King of the Hill

The other day, my teenage sons and I were talking about the glory days of elementary school recess. My boys' favorite game was Four Square. 

They were stunned that I hadn't played this game when I was a kid and proceeded to explain the rules, "There's a king in a square, the queen and then wait there's a toilet in the last square..."

It started to sound like someone retelling "this dream I had and you were in it. Wait nope you weren't in it."

"Boys! would you like to hear a harrowing recess story?" 

"Yes!" 

It was 1974, the winter of my 3rd grade at Longfellow Elementary school. Longfellow Elementary school was the best school in the world. A few years after my 5th grade graduating class left, it was torn down and made into a parking lot and as my mom can tell you, I AM NOT OVER IT BY A LONG SHOT!

Longfellow school not only resembled the school in the movie, A Christmas Story, it also looked like the school in The  House Without A Christmas Tree (starring Jason Robards and Mildred Natwick).  Coincidentally, both movies take place in the 1940's which my sister will tell you looks and feels brown and dreary and that's why she can't stand those movies.  Hmph whatever.

So anyway...

Longfellow Elementary School

Movie: A Christmas Story

Do you remember the winter scene in A Christmas Story where the boy sticks his tongue to an icy metal pole? I witnessed this same scene for real years before the movie came out. 

Some scrawny second grade boy got the bright idea to try it during our morning recess.

I remember a teacher running outside with a cup of warm water to pour over his tongue. 

My girlfriends and I stood nearby in our fake fur hooded coats, arms crossed, shaking our heads. Kid, this is not a good way to make a name for yourself. 

Winter recess in Wisconsin was tough because there wasn't much to do but huddle around the door shivering waiting for recess to be over or play on the gigantic snow hill. I guess it wasn't really "playing" on the hill. It was King of the Hill.  Which is to say, trudging up to the top only to be thrown back down by a boy. Not my idea of fun.

 

Before I go on I need to make a disclaimer. Usually, my memory is rock solid and I have always thought this incident and this post was going to focus on Mike. You know, the Mike from a prior post about the bottle rockets at the high school pep rally?

However, while I was going through the class photos, I realized that Mike wasn't in my 3rd grade class. All these years I had pegged him as the central character in this story when it was Kevin all along.

At least I can confidently say, and my family and friends will back me up, that my smelling is still 100% spot on!

 

So back to Kevin.  I was thinking about a nice way to say that he wasn't my type, but I don't have to continue with that because really in 3rd grade all boys were gross.  Also, if you weren't Shaun Cassidy there really was no competition.
As far as behavior,  I can't say Kevin was the worst boy in our grade because he competed with Rob, who in first grade took his dull, metal school scissors to Angela's blonde ponytail which hung down between the back of her desk and the front of Rob's desk. 
He didn't succeed in actually cutting any of her hair, but the shock of witnessing a kid do that? It stopped me in my G.A.S. shoes and made me wonder what kind of person could even think to do such a
thing.

That brings us to the infamous Kiss List. 

Every day Kevin made a list of the girls he was most interested in kissing. The name at the top of the list was the girl he'd try to kiss at recess.

One of us would walk by his desk on our way to the wall mounted pencil sharpener and Kevin would hold open his desk top revealing the list taped inside, giving us a sneering smile as we we gasped in disgust.

 I still remember the feeling of being trapped in a dicey situation. 

Not so much that Kevin would chase us down to kiss us, but that this was something that was going happen at 10:30 a.m. and we had no choice. 

Eventually, my name was up. 

We went outside for recess.  I was on the lookout for Kevin as my friends and I trudged in the snow on the playground. As we neared the looming snow-hill, Kevin spotted me and and took chase.

In a desperate attempt to lose him, I ran up the snow-hill hoping to blend in with the commotion of screaming kids being tossed this way and that by the King of the hill.

Unfortunately, Kevin caught me and instead of kissing, he began choking me. I struggled to pull free from his grasp. I couldn't breathe  and panic started to take over, but I finally managed to pull loose and ran down the hill to the safety of some guy teacher that I can't remember and exclaiming out of breath, "That boy was choking me!"

He responded with a bored, "Well, stay away from him then."

I paused a few beats, stunned trying to process how idiotic this answer was. 

Gee, ok why didn't I think of that? Jerk.

 Nothing happened with Kevin after that. We all just went on living our harrowing little 3rd grade lives. 

Ya know, maybe I should have learned to play four square?