The years before he was five were happy years for Travis Odoms and his parents. The post war boom had kept his father steadily employed in a foundry, living was relatively cheap, and real world problems were beyond their comprehension. His brother hadn't been born yet, so his parents could devote all their time and energies to Travis.
Every other Friday (these being the days his father was paid at the foundry) his mother would take him to town for an eat-out meal, shopping, or a movie. In the summer they would take the bus to the amusement park, those being the days when the bus routes were still convenient for the passengers. As years passed, ridership shrunk and the busses ran only when and where they wanted to. Calling their operating licenses 'certificates of convenience' must have irritated anyone who had to wait for a bus, or who lacked alternative transportation. She also took him to cartoon shows at a local theater, often taking neighbor children whose parents couldn't afford to send them. After many years, the memories of those trips still bring a warm feeling to Travis.
Before he started school, his mother taught Travis to read, write, and tell time (big hand, little hand, etc. but still telling time. Given the popularity of digital timepieces, children may soon not learn to tell time on a clock with hands.) Before Sesame Street or other easily accessible learning media, this could not have been an easy task, but Travis learned enough to give him a head start in school. Perhaps we now have Head Start because many parents no longer take such time with their children.
Travis attended a Lutheran nursery school in his hometown, learning about Jesus, playing together, doors, and sandboxes. They are much of what he remembers of the school he attended for one year and part of another. He was taught by Lutheran deaconesses, who were similar to nuns in their functions, but whose garb was more stylish than the nun's 'penguin' habits. Sister Esther, the head teacher, needed the patience of a saint to tolerate and teach a class of active preschoolers, but she gave Christian love to even the most intolerable of class members. Sister Catherine, conversely, was among the first people to dampen Travis's boundless enthusiasm and replace it with the revelation that adults may not like noisy children, and may react with a loud voice, short words, or the back of a hand. However, Sister Catherine did not resort to that. The adult's need for conformity extracts a price on young children like Travis.
Doors? Travis saw and endless wall of doors, but there were actually only 4: two closets, one for the sliding partition, and the MYSTERY DOOR. The sexton (curious how churches have sextons but schools have janitors, custodians, or more euphemistically, maintenance engineers. The broom does not know what floor it is cleaning, nor the job title attached to the hand pushing it. ) would walk through the room every day at the same time and disappear behind the same door. Travis wondered 'How does he know which one?' In later years Travis learned the sexton was entering his apartment. Doors would become part of Travis's concept of the relationship between the physical world and life after physical death.
It also seemed to Travis that every room in the church contained both a piano and a sandbox. This surely wasn't the case, because many sandboxes and active children would have equaled many 'enjoyable' cleanup hours for the teachers. Children, Travis included, have always regarded sandboxes as being too full, and have assumed the responsibility for removal of the excess. They have usually determined that the floor near the sandbox is the proper place for this excess. His sons continued this tradition, and it proved no less aggravation for him as an adult than it had been enjoyable as a child. His piano count was more accurate, because many church rooms did contain pianos. What rejoicing at Steinway and Baldwin when a new church is built! Travis didn't knowingly exaggerate the count - he believed he was correct, and that is what mattered to him. If only all a young child's disillusionments were so minor.
The church had a graveyard along a path leading to a side door. People must have felt they would be closer to God if they were buried in the churchyard, not realizing that 1) If God's domain were limited to church property, organized religions would be pointless and 2) After death their bodies were as useless as the dead fish the Indians used for fertilizer. How green the grass in colonial cemeteries must have been! Anyhow, the cemetery had fallen into disrepair, and many stones had been used for sidewalks. Trodding on them bothered Travis as he got older, but a young person's protests fell on deaf ears. 'Suffer the little children' and young Jesus teaching in the temple were lessens taught more often than practiced. And that church wasn't unique.
Travis's father worked part-time days, so his mother always took him to nursery school on the bus. It seemed he entered a different world when he boarded the bus. He viewed his neighborhood through the bus window almost as if he were a first time visitor to it. It was a difference not totally erased when he alit from it. He would need several minutes to again feel at home in his neighborhood.
How did the driver know the route? Travis couldn't see how one street led to another. A child cannot comprehend the limits of an adult's knowledge. Perhaps they are better off not knowing what adults know. How many of us remember the comforting cloak of childhood innocence, or wish we had it back, or recall the crash that accompanied our first reality check? On the surface, innocence appears more desirable than we may think. Winding through streets unfamiliar despite has many trips over them, the bus always deposited Travis where he expected it would. The end result of the trips is what mattered, and since they brought no unpleasant surprises, Travis enjoyed the bus trips to nursery school.
Kindergarten in the 1950's was more like what is called day-care today, in content more than intent. Today there are so many more 2 wage earner or single parent families than there were years ago that we need somewhere to park our kids while we are working. Fifty years ago it was easier for a family to have one wage earner and one care giver. Economics dictates today that many families need both incomes and consequently our children are being raised by strangers for whom our children represent little investment of themselves beyond what they are paid to do. They care only because they are being paid to care, and we don't care that a whole generation is being raised by non-parents.
Kindergarten content in the 1950's consisted more of time-occupying activities than of the educational content as it is today. Neither curriculum is totally bad though. Perhaps educational goals have slipped in because it is more convenient for the parents to have the children in one place all day because of their work schedules and therefore more varied activities are necessary to hold the children's short attention span. Anyhow, Travis's kindergarten curriculum consisted of playtime, naptime, milk time, and arts and crafts, the latter consisting of thick crayons, newsprint to color on, easels with poster paints in cups, more newsprint, and a lump of clay.
The latter was the most puzzling to Travis, because despite being poked and prodded endlessly by his little fingers, it seemed destined to remain a shapeless lump of clay. But the crayons, and especially the paints, which he didn't have at home, gave him many happy hours as he painted or colored pictures. No matter if leaves were violet or grass orange. He was proud of his creations, even if they weren't displayed at home. Perhaps miscolored drawings didn't impress parents in the 1950's. But what did?
March of his kindergarten year brought rejection to Travis's life. As he matured, he realized that such a rejection, at the age of 6, had a life-long effect on him, coloring his self-image subtly for years. Later on, his mother told him that the teacher couldn't handle a child as advanced as Travis was at that age, but at the time he believed he was being punished for breaking another child's crayons. Obviously that couldn't have been the reason in itself for what followed, but such are the consequences of not telling a child the truth in a way they can handle.
On March 12, with no prior warning to his parents, Travis was expelled from kindergarten. Around 11 in the morning he was driven home. As he walked to the rear of the house( the front door was for retrieving the mail and paper only), he dragged his now un-needed rest time blanket and carried the sack containing his crayons and lump of clay. He understood what had been done and in his own way regretted his father's birthday being the next day. What a present! His parents chose not to have him re-instated, because kindergarten attendance wasn't compulsory in those years. The years since haven't dimmed the rejection Travis felt at the time, nor has a clue to the real reason survived the years either. Not knowing hasn't been easy for Travis.
First grade was a totally different experience for Travis. The teacher could still relate to young students in a positive way, despite having taught for years at the school. But she also had an explosive temper which occasionally boiled over, as it did one memorable day when a boy refused to do something. In the ensuing tussle the chairs and desks were in disarray and the teacher had a bloody mark on her arm. Several times she locked students in the closet for disciplinary reasons. Why couldn't this educated woman see how damaging this was psychologically? Travis never felt her wrath personally, however.
No one told Travis why he was reading for the second grade teacher, but in mid October he took his sweater, pencil, and tablet, and took his seat in the second grade room, passing the boy who was being disciplined by being isolated in the hall. How could removal from the classroom have benefited him? How was he being benefited by removal from where education was being performed?
Skipping grades was a fairly common uncommon practice in the 1950's. If a grade wasn't sufficiently challenging, especially in the lower grades, where skills predominate over factual content, the student was advanced. But the child so advanced was forever socially and physically less mature than his classmates, especially in the early grades. Travis always felt like he didn't belong, a feeling which wasn't helped by some of his classmates. This feeling of being a slipper among wingtips surely shaped his attitudes later in life. Such were the benefits of skipping a grade.
Travis first saw school-sanctioned corporeal punishment when in second grade. The principal, with a teacher as a witness (to protect the principal. Why no witness for the student? He had far more potential for serious harm than the principal did. Any kind of human being should have protested the beating of a child, no matter what the circumstances. But this was the 1950's and teachers either kept silent or participated. Most were insensitive to evidence of child abuse, poor nutrition or parental neglect, of which there were usually several examples in every school.) would administer the prescribed number of 'whacks'. Travis accepted this principal's assumption of such disciplinary authority with great difficulty, because this man did much to neutralize those who made school miserable for him. He and the fourth grade teacher were the only teachers whose eyes were open to the students who made Travis's elementary school years and their memories painful at times.
The second grade teacher rearranged seating according to the scores of a monthly spelling test. This created 3 sub-classes of students: those perpetually in the last seats, those (like Travis) almost constantly in the first seats, and the largest group constantly shuffling seats in the middle. Travis enjoyed being in the first row, but as he matured, he came to believe that to single out one group of achievers in front of the class was bad for the entire class. The high scorers developed unwarranted superiority complexes, and what if a child was good in spelling, but poor in math or history? Or worse yet, was good in many subjects but poor in spelling? The low scorers were shamed by their seat position and often by the teacher as well. She also gave math quizzes a half hour before lunch dismissal, offering early dismissal for correct answers. Math quizzes were fairer to the class, because most were better at math than spelling.
The lump of clay returned to tease Travis in second grade. His ability to shape it into something recognizable hadn't improved, but then neither had anyone else's. If seating had been based on the students' ability with the lump of clay, the whole class would have been crammed into the last seat.
Travis's third grade class made needlepoint placemats for Christmas, which was still celebrated in its Christian significance in schools then. Madelyn O'Hare and the ACLU hadn't had their sinister way yet. Separation of church and state was still understood in the manner the framers of the Constitution intended, that is, that the government shall not establish or support a state denomination, in the manner that the English government supported the Church of England. He sometimes had to redo stitches, but finally his red and white checked placemats were done, with a stitched pattern more or less in the right places. He took them home, proud of his efforts, and his mother promptly filed them in the dishtowel drawer, never to be seen again or used. She seemed not to appreciate the love and pride Travis put into such efforts, no matter how skilled the results. His school artwork was never displayed either.
Travis's fourth grade classroom, in the basement near the boiler room, was used only if there was a grade too big for one teacher. In later years, before the school was closed, the state wouldn't permit its use, but back then the dangers of locating a class of children near a steam boiler weren't appreciated. The room was painted bright yellow, and the floor was tiled, unlike the other rooms in the school, whose dark varnished trim and bare wooden floors gave them a medieval dreariness, an effect heightened by the shading of the huge horse chestnut trees in the schoolyard, and the imagined gloominess of the cemetery across the street. A rear door opened into the boiler room, where a flight of steps led outside.
The room lacked a coatroom, so coat racks were in the hall that separated the classroom, boiler room, and coal bin on one side from the restrooms and book storage rooms on the other. It was handy being in the basement classroom if you needed the restroom, but you had to hike if you were thirsty. An ideal classroom would have been between the basement and the first floor.
When Travis was in school, there was a tendency to 1) use high achievers as models for the entire class and 2) regard slow learners as making insufficient efforts at their studies. Teachers were placed on a pedestal, and blame for many problems was incorrectly placed on the students. Thank God for educators who suggested there could be treatable physical or psychological reasons for poor learning or inattentiveness.
The teacher's husband had been an oil engineer on Aruba, and her slides were Travis's first contact with a foreign land not ripped apart by war. Names like Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Leeward Islands, and Netherlands Antilles were added to his vocabulary, places as beautiful in pictures as the names were easy to roll off the tongue.
The piano in most classrooms was a large floor decoration whose sole purpose seemed to be to take up space. The 4th grade teacher was accomplished enough to be the source of musical education when the itinerant music teacher was at another school. The lack of music textbooks (Other subjects were deemed more important. Actually, much can be taught using music, by careful selection of the music taught, and if it is accompanied by suitable background material.) meant music was usually group singing, but that can be wholesome and educational. She put her whole being into playing 'The Bells of St. Mary', when religious songs could still be sung in school, and her enthusiastic playing was accompanied by the class singing, loud, off-key, and a few steps behind. They were heard plainly in the kindergarten room above, and even the souls in the cemeteries across the street must have heard and enjoyed their singing.
Fourth graders learned letter writing skills, studying sending their 2 year degrees 30 years before. With that level of education today, they would be college juniors or out of college, but in the 1950s they were the molders of young minds. Parents accepted this because in those days almost all parents were nowhere near the educational level of someone with a 2 year degree, so therefore these slightly degreed teachers were smarter and than they and 'knew best'. Not that years of education and experience guarantee competence. Many college courses can be learned by memory, or the reward of grade, as monkeys are taught tricks, and there were many monkeys masquerading as teachers when Travis was in school.
Twice a day four classes of 30 students each lined up at the water fountain in the center of the common hallway on each floor of the school. There was rarely time for both drinking and passing water, except for the pushy ones at the head of the line, and often thirst went back to the classroom with the student. Too many times the pushers walked ahead of Travis. If he walked ahead the teachers would scold him, but their blindness when he was the victim should have earned them a white cane and guide dog. The restrooms were hidden at the end of a short, poorly lit passageway, in the basement under the 1st and 2nd grade classrooms. The lighting was poor, the tree-shaded windows high, and the stall divisions were dark slate, giving the boys restroom the appearance of a dungeon, except that the stalls had no doors. Children taught modesty at home couldn't practice it at school. Since the trippers and trick players were either one step ahead of the rest room monitor or in cahoots with him, the monitor's presence was of little comfort to Travis, and he usually waited until he got home.
The break policy made scant provision for emergencies occurring between breaks. Often if the teacher allowed you to go, she sent someone along to make sure you didn't goof along the way. This vicarious voyeurism may have made many children afraid to ask. At least Travis suffered the same as anyone else. He never saw a light, cheery restroom until high school, where the building was new. But those restrooms had no windows. Rather like urinating in a closet.
School restrooms always had a smell that was a mix of disinfectant, the liquid soap there was never enough of, and urine. (boys side only. I don't suppose the girl's restrooms had the same problem.), as if the janitor swished the mop once, and what dirt was missed stayed to welcome the next batch and breed more germs on the floor. The toughest job some janitors had was to sit by the furnace and drink coffee. Many were so secure in their jobs that they made little effort at anything else.
Greetings exchanged on Valentine's day range from cards and gifts between spouses and lovers to the simple 'Be my Valentine' innocence of school children. Each student made a decorated mail box from construction paper and placed them on the chalk rail on the appropriate day to receive their Valentines. Travis rarely had as many as the other children (he remembers this very distinctly) as if they were saying 'We don't want you for our Valentine (interpret as friend) and each year it happened it hurt him a little more. Negative peer pressure had a subtle, sinister influence on Travis as he matured.
Through a government program, milk was distributed daily to each classroom. So many government sponsored social programs seem more concerned with perpetuating a bureaucracy than with achieving their social objectives that it is surprising that this one really worked for the students. Milk was distributed after the morning break, because the students went home for lunch, a needless exposure to the elements in bad weather. The bottles, small 8 oz. bottles in the early years( would they be valuable today!), would be place on the coatroom windowsill, where direct sunlight or the radiator under the window would have the milk warm until the students got it. But it kept the growlies down until lunch.
Lunch was at home because the neighborhood schools that were around in those days, had no cafeterias nor need of any. The students weren't more than 15-20 minutes from their homes and in the early days the lunch time was almost 1 and a half hours, which was more than enough time. After 3rd grade it was cut to an hour to allow an earlier dismissal at the end of the day. For Travis, who often dawdled on the 9 block walk home, getting home, eating, and returning in an hour was an adventure. Not only did those who lived closer to school have longer for lunch, but the students were expected to be in line when the first bell rung, so farther ones like Travis had only 15 minutes to eat, hardly conducive to good digestion. Eventually, with consolidation, all schools had cafeterias, so the children didn't have to hustle home at lunch time.
The school nurse covered 4 elementary schools and one junior high. What happened when she was in school A and you fell down the steps in school B wasn't anticipated. Consolidation gave each school a full-time nurse and eliminated that problem. The nurse was a short, plainly dressed lady who showed genuine love and concern for the students in her care. Several times yearly she checked height and weight for the school records, and administered sight and hearing tests in the book storage room, and area as bright and cheery as a prison cell, but which had few distractions to foul up the tests. She also checked behind your ears, nails, and hair for cleanliness. In one classic case, a junior high girl who washed only when she knew the nurse was coming was caught unbathed and promptly given a scrub brush shower in the girl's locker room. Drastic, but effective. She was afterwards a model of cleanliness!
Schools days began with a Bible reading and the Pledge of Allegiance, opening exercises as common in today's schools as obedient students. A school, where the learning of previous generations is passed on, modified by what the current generation has discovered, seems a logical place to remind a student of the Christian heritage of our founding fathers, and society's expectations of him. However, there has arisen in this country a litigious minority who have obtained court decisions narrowly interpreting the doctrine of the separation of church and state, eliminated the Bible from public schools, and severely limited what the tax-payers can support at a private school, even though a private school education doesn't cost the taxpayer anything directly. They even tried to censure the Apollo 8 astronauts for reading from the Bible as they orbited the moon.
No reasonable person would force a child to hear a Bible reading, or the recite the Lord's Prayer against the wishes of his parents. Freedom to have these in school carries with it the right not to participate. But many of the values we hold that result from our Judeo-Christian heritage transcend their source. "Thou shalt not kill' surely is recognized as correct by all reasonable people. Schools aren't fostering any particular religion when they schedule activities intended to foster a sense of moral values. But then those who have held sway in this country for far too long do not want our people to have a sense of what's right and wrong that springs from Christian values. They will stop at nothing until all mankind is lowered to their level. The decline in the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance is more puzzling, because the flag represents each of us equally. Why anyone would object to that defies understanding. Of course, those who aren't U.S. citizens must be exempted from the Pledge.
Not all of what affected Travis was school centered. Much that affected him happened in and around his family. Following are some illustrative examples.
His mother allowed few of Travis's acquaintances to enter their world and fewer still to enter Travis's. It was a source of great frustration to Travis. He had few acquaintances on the sidewalk, and they were stopped at the door. Sunlight never entered his world and he couldn't touch it through the bars. There seemed no logical reason for her actions. The house looked bad? When Travis was 10, they completely redid the downstairs with new floors, wallpaper, and a completely new kitchen, but still friends were excluded. It wasn't straightened up? Any house with children will look ransacked at times. As he grew up, Travis was very uneasy just bringing visitors in, including a few dates, so deep-seated was his mother's dislike of visitors.
At least she wasn't rude to them. If Travis brought someone home, they were made to feel welcome and treated quite cordially. Like many people of the 1950s, Travis's mother tended to be somewhat bigoted, especially racially. One black fellow whom Travis had met in college was always welcome at his house, because he was Travis's friend, regardless of color. One could say that she had made an effort in the years before Travis married to change the way she had been when Travis was little. She changed positively for Travis. Its too bad she never changed for herself. There was far more to life than the way Travis's mother had lived it. She probably never knew that she had the power to change what she didn't like in her life.
Only in his room, door shut and blinds drawn, was Travis king. The record player or radio played what he wanted. Solitary games and reading were all part of his small world. No taunts, no sidewalks, here he controlled the space. The thin rug, the dust bunnies and cobwebs were all his. No one else could know the cracks in the ceiling as well as he, nor know the exact places passing headlights struck the walls.
The passions in Travis's life were born of his being alone much of the time. A teacher, cleaning out her desk, had given him a book, which had ignited his interest in reading - anything. Ironically, she was a teacher who otherwise could make things miserable for him in class. He read the words passing his eyes with the speed of light. Reading released him from his prison for a while, away from the sidewalk and space. It brought to life a world beyond his prison and even his town. Reading brought the real world a little closer to him.
One comfort in Travis's life was believing that other people wouldn't always control him, that one day only he would control his fate, never realizing that as he grew older, much that had shaped his childhood would stay with him, molding his future and robbing him of opportunity.
Travis had a Christian upbringing, but church was attended only if collection money was available, if suitable clothing was available, if there was nothing else to do, and never with his mother. It was odd to see other families in church, knowing his mother didn't attend out of fear of being seen. What hurt Travis the most was that few people, not even the pastor, wondered where she was or inquired about her. So much for their Christian concern about their fellow man.
Travis has few pleasant memories of his brother Fred, who was younger and with whom Travis never developed a close sibling relationship. His mother's apron strings were long, eventually reaching beyond the grave, and whatever aching for something different Fred ever experienced was soon extinguished, leaving Fred in an endless pattern of yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows. As an adult he was both a doormat and a sponge, asking for and taking what little he needed in life, not once showing any fightback to life's shabby treatment of him. Even the church he attended reinforced his seeming acceptance of his unchangeable victimhood. They seemed more inclined to forget that God offers us a way out of our problems if we only ask God for his help.
Travis's childhood fantasy world of Pinky Lee, Superman, and Howdy Doody was like that of most of his friends, but his biggest fantasy was to be accepted as part of the gang. He enjoyed baseball at one time, but only good athletes were chosen, and taunts and jeers at his ineptness had robbed Travis of wanting to try harder. Inside it still hurt.
The realization that many of an ordinary life's experiences had passed him by was assuaged for Travis only after he was married with a family. His family was a source of great satisfaction to him, making up for some of the frustrations and hurts of his earlier years. He could see that good athletic skills and popularity hadn't gained many of his classmates any more than he had. But that's another story for another chapter.
Birthday parties are important social events for children, both as invited and honored guests, and opportunity to enjoy their friends' company. His mother would bake a cake, and his family would sing Happy Birthday, but Travis wanted a real birthday party. Parents may see birthday parties as a way for the honoree to increase his haul of presents, but to the children they are just a way to have fun with their friends. Not being invited to many birthday parties was a normal part of Travis's young life and made him feel less desirable as a friend. Such real or imagined exclusions helped to convince him he would have to be happy as a loner. He was invited to several birthday parties in elementary school and one in junior high, and each time he wondered why. Unable to accept others warmth to him as genuine, he always felt he was on the outside, when all he really wanted to do was belong.
Kids have always liked Halloween because they could walk the street looking for treats. But Travis's mother rarely allowed him this privilege, telling him people wouldn't open their doors to him. Of course there are those people who regard gaily costumed children as menaces to be scourged from the neighborhood. The better of these close their drapes and extinguish their lights. The more sinister are openly welcoming, but treat the happy, carefree children to apples with razor blade cores or candy bars spiced with sewing needles. There was no one nearly that cruel in Travis's neighborhood. Nor did his mother welcome trick or treaters at their house either. The porch light was off and no amount of knocking by their eager little hands could induce her to open the door. After several years the children stopped knocking, one less intrusion on her world.
What follows is an account of several incidents which happened to Travis at 9 years of age, which he never told his family about. In his neighborhood there was a large building which housed the corner store and several apartments on one side. Excepting a one-armed supervisor at a local mill, the residents of these apartments seemed to come and go without leaving a lasting impression on anyone. The other side of the building was owner-occupied by a family who lived with their son on the first floor and who rented the second floor out. Their son and another boy, both older than Travis, would invite Travis in on a Saturday morning to watch cartoons or maybe have juice and cookies. Once inside he was treated with the utmost respect, but wasn't allowed to leave for several hours. They weren't unpleasant experiences, just odd.
Travis's father was a World War II veteran, but as became the case with Vietnam vets, he related only his everyday life as a soldier, and his photos showed only that, some candid shots of the areas he was passing through, even one of a returning German soldier and his girlfriend. There were some photos of bomb damage, and one of a large wreath over a mass grave in a death camp, where he had been several months after its liberation, but it wasn't until years later that he talked about some of his uglier wartime experiences. Perhaps life and living taking precedence over death and dying is the best we can hope for.
Travis's boyhood had happier times, though. Rail trips with his father were appreciated more as he grew older and his hometown no longer had passenger service. There was a trip to the zoo, seeing animals he had previously seen only in photos, the dog he had at 6 years of age that took him for a walk, the large yard and woods behind his house with their myriad places to play, all bring a smile and pleasant memories to Travis today.
On fall nights he would lay in bed, cool air coming in the window, with the setting sun dark orange and peeking over the horizon like a bloodshot eye. He would hear the whistle and chuga-chugs of the Jersey Central freight train in the distance, the bang-bang of the signal torpedoes, and not understand the restlessness they stirred within him. He would lay in bed vaguely wishing he were someplace else, and not know where or why. The train whistle died and the tracks rusted, but the restlessness persisted, becoming a feeling that 'gotta be the going not the getting there that's good' (with thanks to Harry Chapin for putting the feeling into words.). The shackles life imposed on him never snuffed the flame of restlessness completely, and the bloodshot eye on the horizon still calls to him in his adulthood, across the miles and through the mists of time.
The 7th grade reading teacher assigned a weekly TV show to be watched and tested on. Travis's family hadn't a working TV at that time, and his mother wouldn't allow him to go to someone else's house to watch it, so he was segregated at test time, feeling the eyes of the class, bearing all of the teacher's badgering about the situation. His mother never knew how much this hurt Travis, nor probably cared either. Her skewed concept of the world was all that mattered to her. The weekly dances in Junior high soon proved to be a bad experience for Travis. The boys' dress code was jacket and tie, and the closest thing Travis had was a decent looking sleeveless sweater to wear over his shirt and tie. Every time Travis attended a dance he was aware he was technically breaking the rule. Nothing was ever said to him, but still conforming just wasn't possible. He usually sat in a corner and never danced, partly due to unpopularity from being a little overweight (Anyone who thinks overweight students aren't ostracized should try to remember how many overweight boys were on their high school basketball team, or how many cheerleaders were chubby. If you aren't svelte, skinny, and attractive, or if you come from the wrong neighborhood, you had to forget certain extracurricular activities. While it may be necessary to limit access to certain activities for reasons beyond the control of the students involved, was any thought ever given to all of those who had desire enough to try out, but didn't have enough talent to make the team? ) and partly from being taught from young that people shouldn't be approached because they couldn't be trusted. Happily, once Travis realized, again as he matured, that people could be trusted to be at best unpredictable, that situation corrected itself.
Only in academic situations could a unathletic, socially shy boy like Travis be more than equal to his fellow students. When sides were chosen for quiz contests in civics and geography, Travis was always near to the first chosen, and rarely was he a disappointment. Last chosen in gym, Travis still suffered the taunts of those who couldn't play solely for enjoyment of playing, regardless of the results. Jeers followed imperfections and robbed him of any pleasure that should have been derived from physical activity. Testing in gym was especially painful, because how close he was to the end of the line would be obvious from the numbers. He disliked gym, treating it as a world where he didn't belong and couldn't be happy.
The PA history teacher organized a class trip to see BEN-HUR at a local theater. Travis was the only one not attending because he couldn't afford a ticket, so while the class discussed the movie he could only sit in hurt silence. The teacher had offered to pay his way, but his mother wouldn't allow it. It was a type of experience that can't be repeated once the moment passes. BEN-HUR is often on TV, but the fellowship of seeing it with his classmates is an unrepeatable moment frozen in Travis's past. The realization that some experiences were no longer possible stung Travis when he learned that many unrepeatable and unchangeable parts of his past had passed him by.
High school brought more academic excellence to Travis, but that didn't extend to his social life. He didn't have any dates in high school, and to this day he doesn't really understand why. It wasn't for lack of trying, but dating efforts were stonewalled enough that he got the message finally. Helping others have a good time was as close as Travis would get in high school. And the hurt deepened. All he wanted was to be like everyone else.
High school for Travis was part of a 'team-teaching' experiment', whereby 3 sections were taught by 3 teachers (English, math, social studies) and then had a common study hall. The sections were separated according to ability and only the highest class had access to advanced college placement courses. Students not from the right families or neighborhoods had little access to advanced classes. Perhaps neither had anything to do with it, but it seemed that welfare students and gifted classes rarely mixed. If these students do better is school because their 'position' gives them 'better' opportunities, why should our tax dollars be used to help perpetuate this class and its influence over those who don't have the same chance? Travis was twice denied access to advanced physics, despite being qualified by grade and teacher recommendation.
The National Honor Society was closed to him, despite having good grades, because the advisor felt he wasn't a 'well-rounded student'. Even Travis's one strong point in school wasn't enough to gain him acceptance. Again, his satisfactions came in class, where few students were his equal. But this is like running a race with few spectators and no press coverage - few will know or care. The glory went to the high visibility students, little if any shining past them to the good students, and vo-tech students were regarded as not smart enough for anything but fixing cars or wiring houses. Not only does it take a high degree of technical knowledge to pursue either trade, but has anyone checked the wages of a mechanic or electrician lately, vis-Á-vis a school teacher lately?
The senior prom was an unpleasant experience for Travis even though he didn't attend. Students don't go to a prom stag, so Travis had to content himself with helping to dismantle the decorations afterward. A senior prom is an experience a person can only have once, and Travis knew that chance would never come again. The loss of such opportunities hurt Travis as he matured, even though he knew he could never relive all he had missed in the 1960s.
Beyond a mock political convention he attended as a senior, Travis's high school years were mostly a blur, but there were some genuinely funny moments: the sly jokes about a local man several of Travis's friends had visited, unaware the man was gay; efforts of students to slide suggestive announcements past an office staff too harried to proofread them first; getting an A on a speech because the teacher liked his subject and did half the speech for him. But most of all Travis wanted to be part of a group.
School cafeteria food has always been held in the same high esteem as Army chow. Despite the quantities, Travis's high school cafeteria had excellent food, including home-made spaghetti and scratch made pies and cakes. While some cafeteria food would probably have to be force fed to a starving man, it probably hasn't changed much in the years since Travis ate it.