Bob

Batz

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July 24, 2009

Weapons in School? Not Back in the Day!

I heard a radio message the other day that’s apparently aimed at ending the wave of violence currently sweeping the country.

The spot went like this: “Students: Never bring a weapon to school.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Of course students shouldn’t bring weapons to school.  

When I was a kid, I never even thought about taking a weapon to Oak Street Elementary. Not once did I ever ask my mother “Hey, Mom, can I take a weapon to school?”

I didn’t ask her that because I knew my mother would say “no,” then ground me for 11 months, make me eat double portions of lima beans every night at supper and force me sit in front of our enormous Philco radio for hours on end listening to dorky soap operas with her.

Weapons in school? Forget it. Back then, school kids couldn’t even chew gum in class, and those who were caught doing it were promptly paddled by the principal, so it stands to reason school officials wouldn’t allow us pack heat on the playground.

Besides, except for the occasional class bully – every school had at least one – we weren’t violent kids in the late 1940s.

Oh, sure, we used broken pieces of chalk to scrawl things like “Kilroy Was Here” on sidewalks, but we never hurt anyone with our questionable writing talents.

Then, there were all those times a bunch of us boys would stand under the school fire escape so we could look up the skirts of girls who were cleaning erasers two floors above us, even though we didn’t have the foggiest idea what we were looking for.

All in all, we were pretty good kids back then, even if Harold Dingman probably wouldn’t agree with that statement if he were alive today.

Dingman – we always called him “Mr. Dingman” – operated a tiny grocery store three blocks from Oak Street Elementary, and every day when school let out the place was packed with kids buying penny candy.

The store was open on weekends, too, and sometimes when a few of us neighborhood kids got bored with playing marbles or hide and seek, we’d scrounge up a dime, go to the nearest pay telephone and dial up the store.

When Mr. Dingman answered, one of us would ask “Do you have pop in the bottle?”

When Mr. Dingman said “Yes, we do,” the caller would say “Well you’d better let him out because mom wants him home for dinner.”

Contact Bob at bbatz@woh.rr.com

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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