Memories of '68, Part 1

1968 is a memorable year, as a book I’m currently reading attest (Kurlansky’s 1968: The Year that Rocked the World). The whole world seemed to be in flux. And neither my middle class neighborhood in Myrtle Grove Sound nor my fifth grade class at Bradley Creek Elementary School were spared.

Mr. Briggs was my fifth grade teacher. Tall and lanky, he looked a lot like the actor who played Mr. Chips in the movie by the same name. He was my first male teacher and the only man teaching at Bradley Creek, the only other men at the school being our principal Mr. Moore and the custodian. Mr. Briggs had his hand full with a group of us who had been put together in the fourth grade and moved up into his classroom. I think they kept us together, thinking that a male teacher could make up behave, but we challenged that proposition. This was back in the days when paddling was an approved form of punishment and Mr. Briggs weapons were yardsticks from Cape Fear Ford. They were cheap and broke easily and by mid-year several of us had a contest going as to who would have the most yardsticks broken over their bums. If my memory is correct, Billy won with six, Bobby had three and Mark, Stacy and I all had two broken on us. Carl came through unscathed.

As a young man, our teacher had been in the Marine Corp. From what I recall he ran away in from home and joined up when he was 16 or 17 and at boot camp found himself stationed in the Philippines. It was a pretty good assignment, but then the Second World War began. When the Philippines fell, he along with the rest of the soldiers from American and the Philippines became Japanese Prisoners of War and endured three years of hell. It didn’t help matters that Hogan’s Heroes was popular at the time. We didn’t really understand what he went through. I remember several of us asking him why he didn’t escape and he told us the story of what the Japanese did to some who were caught. Although sobering, it didn’t sink in and he really didn’t talk much about his experiences as a POW. With images of a POW camp being ran by the likes of Col. Klink, we all bragged the following year when he left teaching elementary school for a Junior College, that the Japanese couldn’t beat him, but we could. Although I never thought of myself as a child in the fifth grade, thinking back on my memories, I’m reminded that children can be cruel.

I really don’t remember much about his class except for a few snippets. I wrote a report on the Pony Express, my first real "research paper." This was a beginning. Little did I know that I’d grow up to write a dissertation focusing on Western American history.

Another memory is being forced to play volleyball, which us guys thought was sissy. When the ball came my way, I kicked it out across the playground, not knowing that Mr. Briggs with his stick was standing behind me. He whacked his yardstick across my thighs, breaking it.

The fifth grade was also when I feel in love for the first time. Diane wore her hair up in a beehive, which seemed so mature for an eleven-year-old (and so hideous now). One day we were whispering back and forth in class when she said, "watch it." I jumped up just as Mr. Briggs yardstick came swinging my way. I landed on top of his stick and made sure it was broken before he pulled it out from under me. Diane moved at the end of the year and our relationship didn’t continue.

Diane moved back five years later and was in my 10th grade English class. Her beehive was gone and she wore unkempt hair and dressed in ratty clothes. I didn’t recognize her at first, which was okay as I had long gotten over our crush. One of our assignments was to write and present a paper to the class about how to deal with the world’s population problems. We all gasped and she nearly gave the English teacher a heart attack when she suggested same sex relationships should be encouraged as a fool-proof way to cut down on population growth. That was pretty radical for a school in the South in 1972 or 73. I was relieved that no one remembered the two of us had been an item back in the fifth grade.

I’ve written enough for this post, but have plenty more as I recall camping with the Boy Scouts, Vietnam, the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the riots that spring, the ‘68 elections, my transistor radio and other memories. Stay tuned.