School Days

I see that Barbie and Ken of the West Wing are definitely going to send their moppets to school this fall. Makes sense. After all, it’s hard to help screw up the country with yowling brats clinging to you. But for more normal members of our populace the decision to put their offspring at peril of the coronavirus is unnerving.

It is claimed by those favoring an opening of the schools that children who do not attend classes will fall behind in their educational development (and shocking to American capitalists, the children would fall a year behind in becoming wage slaves to business). 

I have thought back to my days in elementary school and have discovered that I remember only one class from those six years—music. I am sure, though, that I must have learned something else—arithmetic—because I became quite adept at mathematics somewhere down the line. I know I never learned spelling; I have been an awful speller all my life.

The music classes, if I recall correctly, were held during the weekly assembly. We were mandated to wear white shirts or blouses, red ties, and blue pants or skirts. One of the proudest moments of my six years was when I was singled out as a mini-GQ as an example of how to dress properly for assembly (thanks, Mom!). 

We did not learn how to play instruments during music class. The closest we came was to pretend we were strumming a ukulele or banjo and singing out, “Plunk-a, plunk-a, plunk.” I felt really bad when Mrs. Livingston,* the dreadnaught who ran the music class, assailed my best friend, Alvin, for a hand that allegedly flopped like a dishrag. 

I have no remembrance of what the plunk-a song was, but I have clear (and, unfortunately, lingering) memories of other songs. There was “Waltzing Matilda,” that puzzling masterpiece of Aussie tramp slang. There was also a song about a creature called a kookaburra, who seemed to be sitting in tree for some reason unknown to me. What all that antipodean musical indulgence was in aid of escaped the brain of at least one Brooklyn boy.

When us kiddies were not being transported geographically to a far-away continent, we were time-traveled to the First World War. We learned to sing “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile.” I always heard “old kit” as “oakit,” and wondered (a) what kind of tree was an “oakit? and (b) how do you make a bag out of a tree? To this day, I still haven’t received any answers. 

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* I do not recall any other married women among the teaching staff. Also, there were no Jewish teachers, Black teachers, or Latin teachers.