First Grade

What really surprises me about the first grade is how few of my classmates I remember... But since all of my friends from Lakeshire either went to private schools or were in different classes I guess it's not that surprising that I only recall three (for very different reasons):

Back in 1959/60 Reavis Elementary was using the "Dick and Jane" book series for the first grade. And near the end of the year most of us had reached the final book (Our New Friends). But there were some slow readers in the class... One of them was a kid named Bernie who (at the time of the 'incident') had just moved from "Guess Who" to "Fun with Dick and Jane".
So one day a group of kids started taunting Bernie by chanting "Bernie is in Guess Who!" over and over. At the time it seemed like 'good clean fun' (after all, it wasn't even true) so I decided to join in...
Here's what I failed to consider: The kids who started the taunting were in about 15 feet from Bernie. And I was 3 feet away.
The next thing I knew Bernie had my throat pressed against the edge of a chair and he was pushing on the back of my neck as hard as he could. The other kids started yelling "Mrs. Cytron! Bernie's choking Peter!!" and she finally noticed and pulled him off of me. (I had a purple stripe across my throat for days...)
So Mrs. Cytron gave me the "serves you right" lecture and Bernie got the "sticks and stones" lecture and she made us both apologize and that was it... So I remember Bernie mostly because he tried to kill me... :-)

Next was Alan. He was the class bully. (I think he started that "Guess Who" chant.) One day I was standing behind him in line thinking about how much I hated him when my mind went 'associative' on me and produced this sequence of thoughts:
"That's a nice coat"... "I bet his mother bought it for him" ... "She probably really loves him" ... "I bet he loves her too" ... "So why is he so mean?" ... "There must be something really wrong" ... "And it makes everyone hate him" ... "That's so sad!" ... "I feel really bad for him!!" And after that I was always nice to him matter what he did to me.
I think that incident was so memorable because it was the first time it had occurred to me that even someone who was antagonizing me might deserve my sympathy...

And finally - there was a girl in our class whose name I don't remember but her face is etched in my mind. (No - she did not have red hair.)
Now, I've never told anyone why I remember her because it provides a glimpse into just how weird my thoughts can get. And - trust me - the less you know about what goes through my mind the better :-) But I'll explain anyway:

I don't know how to put this delicately - the girl was funny looking... Her eyes were wide set and had permanent bags under them. And she had this wide mouth that was always hanging open a bit. And from the moment I first laid eyes on her all I could think of was the front end of our neighbor's 1954 Buick Roadmaster:

The resemblance was downright eerie...

But there's more: I came up with a little snippet of 'onomatopoeia' when I was 3 or 4 years old - it was a 'verbalization' of an idling V-8 car engine. (I really liked cars.)
So every time I saw this girl's face I'd imagine her saying "ibidi-ibidi-ibidi-ibidi" which, of course, would be an impression of a 1954 Buick Roadmaster idling in a driveway - it was freaking hilarious! Anytime I needed cheering up all I had to do is look at her :-)

So if I burst into laughter for no apparent reason it's best not to ask... You'll probably regret it...