Do you know what a truancy is? It is when you skip school and your parents did not approve the absence. I got one of those on my first day of kindergarten. To get to school we would go across the open area with a swing set, a couple of trees, and a bunch of overgrown weeds and grass. Remember this park, it “has an accident” later! Once you got through the park there was a tall chain link fence that led to a parking lot and dirt area. This was where you could go down to the river or go on the sidewalk. The sidewalk went over the bridge and the river and the school was just past there.
Brad and I were walking to school and we found a razor blade. We should have left it alone, but of course we didn’t. We hunted around for a stick and a string. We attached one end of the string to the razor blade and the other end to the stick. We thought this would be a perfect fishing pole. We went down to the river that we were forbidden from going near because the water was quick and deep and we didn’t know how to swim yet. We thought we would be the world’s greatest anglers! We were wrong. The string got tangled in some branches almost as soon as we tossed it out there, and of course we had no bait and a razor blade would only ever cut a fish, not catch one. We spent a while trying to fish and the day moved along. Since I only had half days of school because it was kindergarten, I ended up waiting for a while and then just went home so that it would look like I went to school. Brad continued on to school and did his day since he was in first grade. I thought that since I left on time and came home on time all would be well. What I didn’t know was that the school takes attendance and called my parents because I wasn’t there. When I got home it was a bad day for my butt!! I can only imagine how scared I would be if your school called me and said you never showed up for class but weren’t at home. My parents might have felt the same, but to be fair I was a pretty bad kid so I wonder if they cared other than they could get in trouble if their kid did something bad or was kidnapped. All I know is that I was in BIIIIIIGG trouble, which means tons of spankings with hands or wooden stirring spoons!
As you may have guessed, I started going to school regularly. No more truancies until I got older. Anyway, in kindergarten they taught us safety and to stay away from power lines. Don’t fly kites by them, don’t climb the poles, don’t touch the wires. Basic stuff. When they taught that touching power lines would kill you, I told them they were wrong. I had seen a million squirrels and birds walking, landing, and pooping all over them and they never died! They basically told me to be quiet and that I would die if I touched one. I still didn’t believe them. There was a tree in the park on the way to school that had a branch that went right out to a massive power line so I decided to see if it would kill me if I touched it. Brad and I climbed up the tree and I inched out. It was a stretch, but I grabbed onto it. ZAP! No, actually. Nothing happened at all. I held on it swinging for a few seconds and then Brad helped me get my feet back on the branch since it was pretty far out to get to the power line. I didn’t die. I’m still not sure if that made me super smart or super stupid. I don’t know, but I sure felt like I showed those teachers!
Another time, I think it was at the same place, someone tried to give us drugs on the way to school. There was a guy on the bridge that crossed the river to get to the school. He asked if we wanted drugs. We said no. He was holding what he said were drugs in his hand. He told us to take them and we said no again. He started telling us to hurry up and take them because they were burning his hand and then he started to chase us. We ran away! I realize now that he was probably lying because I don’t know of any drugs that will burn your hand, so he was probably just screwing around with us but we didn’t know at the time. That was kind of scary but I am glad that Brad and I were great runners!
Love,
Fazia