Some of you may remember that I was born in KY and started the first grade there. My teacher (Mrs. Wilder) DID NOT like me. On one occasion a student who sat behind me returned to school after a long illness. As it so often happens the teacher had rearranged some seats during his absence. I simply said to him as he started to sit down, "You don't sit there anymore." That was all I said.
Several minutes passed and the next thing I knew I was being jerked from my seat and pushed into the Principal's office. The student I spoke to had left the school grounds and walked alone on one of the busiest highways in McKinney, Ky. He walked all the way to the high school (about a mile away) and told his sister that Glenn Peck said I don't have a desk anymore. She goes to her Principal's office, who contacts my teacher/principal, and I am being charged with the crime of the century. I made a mild protest, but was sentenced to a week sitting in at recess time. I loved to play marbles; but it was another week before I got to play.
Side Bar Note: I had some excellent marble genes in my DNA: My Dad was Lincoln County marble champ and several years later my cousin, on my mother's side, was crowned county marble champion.
From then on, if anything happened in Mrs Wilder's class, I was the usual suspect.
Thankfully, my folks along with Coleman Frederick's clan moved to Jennings Co, Lovett Township, in early 1948. Wow! What a difference! The Lovett school had sidewalks and kids could bring their strap on skates and toy farm tractors to play with. My marble days were history. And they even had a school cafeteria and I didn't have to lug my lunch in an old Karo syrup bucket.
The kids at Lovett treated me well, but I felt like the odd man out. Then it happened. We were doing some math problems and I was the only kid to get the right answer. Mrs Branham said something that literally changed my life. She said smiling at me, "Do I have to send all of you to Kentucky to catch up with Glenn?" At that exact moment I felt that I was somebody special and I could achieve in school and she saw in me the potential Mrs. Wilder never noticed.
Maybe in another blog, I'll tell the story of how we came close to not moving to Indiana. It is nothing less than God's hand at work. My life and future changed forever when I joined the Lovett first grade team. Many of the students who welcomed me into the Lovett first grade graduated with me at Paris Crossing in April of 1959.
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