My First Encounter with the Man Child of Bell Elementary

Long ago on a playground now redeveloped with a new school building I first encountered a rare species of human... the man child.  It was the late summer of 1968... a time of growth, change and new beginnings.  Albania had just left the Warsaw Pact... the Soviets had just launched Zond 5 to circle the moon... and I was learning the importance of gravity, force and might first hand on the Bell Elementary playground. 

Being a perpetual late bloomer and only a month or so within my sixth year, I probably ranked among the schools most naive and trusting students.  I had not attended kindergarten or preschool.  First grade was a abrupt change of life for me educationally and socially. 

One aspect of this new lifestyle that I did like was recess... a 45 minute escape from addition, subtraction, reading about Billy and Sue... and practicing my upper and lower case letters.  Ms. Bee was my first grade playground coach.  She was a tall woman with athletic features, wore sunglasses and a whistle.  Ms. Bee was all about fun, but with a few rules... no fighting and no tackling while playing football.  Everything else seemed to be allowed... just NO tackling.  Of course... it didn't take long for me to realize that meant no tackling when Ms. Bee was on our end of the playground.  It also didn't cover blocking, running over or pushing.  Okay... maybe pushing was in the gray area of the rules.

Now... being one of the youngest and smallest kids can be viewed as a disadvantage... especially when playing football while Ms. Bee is watching the girls play kickball on the other side of the playground.  It was during such time that I learned an important lesson about gravity and force, as well as being introduced to the man child of Bell Elementary. 

The man child shall remain nameless in this blog.  He was actually a really nice kid, but a brute with the strength and power of a Farm All tractor.  As I said before... I was a late bloomer.  He on the other hand was an early bloomer... way early!  I'm pretty sure he had entered and cleared puberty sometime during his kindergarten year.  What I originally thought to be dirt on his face was actually a five o'clock shadow.  His physique somewhat mirrored that of a young Silverback gorilla. If I could have seen through the hair on his arms I am pretty sure I would have found a tatoo from a brief stint in the Marines.

Up to this time I had not been formally introduced to the man child.  I was in Miss Hendley's first grade class, and I believe he was in Mrs. Chamber's class.  We were only a couple of weeks into the school year and young boys going to recess were more interested in playing than formally meeting everyone else.  Play now... know names later. 

On this day of my introduction to physics... several of us had divided up and began to play football.  Ms. Bee was hoovering around the playground, so we abided by her rules.  But... as she moved to the other end of the playground, we began to tackle each other.  We hurried through as many plays as possible while Ms. Bee was away... getting as  dirty and rough with each other as we could... dog piling... gang tackling... it was all good, even for the fat little kid (me). 

It was about at this time that my life changed.  While on defense I decided I was going to tackle this hairy kid with the ball all by myself.  He was running a sweep around the right side and there was nothing but little ole me keeping him from scoring.  Now... the man child was not one to make a fancy move and avoid contact.  As a matter of fact, when he saw I was the only thing keeping him from scoring... he made a sound much like a diesel truck going into high gear.  Smoke bellowed from his ears as his head lowered and smashed into my chest.  As my back hit flat on the ground a cloud of red dirt fanned out from under me.  A size 11 or better Converse pounded my chest like bulls thrundering down the streets of Pamplona.

Once air became available I slowly got up and wondered how much fun the girls were having playing kickball.  The man child rumbled across the dusty playground over the next thirty or forty minutes, leaving nothing but scrapes, bruises and injured egos in his wake.

While my first encounter with the man child was a learning experience... I later found out I had much to learn.

To be continued...