On Tuesday, September 3, 1963, fifty-five years ago today, I started third grade. The first days of school years are often memorable for one reason or another, and the morning of that day sticks in my mind. It was a day in which an ordinary event made a difference in my life . . . or so I have told myself for the past fifty-five years.
Even before classes started in September, third grade was not shaping up to be a very good year. My best friend from second grade had moved away over the summer. I was returning to the same school that I had attended in second grade, so I would know most of the kids in my class. But I wouldn’t have the one girl I could always count on to be my friend.
On the first day of my third-grade year, I donned my new clothes, and my mother took me and my younger brother to school. He was starting first grade—his first year at the school—so her attention was on him. I was an old hand because I had been there the year before. She sent me off to find my classroom while she helped my brother locate his. There were two classes of each grade, so my first order of business was to find my name on the right list posted outside the two third-grade classroom doors.
I found it easily enough, and I milled about with all the other excited students, many of whom hadn’t seen each other all summer, because the Catholic school enrolled kids from the entire town. There was shouting and shrieking and general confusion.
When the doors to the classroom opened, the fifty kids in my class rushed into the room. The confusion continued.
“Just pick a desk,” the young lay (not a nun) teacher yelled over the din.
What? I thought. She wasn’t assigning us to desks alphabetically? How would she ever learn our names? But she was in charge, so I looked for a good desk, maybe near someone I liked.
The desks were grouped together in threes, like airplane seats today, with aisles in between the groups of three. I picked a desk on one of the aisles and set my new pencils and tablets and other back-to-school purchases on top of the desk.
Another girl (I’ll call her Katie) picked the desk across the aisle from me. Katie wouldn’t have been my first choice as neighbor, but she was nice enough.
Her best friend (I’ll call her Mamie) came over to the middle desk beside me and said, “Switch with me, Theresa. I want to sit across from Katie.”
I’d been there first, and I had no inclination to take a middle desk when I had a very nice aisle desk. (I still like the aisle seats in airplanes.) “No,” I said. Though that would probably mean that Mamie—whom I didn’t care for—would sit in the middle seat next to me until the teacher saw fit to move us around.
Mamie pleaded a bit, but I remained steadfast. I sat in the chair and wouldn’t budge.
My refusal started an enmity that lasted for years. For you see, Katie and Mamie were popular girls, and I was not. Because I failed to agree to their wishes, they—particularly Mamie—treated me like an outcast all through third grade, an attitude she continued until about the sixth grade when I finally stopped caring. And then Mamie switched to another school.
The combination of losing my best friend from second grade and starting the year off on the wrong foot with the “in” clique of third graders made for a lonely year. My natural introversion grew stronger, and I never really trusted my classmates again.
Many more things happened when I was in the third grade. Before September 1963 ended, I would see President Kennedy when he visited Hanford Nuclear Reservation to dedicate the new N reactor. Within months, President Kennedy would be assassinated, and my classmates and I would be shocked to see our teacher in tears. It was an end to innocence.
Still, in some ways, my innocence ended that first day of third grade, when I saw how vindictive my classmates could be. Yes, my own selfishness in not wanting to give up my desk began the problem. I’ve wondered often over the years whether if I had reacted differently to Mamie’s request I would have had a happier grade-school existence. But even at age seven and a half, I didn’t think it was right that my standing up for what I had claimed should result in being bullied.
I would bet Katie and Mamie don’t remember a thing about this incident. It has probably grown larger in my mind over the years. I have survived and done well in life regardless of their pettiness. In fact, from the little I have heard of their lives over the years, I think mine has been happier. And a petty part of me is glad that they reaped what they sowed.
When were you treated unfairly as a child?
I don’t recall being treated unfairly as a child, but I do remember two girls who were. One always came to school dirty in ragged clothing. She always stood away from others and refused invitations to participate in playground activities. Another endured kicking and spitting from certain students. Her father was a pastor of a less-than-popular denomination in town. One time she invited me to a revival meeting at her church. When I asked Mom if I could go, she responded, “Absolutely not!”