A PERSONAL NEW MEXICO HISTORY
PAGE ELEVEN
ENTRY: The New Grade School--fourth grade
(This page is dedicated to Gary Loudermilk, who joined our class this year, and who has been eagerly awaiting the time when these diary entries might begin to contain events which he remembers.)
It's a new school year (fourth
grade, 1955-56) in a new classroom in a new school building. Everything
is new. This year we move into the new state-of-the-art "South Jal
Elementary School" at the bottom end of sixth street. It's all very
exciting. I can't help but wonder, however, who thought up the name for
the new elementary school. It sounds just a little pretentious to me; it
seems to imply that there might be a North Jal Elementary, or even an East
or a West. Please. . . there wouldn't be space inside the perimeter of
our small town, nor enough students.
Pretentious or not, we're very, very fortunate.
The new school is huge. There's
a long, wide main hallway, off of which branch multiple "wings".
Each wing contains several classrooms which have outside entrances, making
the rooms very quiet, as opposed to rooms that share a central hallway.
Each room has a large bank of windows on its north side, allowing the indirect
lighting associated with an artist's studio, with absolutely no glaring
desert sunlight at anytime; this helps also to keep the rooms cool---plus,
we have state-of-the-art heating and air-conditioning. Probably the second
most unique things in each room are the indirect lighting fixtures. They
look like silver flying saucers and are designed to throw all their light
up onto the ceiling. They're great.
The most unique things, however,
are our desks. They're absolutely wonderful. First of all, although they
are at the moment arranged in rows, they're not bolted together in groups;
each of us has a completely free-moving desk. But the best part of the
desk is the top, the actual writing area. It's a formica-laminated piece
of wood, hinged across the entire front edge. When you grasp the back edge
and lift, the whole top of the desk raises up, exposing a deep, sloping
metal storage area. Oh yeah. . . the top surface of the lid has a shallow
groove in which you can lay your pencil without its rolling off.
('Course, this is one feature our old desks also had)
Here's the best part, though---the lid has a neumatically-controlled piston
attached to it, so that when you raisethe top of your desk, and let go---it
closes gently by itself with a faint hissing noise. Fantastic ! (Occasional
malfunctions of this little convenience , however, would result in a few
"smashed" fingers and keep the janitors busy making minor adjustments)
On the other side of the huge, main hallway are all the administration offices, an audio-visual room, and a very large multi-purpose room, serving as gymasium, cafeteria, and auditorium, complete with stage. We have definitely arrived !
I don't remember exactly where
my fourth grade room is located. There are several classrooms on each of
the "wings" of the building; I also don't remember how many wings
there are.
I do remember that the northernmost wing contains the first grade rooms,
while the southernmost wing contains the sixth grade rooms, with the other
grades located progressively somewhere between these two extremes.
The playground is immense. Most
of the playground equipment is located to the east of all the "wings",
with a vast expanse (space for playing all sorts of games) extending south
of the sixth grade wing. I"ve never entirely understood the concept
of the gravel on the playground. The entire area is filled to a depth of
several inches with a very large gravel .
True, it provides an attractive, uniform surface; keeps down weeds; and
eliminates the formation of mudholes on the rare occasion that we have
rain. Those are all the benefits I can think of. The drawbacks are: it's
difficult to run and play on because of the "give" that it has;
it's unforgiving if you fall while running and playing (skinned knees and
elbows are much worse now); and everyone's shoes wear out much faster than
ever.
I go through lots of shoes. I also go through lots of pants, wearing out
the seat on the playground's new slides. Good shoes and dress pants just
don't last too long on the school playground. (Mom won't allow me to have
sneakers or jeans; Ithink perhaps that in over-dressing me, she was trying
to over-compensate for the tiny tin shack where we lived)
Anyway, my favorite piece of new playground equipment is the horizontal bar. It was here that Jere Galle, a fifth grader, taught me the "fantastic horizontal bar death-defying trick." It's the kinda thing that you can impress others with your entire life. . . sorta like learning to play only one song on the piano, but learning to play it well, so that people who hear it think you're a pianist. People who witnessed your performance of this horizontal bar trick automatically labeled you a gymnist. (Jere actually was. . . the rest of us who learned to do this weren't)
So here's the trick. You have to have a bar that's far enough from the ground so that you have to jump a little to reach it. This is to make sure your head clears the ground during your performance. You manuver yourself so that you're seated atop the bar. Then, with hands clasped in you lap, you fling yourself backwards so that the bar catches behind your knees, and you fall backwards and down (knees remaining bent and grasping the bar, of course), completing a 3/4 revolution before straightening your legs and landing on the ground, feet first.
It's quite impressive. Jere, of course, could do impossible things-- like keeping his knees locked around the bar and swinging his body with such force that he would just keep spinning and spinning, round and round, backwards--until he decided it was time to let go. I never got up the nerve to attempt anything like that. It took all the nerve I could muster up just to learn to make that initial backward fall. I'll have to be satisfied with that. Visions of doing the more complicated multiple spin were always accompanied by visions of a broken neck.
(I'm curious. . . . who all
learned to do this besides me?
I know there were others, but I don't remember.
Let me know. )
The highlight of the year for me was our fourth grade production of "Hansel and Gretel" by Englebert Humperdinck. (The original composer, 1854-1921, not the sleezey-looking singer of the '70s who stole the name. I guess it's obvious he stole it to get attention, huh? I mean, if you were going to steal a name, would you choose that one?) In retrospect, the casting of the main characters is understandable. When one placed a starched white Dutch girl's cap on Patricia Oldham's head, with her blonde hair and blue eyes. . . SHE WAS GRETEL ! I believe the most coveted role, that of the witch, went to Sherry Walker. Sheila Gilbert and Charles Sinclair, both tall for their age, were cast as the mother and father.
At this point I hope you'll
indulge me while I digress a bit in order to get something off my chest.
For those of you who may not know, in the fall of 1990 Charles Sinclair,
my friend and classmate, was arrested for a series of murders across the
country involving coin shop robberies. He died in prison while awaiting
trial. This is a sad and tragic fact, about which you can find out more
in the local area papers of that period, if you care to do some research.
When the story broke, many people jumped on the bandwagon to say things
like "what a bully he was back in high school", "they weren't
at all surprised", etc.
I'm not refuting these stories. . . . . I simply don't know.
But-- I, for one, was surprised. . . very surprised. And I want to go on
record here as saying that I never knew a nicer guy, at least up through
the sixth grade. Charles sat in the desk right behind me through both our
fifth and sixth grade years, and was always a good friend. I simply
cannot think of anything bad to say of the Charles Sinclair that I knew.
He had lost his dad in the fifth grade, and after the sixth grade
year he was held back, so that I really never had a lot of contact with
him after that.
Yes, the evidence suggests he
was guilty of horrible crimes. . . . but it's not that simple. . . . he
wasn't always a monster as some would have us believe. I can't help but
feel that somewhere along the way, we failed him. . . . his friends, his
teachers, his hometown. I regret that I couldn't have helped him in some
way to remain the sweet kid that he once had been. Life changes us. . .
all of us. ( I've personally become a skeptic, and can't believe in a lot
of the things that I once did. But for this, I am grateful. )
Rather than think of Charles of some kind of monster, I think of the rest
of us as very lucky. . . lucky that life didn't change us so drastically
as it did him. Perhaps people do become monsters; but perhaps they started
out as nice kids--human beings. . . . some are luckier than others, that's
all.
Thanks for listening. I apologize
for the digression, but it was something that I had to say.
-
- - - - - Jerry Phillips
I thnk I'll stop now. It's hard
to get back to the fourth-grade operetta after that. A little more on the
fourth grade later on.
I haven't even told you my teacher's name, have I?
She was Mrs. West, a really wonderful teacher !
(Copyright 1998, by Jalfalfa)
Subject: Jalites influence. Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 14:07:57 -0500 From: "J. Langston" <jlangston@mail.hot1.net> To: "'GPhil@ix.netcom.com'" <GPhil@ix.netcom.com>
Hey, there Jerry:
Your commentary about Charles Sinclair on the Jalfalfa page was very disturbing. I must have laid in bed for hours on several different nights mulling this over. It was news to me. Usually my mom keeps me informed of the things going on in Jal and comings and goings of Jalites. I don't know how something like that could have escaped her.
Before I continue, I want you to know that my wife agrees with you.
My memories of Charles are all pleasant and never did his behavior or demeanor invoke any concern. Perhaps, as my wife suggests, I am not as sensitive as some to the inner feelings of others.
My real concern, though, is whether we as friends or acquaintenances could have done anything differently to have prevented the eventual disaster. If this had happened during or soon after high school, or even in Jal, I would think we might shoulder some blame. The timing, apparently, however was some twenty years after high school, and I assume that he left Jal. It is very likely that, in the years following his Jal tenure, that he fell in with the wrong crowd or I suppose any number of things could have happened. But, regardless of trauma suffered, or abuse by family, or other strong influences, people must take responsibility for their own actions at some point in their lives. Our society's leaning toward liberalism over the last thirty years or so has tried to place blame on the communities or families, and rightly so, if the accused perpetrators are children, as so often is in the news these days. But not so for adults.
Even assuming that the community was neglectful what action or actions could have been taken? Unless family and friends detect some very strange behavior patterns developing, such as abuse and torture of animals, there is nothing to portend something so heinous as we have heard about this case.
Perhaps teachers are in a unique situation, able to direct and influence lives like no other segment of the community could possibly do. I think that "insensitive friends, especially boys...", to which my wife refers, do not have the opportunity or tools with which to make very much difference.
But, as Dennis Miller says, "That's just my opinion, and I could be wrong."
I'll see you tonight on the web.
John
My Reply to John
Subject: Re: Jalites influence. Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 15:24:24 -0500 From: Jerry Phillips <GPhil@ix.netcom.com> To: "J. Langston" <jlangston@mail.hot1.net> References: 1
John,
Thanks for your comments, but the Dennis Miller quote is my line...ha. I'm always using it. I really do appreciate your opinion, though; and it's made me rethink mine to some extent. This was something that had been festering down inside me ever my mom sent me newspaper clippings as the events unfolded.
At the time, I remember I was appalled at how some people in Jal were jumping on the bandwagon with derogatory comments which seemed to portray them as some sort of special prophets...."I knew this would happen someday, etc."
I started to write something at the time, but procrastinated, and eventually rationalized the situation away with "I don't want to embarrass the family with any more publicity." I feel that enough time has passed to bring up the subject now, indirectly, as part of my reminiscing.
I had my doubts as I was writing it, wondering if I was overstepping a bit...afterall, I didn't want to come off seeming as if I were condoning or excusing Charles' atrocious crimes by taking up for him.
In retrospect, I really didn't intend to suggest that anyone could have made a difference, or that we all shared somehow in the blame. That's pretty illogical. It's just that I felt some of the people who could have tried to understand betrayed a trust in order to gain a little notariaty for themselves...and I was attempting to counter-balance that...to show the "nice" kid who once existed, before the monster appeared. That's all.
As you so aptly said in the words of D.M.........it's only my opinion, I could be wrong. But I will add, that I'm grateful to you for taking the time to question and disagree with me, forcing me to look again and to re-evaluate my thoughts. It's a complex, difficult situation, and I probably wasn't as articulate as I would like to have been.
I definitely agree with you.....but I agree with me, too.
Thanks again for your response. May I post it as a 'tag' to the article?
I think it would be appropriate, and perhaps clarify things a bit.
See ya tonight, Jerry
From Nelda Wood McConnell
Subject: charles sinclair Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 16:48:28 -0500 From:
"nelda mcconnell" <nmcconnell@sundown.isd.tenet.edu> Organization:
SISD To: GPhil@ix.netcom.com
jerry, i remember the sick feeling i had when i saw the story on america's most wanted. i could not believe that the sweet,quiet young man i remember could have become the demented criminal i saw there.
i share your sentiments in that i somehow felt that i shared the blame...maybe i had missed an opportunity to make a difference. i was extremely troubled by it for many months! even now old wounds are opened. it is idealisic to say that, in a town the size of jal, we all were not affected by each other. now, that is not to say that his choices were not his own, but still, i wonder...could i have made a difference? sincerely, nelda wood mcconnell
From: Terry Williams, class of '65 (Terry moved from Jal in the 6th grade)
Subject: charles sinclair Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 20:44:04 -0600 From: "Terry Williams" <terryw@caverns.com> To: "Jerry Phillips" <GPhil@ix.netcom.com>
jerry just finished reading some of the jalfalfas.... the article about charles brought back some memories...when we were transferred from jal to midkiff, i went to school in Big Lake, Texas. during my junior and senior year charles was living in big lake working on a pulling unit i think... anyhow he began dating a good friend of mine and was every bit a gentleman and friend to anyone he met ..... i do not recall him ever being in trouble in big lake . i was raised in the same camp as charles and considered him my friend ..... i can recall spending weekends at his house after his father passed away (he lived in "town") so that was always a treat...i look back as nelda does and wonder if there was anything i could have done. but to be honest i did not see it coming and was just as shocked as everyone else about the turn of events....but to use ur quote of mr."DM" that's my opinion.... hope to here from anyone who remembers me terry williams terryw@caverns.com