3-B 1st Grade “Music” Lessons (Cont.) Song: “Help Me Make it Thru the Night” Photo: My Elementary School.

When the policeman walked back in the school front door, and across the lobby, my brother hid from his sight by stepping over past the window. Before proceeding with whatever that officer was planning to do with me, I saw that he had, what I now know is called a “black jack” which he was holding in the palm of his right hand, and he definitely didn’t show me that when I timidly had asked him to show me some of his cool gadgets he used. Suddenly, the policeman was only concerned about what I was looking at outside the lobby window. I told him that my brother was out there because we were supposed to walk home together. Just when I finished explaining that fact, my brother peeked in again for another look and, when BOTH my brother AND the officer saw each other, they BOTH BOLTED! My brother ran away around the rear side of the school while the officer ran through the lobby out through the front doors of the school, and they both disappeared.

When the officer returned, he was all out of breath, and my hands had become so painfully swollen and bright blue from the handcuffs he put on me being so tight, that I was panic stricken and terrified. He walked over to me, looked at my hands, reached down and pushed his index finger on one handcuff, and the pain in my hand was so excruciating that just touching made me scream a high pitched shrill. The policeman walked away, and started pacing back and forth just inside the lobby doors, then bolted outside again through the front doors, again disappearing. I was in the middle of being traumatized twice in the same afternoon, as the policeman briskly came walking back into the deserted school, and straight over to me again. He told me, to my relief, he was going to try to take the handcuffs off my wrists, and he told me that if he couldn’t, someone would have to come and cut them off, adding that if we had to wait that long, it would hurt even more. So, I bravely worked with him, and he squeezed them together hard enough that they came off! Now, he became extra nice to me, and after he went outside one last time, and returned, he told me that he was going to give me a ride home in his police car. My wrists lost their blue color, I stopped sobbing, and gladly left my school to go get to ride in a “real police car”. On the way in the same direction to where he asked I lived, he asked me if this was the way my brother walked home, explaining that he could pick him up, too, but we didn’t see him.

One of the the big questions which remains in my mind to this day is: Why was it so important for that policeman to find my brother? One of my other questions is: Why didn’t that policeman (nor anyone else) EVER ask me ANYTHING about what had happened to me at my school that day?

Unbelievably, there were others guilty of similar or worse abuse around that age, and involved both adult men and woman. I was too young to understand, then, or know how to deal with the emotionally and physically painful reminders of all the things which happened to me as a child, and I still have difficulty, but I have my life, and my music to be thankful for.

The bottom line is that no effort was ever made to apprehend any of these men or women. These incidents seemed to have been covered up, with the hope that there wouldn’t be any effort to investigate. Everything was just kept quiet. It was a “hush hush” topic, and I guess it will always remain so. I believe that it was a lot easier to keep me quiet, than for all of those involved to either be arrested, or lose their jobs.

I had to go back to my school the very next day despite the fact that I was afraid for my life, because of the actions of two teachers, office staff, as well as the policeman. Would I be sent to be alone, again, with the teacher who molested me in the green room behind the stage? Toward the end of the very next day, from my desk in the back of the class, I was looking out the window, and saw something highly unusual which frightened me. As I began to see all of the car pool cars starting to trickle in the skinny road to the large back lot, a car stopped on that entrance road, and parked right outside where I had never seen a car parked before, and a man with well-groomed blond hair wearing a white short-sleeved shirt which clearly showed that his arms were like a “muscle man”, got out of his car, and stood on the blacktop for only seconds before stepping around to the other side where none of the drivers coming in to line up in the big lot could see him. His car was a small, black, official-looking, unmarked police, or government-type, car. He had parked close to the school’s rear exit door, and just off of the one lane blacktop road attached to the carpool parking lot. Only his left wheels stayed on the blacktop. The right side of his car leaned at an angle so that no one driving past could see him, but all of the cars could easily get by. He had walked around his car, and stood so that none of the school’s teachers in their classrooms could have even seen him, either, because they would have been standing in the front of their classrooms facing their students (round table desk formations were proposed and used a year or two later), but back then, none of the other classes could have possibly noticed a person, a car, or anyone stopping, and waiting in that spot where he stood.

I was still scared to death about what happened to me the day before, and I thought that man might be out there waiting to kill me, or maybe wanted to make sure that he would shut me up good about it? Whatever the case, when the final school bells began ringing, it shocked me because to me, they sounded like alarm bells. All of the students began exiting class by class, and I saw that man appear stepping back up on the blacktop, and he started looking closely at all the children exiting out the rear school door as was usual. When I realized that he was watching very closely every single kid who filed out, I was petrified to leave the classroom. I felt as though for sure that he was looking for one particular person… ME!

So, when my teacher led our class outside, I was so afraid, that I snuck into the closet in the very back of the classroom, and hid with the closet door open just a crack. After all of the students, and most of the cars had left, I was still in that closet, and I could see through the crack that my teacher had come back into the classroom. She was at her desk putting her things together when that man walked into the classroom! I clearly heard one of them whisper loudly, “Where did he go? Then I heard, “Didn’t you SEE him?” They began carrying on in hushed ARGUMENTATIVE whispers, and both of them were sounding agitated (obviously neither of them wanted anyone hearing them). They continued quarreling with each other in whispers as they walked out together, and left.

The fact that I was a 1st grader hiding in a closet afraid for my life says a lot about how negative, and traumatic, my whole 1st grade was. I wonder what would have happened to me if my teacher had successfully arranged to have me taken away that day with that muscle man? This was not a good way to start my educational experience. That only made me distrust ALL authority figures, and all of my childhood traumas combined, were the reason that I carried a “chip on my shoulder” which developed even stronger when physically abused in both my Junior High School, and high schools, which greatly affected my life. I also realize, now, that I apparently wasn’t even aware that I had a chip on my shoulder type attitude.

Its duty to perform

Each individual’s vagaries

Each persons private storm --

To seek the purpose in one’s life

T’aint easy son, and you’ll agree

Life sometimes seems a mockery.

The human faults — the unjust codes —

the customs, mores -- heavy loads,

The problems each one faces.

The anger, hurt — the grief, disgrace

These burdens, son, all have their place.

But often cause some folks to fall

Into a well of dark defeat

Where joy and laughter — love and peace

Are far off dreams beyond one's reach.

God has his plan —

He knows the way to help each one

Imagine - fathom his day

If you will listen, trust and pray.

A simple prayer each troubled day.

"Stay with me Lord", is all you need say.

Then sometimes in the midst of gloom

His presence penetrates your room.

If faith in God and trust in prayer

survive the subtle sins and snares --

If in a world that tears apart all

worthwhile goals of the human heart --

If you can only patiently wait out the

puzzling mystery --

If purpose, prodding, chin up charm

will harken to the Christ's alarm --

Then surely peace will come around

And you will know his goals are sound.

Yes, my son, our nation's past

Is blessed with deeds which long will last.

Our country's heritage remains secure --

Steadfastly search for those things pure --

Always do as you know you must —

Remember the motto — “In God we trust”.