Nothing Smaller Than Your Elbow and Other Important School Lessons

My first year of school was scary. My 1972  public school kindergarten teacher was strict and when I say that, I mean she spanked us in class. In front of everyone.  Kids got spanked over her knee with her hand and once or twice with a ruler. One poor boy did something bad enough she made him pull down his pants, lie across her lap and she spanked him bare-bottomed with her hand. The loud "Smack! Smack! Smack!" of her hand against the jiggling of his bare skin sent a shiver of dread through my body. I could clearly see her red hand imprint across his butt cheeks. The spanking itself wasn't the horrible part. That was part of being a kid. I got spanked at the foster home, just like everyone else. But it was one thing being spanked at home and a whole another thing at school, in front of the class and especially naked. That crossed a line I hadn't considered possible.

 The teacher didn't finish out the school year, she disappeared after the  bare-bottom boy's parents complained to the principal. I didn't tell my foster parents or biological parents about the classroom spankings. It didn't occur to me that they would find anything wrong with it.

 My kindergarten teacher's way of handling classroom disruption worked perfectly on me. I learned very quickly to not cause trouble and never went to the teacher for help or admitted a problem. Just like at the foster home, I dealt with my business by myself.

Which is how I ended up with my first problem I couldn't fix. I had allergies to all the good things in Portland, Oregon. The green grass made me break out in hives. The roses made my face swell up. From spring to fall, I sneezed and hawked my way through life. My  inner ears itched so badly and sometimes at night, they oozed ear wax onto my pillows. I didn't take allergy medicine, I didn't know it existed. I also didn't know I had a doctor. I never saw one.

One day in  kindergarten class, my left ear was itching something fierce. I tried everything I could to ignore it, but it was relentless. So I did the only thing I could to relieve the insane itching. I stuck my sharpen pencil tip in my ear and scratched. I scratched my itchy inner ear so hard, the pencil lead broke off inside my ear canal. I  knew instantly I had done something dreadful. Looking up at my teacher at the front of the room, I considered telling her what I had done. I discarded that thought. I wasn't about to get spanked in class, especially if there was a chance I could be spanked bare-bottomed. No way.

I decided that even though my ear was muffled from the pencil lead, it didn't hurt, so I would just wait until a better reason to confess came up. I didn't tell my foster mother about the pencil lead either. Why would I volunteer to get into trouble? So the pencil lead sat in my ear canal and I forgot about it. From that year until 4th grade, I passed all the yearly school hearing tests by cheating. They way they tested students hearing was to bring four children into a room at a time and have us sit at a table with earphones on. We closed our eyes, raising our hand when we heard faint beeps through the earphones. I kept my eyelids slightly cracked and raised my hand when they raised theirs. Easy-peasy.

 Since we didn't have physicals in the foster home or after my brother and I were adopted, no doctor looked in my ears. In fourth grade, my body decided it was time my pencil lead secret came clean. My ear was itching terribly and I was hearing a loud crackling noise. I tried to feel with my fingers what was wrong, but all I got was slimy earwax oozing out. My ear problem was loud enough in my head I got scared. I decided to risk it and told my adopted mother there was something in my ear. I honestly didn't know what was wrong, I had forgotten long ago about the pencil lead. Virginia took a flashlight and looked at my ear. She could see something just inside my ear canal. She used a pair of tweezers and gently slid out an inch long piece of earwax coated, perfectly preserved pencil lead. And amazingly, I could hear out of my left ear again. As she held up the pencil lead for Harley and Grandma Quigley to see, I remembered how it got in my ear and told them the story. They all laughed and I was relieved. I wasn't in trouble, my ear was clear and an important lesson was learned. From then on, no matter how bad my allergies got, I never again put a pencil in my ear to scratch. I used the sharp point of a ballpoint pen instead.