking.
“One of you guys using swear words around here? Ptff.”
We had to be careful; Yorkie was a school safety patrol. He wore a white braided belt crossway over his burly chest. It went well with his pale skin and blonde crew cut, I thought.
I was becoming a connoisseur of classic clothing wear; what with my brown, shiny, matted over corduroy pants and matching green shirt.

Even though, Yorkie was one of our school pals, he was sworn to uphold the school rules. The reward for being a school safety patrol was attending a Cubs game on a school day, at the end of the school year. Swearing could get someone ‘reported’. That meant seeing the Principal, Mr. Bye, and having whatever justice might be meted out.
“That was me,” said Willie. “I wasn’t on school grounds; so it doesn’t count.”
“Yeah, well I heard it on school grounds, ptff” replied Yorkie.
Before we could indulge ourselves on the particulars of this question of sound, location and the physics thereof, the school bell rang.
“Just be careful, Willard (that was Willie’s real name) ptff,” ordered Yorkie. “Or else, I’ll have to report ya, ptff.”

We marched into Fourth Street School under the eyes of the various teachers keeping order among the sundry ages of the student body. The old familiar smell of crayons, sharpened pencils and mimeographed papers flowed over us like an ocean wave. There was Miss Pierce, our old fourth grade teacher; she was our favorite. She smiled, waving to us.

I remembered the time in her fourth grade class when the zipper of my old corduroy pants was stuck open. Miss Pierce quietly gave me some safety pins to close the offending gap. She was cool! Scotty was lucky to have her for a teacher, I thought.
“Long time no see,” said Scotty as he split from our group and walked into his fourth grade classroom. Scotty said that every day as he went into his classroom. I wonder what that means, I thought.
Willie scampered into the same classroom as Scotty, while Jerry and I trudged up the flight of stairs, hanging on to the slick wood railing. We each went to our individual fifth grade classes on the third floor of the school. I didn’t envy Jerry; he shared his class with Kurt, the bully.

As I walked into class, I noticed my teacher, Mr. Ellmaker, writing on the blackboard. In the back of the room, were three of my fifth grade classmates talking with a sixth grader.
They were standing near the small sink and a few cabinets that were used during the science experiments. Our classroom had once been the science room in the earlier days of Fourth Street School. This was when classes were smaller; and there was enough time to perform science experiments. Even though there were only enough children for one and a half sixth and fifth grade classes, there were more students in the lower grades resulting in more classrooms taken up by their over-population.

“Hey, John, hey John,” whispered Pete, one of the sixth graders, “smell this stuff.” He held out a small bottle.
I was known throughout the class and even at home for sniffing most things. I had seen my dog Sam and even one of our cats do this. It seemed like a good practice to develop, I thought.
Holding the bottle, I unscrewed its cap and brought it near to my nose. But, ever since I had developed this keen sense of smelling abilities, I slowly sniffed the air as I brought the bottle near.
Ammonia! Whew! I quickly capped the bottle and set it down; I recognized the strong scent of cleaning ammonia. They were playing joke. I remembered the smell of ammonia from sniffing a bottle of it at Willie and Jerry’s house. The memory was not pleasant and it had taught me to be much more careful when learning about stuff through their scents.

“Sorry John,” said Tito rather glumly. He was one of the fifth graders. “We thought it would be funny.”
“Yeah, we didn’t know it smelled that bad,” added Gary and Robbie, the other two fifth graders.
“Yeah, well it was dumb.” That was all I could muster up.
“Ha, ha, I thought it was funny!” replied Pete. “Boy! Were your eyes watering! Or were you crying?” Crying! Woe to the boy caught crying – one of the ultimate embarrassments – you might as well walk around in your underwear. It was just not permitted for older boys like us (in public anyway).

Pete wasn’t a bully; he was just using his big boy, older boy status to show who was in charge. In the grade school hierarchy, the older students could be expected to inflict their brand of domination upon the younger population. There were exceptions of course; my pal Scotty whose physical attributes cancelled out this unevenness or with Peanut, whose intelligence and demeanor usually didn’t lend itself to feats of supremacy (other than bullies, like Kurt, of course). On the other hand, getting even could be expected.

As more students filed in, Mr. Ellmaker called the class to order.
“Okay, everyone sit down and be quiet, there are a few announcements before we start assignments.”
I sat down at my desk across from Cindy and behind Dennis, two of the bussed kids from the east side. Cindy was a short blonde haired girl with a turned up nose. She was very smart.
Dennis, on the other hand was a class clown; not paying attention and not getting very good grades thus far into the school year. But he made us laugh.

As the class became quiet, Mr. Ellmaker made the announcements:
“There are two notes of importance that Mr. Bye wants to make clear to all of you:

First, there will be a Halloween party for the kindergarten and first and second grades this Friday at 11:00. Mr. Bye does not want anyone from the other classes interfering (that was code for leave the little kids alone).

Second, the school board and the PTA will have a plan for nuclear preparedness that will be given to all of you. You will be given this plan at the end of today’s class. You will need to take it home to your parents.”

We looked at each other quizzically. “What’s that, nulecler preparingness?” asked Dennis to no one in particular, completely pronouncing the term wrong. Sometimes Dennis talked quickly, mixing his letters.

“It’s Nuclear Preparedness!” snapped Cindy impatiently.
“Yeah, duh, Dennis,” added Ronnie.
‘Duh’ was a popular catchphrase for anything sounding stupid, seeming stupid, smelling stupid or for anyone who was just plain dumb. We all used it, much to our parent’s and other grown-ups’ dislike. Therefore, we used it whenever we could.
I didn’t think it was a dumb question, I thought.

“Nuclear preparedness,” explained Mr. Ellmaker “means planning for a possible nuclear attack.”
“You mean like if an A Bomb was dropped?” interrupted Rex. He was one of the sixth graders and had blurted out the question while his hand was raised.
“Yes, exactly,” replied Mr. Ellmaker. “Because of the situation in Cuba and the naval blockade that we are forming, there is a possibility of a nuclear attack by Russia from an air base in Cuba or somewhere else. That means that they could drop atom bombs on the United States. We need to be prepared if that happens.”

The class started buzzing. Everyone was talking about what their parents or parent in the case of Gary and what they were saying about the president’s Sunday night speech.
Geez, I thought, all I know is what my dad said, “those sonsabitches!” I sure couldn’t say that in class!

Mr. Ellmaker called the class back to order: “Class, quiet!” He looked at us intently, “When I was in the Army, we faced all sorts of situations that required preparedness.”
I groaned inwardly; here we go again; he’ll be talking about World War Two forever.

Mr. Ellmaker was a veteran of World War Two. When we first started class in September, he regaled the class of his many experiences of the war. Even though, my mom said he looked like some early television character named ‘Mr. Peepers’.

His war tales all seemed very interesting, especially to Rex, who even brought in a book that his dad had of the Pacific war front. But this was now late October, and I for one had grown tired of this stuff. None of his material was of much use in playing ‘Army’ with Scotty. Watching Combat offered more situational plotting. Besides some of his stories sounded familiar, like from one of the old war movies we watched, I thought.

But then Mr. Ellmaker started talking about what might happen if an A Bomb were dropped. Interesting stuff! Melted cars and streetlights! Wow! Man, would that be cool to see!

Then he explained that we would go into a shelter, “If you were caught outside during a blast,” he explained, “If you survived, you might have to take off your clothes, throw them away, shower and then put on fresh ones.”

“Gross! Not me!” exclaimed Dennis. I’m not takin no shower!” Dennis, I noted was not the epitome of cleanliness. He reminded me a little bit of DJ, one of the neighborhood kids who went to Catholic school. Same grime on his neck, I observed and almost the same odor (more like bacon though).

“Well it’s either that or maybe getting contamination from radiation and getting sick from not washing it off,” reasoned Mr. Ellmaker. “Anyway, you would be ordered to do it,” he added.
The day went on. We walked home for lunch, watched Bozo’s Circus and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; then returned to school. At the end of the day, we were handed neatly folded, stapled sheets of information that were to be given to our parents. Of course we read them.

‘Tuesday, at precisely 11:00, all of the Geneva grade schools will be conducting a test for nuclear preparedness. This will involve the following: All third fourth, fifth and sixth grade students living within a ten-block radius of their school shall be dismissed at 11:00. They are to go directly home and note the time of their arrival. They should do this quickly and without delaying for any circumstance. They shall remain there for their lunch and then return to school for their afternoon classes. Upon returning to school, the time they arrived at their home shall be then given to their instructor. If for any reason, the student is not able to perform this, their parent or guardian should write a note to be given to the student’s instructor noting as such.’

The rest of the letter was a bunch of parental stuff that wasn’t very interesting. But what about this ‘As such’? What does that mean? Is this some sort of race? Questions, questions, I had questions. Lucky for our group, we had Peanut.

“Hey, Peanut, what’s this all about?” I asked.
“It’s Nuclear Preparedness,” explained Peanut.
“Well why are we doing this race to get home stuff though?” asked Scotty.

“The school board wants to see how fast it takes us to get home,” explained Peanut. “Then, they will decide who will have to stay at school and who they will allow to run home if there is a nuclear attack – if they drop the Bomb,” he explained logically. “You can tell by how they’re saying ten block radius and only allowing third, fourth, fifth and sixth graders to make the run.”

“Holy cow,” exclaimed Jerry. “That means that they have a certain amount of time they’re gonna give us. If we take too long, we won’t be allowed to go home; we’ll have to stay at school!”
We all looked at each other. Who wanted to do that? Stay at school?

“Well I can get home faster than any of you buttfarts,” yelled Willie.
A race to get home began. Leaving Peanut at the corner of North Fourth Street and Peyton, we raced home shouting and pushing each other. Of course, Willie and Scotty were ahead immediately, with Jerry trailing me. I split from the group at North Fifth and Peyton and continued running down Peyton to North Sixth straight into our old house and up the stairs with Sam and Queenie, our two dogs, on my tail. The other three raced down North Fifth to Hamilton. I don’t remember who got home first; I suspect it was Scotty.

Tuesday came as it always did; homework done the night before; the same walk to school. But it was different. Our parents had read the note from school and instructed us accordingly and with a sense of seriousness. My sister Joyce reminded me in the morning again after my mom had said something to me. Mom looked grim-faced.

“Don’t forget,” said Joyce, sensing our mom’s discomfort, “You’re supposed to come right home as fast as you can! Don’t fool around, this is important. Follow the rules!”
She was always saying stuff like that. She was a stickler for those things, worried that we were going to turn out like rotten apples, I guess.
“Don’t worry, we had a race yesterday,” I told her.

Linking up with my school pals, we walked to school, talking about the upcoming race home.
“I made it home in about a minute!” boasted Willie, obviously exaggerating his claim.
“Oh, baloney, I got home first and it was around three minutes,” said Scotty That’s more believable, I thought.
“Well, I got home fast enough, but Sam bit me. So I don’t remember,” I said, thinking back to the race up the stairs. “I forgot to check the time.”

“Yeah, well your dog is crazy, I saw him bite your bike once! And then some bees” replied Willie. He was right, Sam did gnaw on my sister’s bike once and he did snap at some bees that were trying to eat his food. Heck, I might have done that too.
“Well, maybe he should bite you, ya little pissant!” I told Willie, noting that Yorkie was far enough away to not hear me.

At morning recess, we saw Kurt limping.

“Wonder what happened to him,” I whispered to Jerry.
“I heard him say that he stepped on a piece of glass at the Dump yesterday,” said Jerry. “The glass went right through his tenna-shoes and cut his foot!” (Tenna-shoes were our word for gym-shoes or Keds).

“Lockjaw!” I gasped, Kurt’s gonna get lockjaw!”
‘Lockjaw’ was the threat our parents used on us to keep us out of the Fox River, the town dump, abandoned houses and the old Wheeler Lumber Yard on State Street. ‘You’ll get lockjaw if you step on a rusty nail,” they said. “you’ll get lockjaw if you (fill in the place where they didn’t want you to go – parents were like that – but it seemed more true when we got our tetanus shots for fifth grade physicals - Old Doctor Barnes said it was for lockjaw!)

We imagined Kurt walking around town with his mouth permanently open in a disfigured smirk much like those pig-faced people in a Twilight Zone episode we saw a few years before. Man! Wouldn’t that be awful but the right justice done to the bully, I thought to myself.
“Yeah,” said Willie, and I bet he didn’t tell his old man ‘cause he would catch hell!” Willie is probably right, I thought. It was likely that any of us would catch hell from our dads if we showed up with a cut foot from hanging out at the dump.

As 11:00 neared, the classroom was alive with anticipation. Mr. Ellmaker read the instructions that had been sent home to our parents.

“Remember,” he said, “this is not a race. Just get home as quickly as you can, eat your lunch and then return at the usual time. Be sure you or your mom or dad takes note of the time you arrive at home and write it on a slip of paper. Bring that back to me. I’ll note it down here.”

As we hustled home, none of us spoke a word. We were like the soldiers in Combat, performing our duty to our country. We took off like a flash, forgetting everything Mr. Ellmaker or any other teacher might have told us.

On our walk back to school after lunch, we saw a red-faced Kurt limping down Peyton Street toward school. He almost looked like he had been crying. We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders.

At the end of the day, more notes were given to us to take home to our parents:

It has been decided that some students who live within the ten-block radius have not been able to make it home in the time allotment considered to be within the ‘safe time’ of nuclear preparedness. Therefore, those students shall be required to remain with the other students who have been designated to remain at the school in the event of an emergency situation. However, parents may make arrangements for their child to stay at another student’s home or other safe area if they so desire. Please make the arrangements and notify the school by this Wednesday, October 24 afternoon.

“Gosh, who would you ask to take home? Cindy?” asked Jerry. Jerry always seemed to look at girls differently, I thought. What a traitor!
“No, maybe Scotty or Tito,” I replied. “No girls, there’s enough of ‘em at my house already!”

As Wednesday came and went, I noticed Peanut walking over to Kurt that afternoon, during recess.
Oh man, Peanut’s asking for trouble, I thought. But before I could say something to Scotty or Jerry, Kurt had limped hurriedly away.

Thursday morning, Pete got himself sent to the Principal’s office; he had asked Cathy, one of the sixth grade girls to sniff the bottle of ammonia.

“Hey Cathy, I bet you can’t tell what this stuff is,” he said, offering her the bottle.
Cathy was a short brown-haired girl, considered by our group of pals to be a goody-goody. Once, when we were in the Geneva Theater for a matinee movie, she reprimanded us like a mom.

“You bad boys, you shouldn’t say that!” she blustered. We had been watching an Aladdin movie where the girl in the movie was wearing a belly dancer outfit. Seeing her outfit, we had made a few rude remarks, while Willie had said a few swear words for added effect especially for the girls sitting in front of us. Unbeknownst to us it was Cathy, and her two girlfriends who were in the seats in front of us. She heard us talking about the girl in the ungentlemanly-like manner and had saw fit to turn around and shake her finger and scold us.

So, it was with a sense of guilty pleasure that I felt, when I walked into the classroom to see Cathy holding the bottle to her nose and taking a good sniff.
“Oh, oh, oh!” she wailed. “My nose, my eyes!” she screamed. Tears were flowing from her eyes almost immediately as she ran into the hallway coughing.

“What happened?” demanded Mr. Ellmaker.
“Uh, I asked Cathy if she wanted to smell this bottle,” stammered Pete.
“Okay,” he snapped, “then you go down to Mr. Bye’s office and stay there until I come down to see you!”
Wow! Mr. Ellmaker’s really mad! I thought.

Cathy returned to class later that morning, red-faced and red-eyed. Pete returned that afternoon with a very sober look on his face. At some point, he was ordered to apologize to Cathy.

He was also required to stay after school for two weeks for book holding and blackboard nose punishments. That’s what we surmised anyway.

The blackboard nose punishment wasn’t too bad. You just had to be sure you didn’t drink too many liquids the day of the punishment. It involved the teacher drawing a circle on the blackboard. Into this you pressed your nose, keeping it there for the next half hour.

It was the book holding punishment that was dreaded. The teacher gave the prisoner two books, one for each hand. He was required to hold a book in each hand with arms outstretched, away from his body for periods up to ten minutes. It doesn’t seem long until you’ve done it.

Friday morning, Mr. Ellmaker told the class how our ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson had stood up a made a speech Thursday night at the United Nations. He spoke directly to the Russians and confronted them about the missiles. Mr Ellmaker said that he was a very brave and smart man. He said that he had used his intelligence to combat the enemy. We thought it was odd that Mr. Ellmaker, the man telling war stories would say such a thing.

But the strangest occurrence was Friday morning; Peanut and Kurt were walking to school together, talking, and Kurt was smiling! He even waved to us!
We looked at each other in amazement; what was next?

Later that morning, I asked Peanut about the strange goings-on: “What, are you and Kurt friends now Peanut? How’d that happen?”
Peanut told me the story: Wednesday morning, he came in late for school; he had slipped and torn his pants. His mother wrote him a note to give to Mr Bye to excuse him for being late.
While he walking to the office, he heard Kurt’s voice in Mr Bye’s office. “Kurt sounded like he was crying. Mr Bye was saying to Kurt that his time in making it home was too long. He would have to stay at school. Kurt yelled and said he was scared of what might happen.”

“Huh! Kurt was crying?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Peanut calmly. “Then he ran out of Mr Bye’s office to the washroom. I guess he didn’t even see me.”

“So when I went home for lunch,” continued Peanut, “I asked my mom if it would be all right if Kurt could come to our house if there was an emergency.”

“What! Are you nuts?” I shouted. “Why he’ll beat you up.”
“No he won’t,” said Peanut assuredly, “I told him I would tell everyone that I saw him crying and heard him say he was scared.”

“So your mom said it was okay then? And what did Kurt say?” I was peppering Peanut with too many questions.

“My mom said it was okay. She called Kurt’s house and they said it was okay with them. So at recess, I asked Kurt. I told him I asked my mom and she said okay and she asked his mom.”

My head was spinning. This little goof is gonna get beat up or is smarter than I thought he was!

“My mom said to bring Kurt home after school so she could talk to him. That’s when I told him I knew what happened in Mr Bye’s office. After he talked to my mom, he didn’t act as mean – he only punched me once and he said I could hit him back.”

“Man, Peanut, your like Adlai Stevenson at Fourth Street School,’ I said with a look of admiration.
“Well,” said Peanut, “I may be short, but that doesn’t mean I’m a dumbass!”
“Wait ‘till I tell the guys, I thought, they’ll never believe me. Peanut said a swear word and he’s palling around with Kurt.

Peanut’s fifth grade year at Fourth Street School was afterwards much less stressful. He had used his brain to solve his problem. Kurt never bothered him that year. As a matter of fact, we didn’t see Kurt at Fourth Street the following year, for the sixth grade. Apparently, he had got into some other trouble and didn’t return

By Monday, the crisis (as Peanut termed it) was over. Our parents breathed a sigh of relief. In class, Mr. Ellmaker told us how our president, President Kennedy had told Mr. Krushchev of Russia that he would agree to certain terms. He said that the Russians would dismantle the missile bases that they had erected in Cuba. ‘We had won!” he said. “Just like we did when I was in World War Two.”
I sighed, here we go again. Then, Mr. Ellmaker started telling the tale of the Battle of the Bulge.

Meanwhile, at afternoon recess, Loren, one of the fifth graders from Jerry’s class was telling us the story of Dennis and the milk races. Loren, along with Dennis, was one of the students bussed in from Geneva’s east side. He was a skinny pale blonde haired boy who talked rapidly, almost nervously.

During those grade school years in Geneva, someone, maybe some social scientist, determined that grade school kids were not receiving their daily amount of milk. Therefore, for a penny, students could receive a short half pint of fresh milk that was delivered to the hallway, outside the classroom door for consumption at morning recess. Some kids brought three cents and received three half pints. Some kids said their milk was free. Apparently their milk was subsidized. Some of us just poured the milk down the drinking fountains when the teachers weren’t looking.

The time Loren was referring was when he and Dennis were in the same fourth grade class at Harrison Street, Geneva’s only east side school. When recess time neared, the milk was brought in and delivered to each student. Earlier in the year, they had started a game of milk races – a race to see who could drink their milk the fastest. Dennis had matched himself up with a student named Mitchell.

Bang! The race began. Dennis downed three half pints in half the time Mitchell downed two. Dennis had won! Or so it seemed.

Since Dennis was the class clown, the class cutup, his teacher had put him in the front row, directly in front of her desk with only a short gap between the two desks. This was to keep Dennis under control. I suppose in modern times, Dennis would have been given Ritalin or some other calming drug.

Returning from recess, the class settled down to the teacher’s instructions. Dennis began to feel strange; he raised his hand. The teacher, deep into grading papers apparently did not notice his hand or chose to ignore him; he was the class clown afterall. Dennis began vigorously waving his arm. Just as his teacher noticed him Dennis put his hand to his mouth in a funnel shape, as if to call her quietly. Instead a stream of projectile vomit was emitted from his mouth, spraying her desk and the graded papers. Undoubtedly due to the amount of swallowed air and milk, the pressurized contents had left his stomach just as quickly as they had entered.

Yorkie guffawed, spitting saliva as he heard this wonderful tale of puke and teachers. As a matter of fact, we all laughed heartily.

“Wow, ptff, I wish I coulda been there!” said Yorkie earnestly. We all nodded in agreement. It must’ve been a sight to see. We should’ve been there.

Peanut smiled and agreed.