1st Grade Pile Drive!

Oh boy. Is this a true story no one will believe. That is a statement, not a question. No one will believe this, I am sure of that. This DID happen.

I was 6. I was in 1st Grade. This happened in the classroom at James Bickley Elementary School.

It involved me, a 6-year old wanna-be greaser class mate of mine, a fight and a bitch of a teacher.

The year was 1981. I started going to James Bickley in the middle of the Kindergarten school year that January, after my dad was stationed at the local Air Force Base. I had been around long enough to make friends and know who the bullies were. Sometime the bullies in schools are called Teachers.

My first grade teacher was one of those. Another was a kid my age in my 1st grade class who always wore this tiny leather jacket, with his hair slicked back, looking like Stallone from Paradise Alley or Lords of Flatbush.

Slick was always pushing kids around, but I also remember he was a favorite of this bitch teacher. I don’t know why, because he was nothing but trouble. (Maybe that was the reason, he was the hard luck case, allowed to get away with stuff because he needed more attention than others. This is just a thought looking back, I know I didn’t think that at 6 years old).

He was always trying to push me around too. Problem was (still is, for better or worse), I pushed back. One day this broke out into a fight in class.

This lead us to the True Story I call 1ST GRADE PILEDRIVER

Yes, a fight broke out between me and Slick in the classroom. I remember what is was over to – He stole my Star Trek watch. He pulled it off my wrist as he walked by my desk going to his seat, after returning from the bathroom. He yank it so hard, my wrist jerked up and the strap’s pin that kept it in place broke.

I stood up, grabbed him to get my watch back and a shoving match broke out. The teacher told ME to give him the watch. It was my watch!

Then things got weird.

If we were going to fight – she was going to let us. REALLY!!

She had the entire class move their desks to the right, opening up an area to the left of the classroom. There was already a ‘play area’ with toys and books, for use during lunch and recess. She had Slick and I go to this area, and told us to get it out of our system while she went back to teaching the class.

SERIOUSLY. THIS HAPPENED. She urged us to fight.

We did.

At that time I was nowhere near the Pro Wrestling fan I would become, but I did watch it when my parents did, and I remembered some of the cool moves. So, guess what? I decided to do the smartest thing I could in a fight . . .

We were wrestling on the ground when I got to my feet and he was still on his knees, then I did it. Just like on TV. I put my legs around his head, lifted him up . . .

The Teacher screamed her head off at me . . . Too Late!

I spent the afternoon in the principal’s office, being punished. Of course my parents were called. I really had no idea what ‘suspension’ was I just knew I got out of school the next day. Slick was never called in to the principal’s office, and the principal’s never believed the story about the teacher.

Suspension or not I was at school the next morning, my mom brining me to school to confront the teacher and principal. Who else was there waiting outside our classroom? Slick and his grandmother whom he lived with. A little old Italian lady. A pissed little old Italian lady.

I thought there was going to be trouble. There wasn’t. She was here to talk to the teacher too. Slick didn’t tell her the entire truth (stealing my watch), but told her about the teacher making us fight in class. She was pissed. My mom was pissed.

A lot of parents were pissed. Turned out a number of our class mates told their parents what happened, and in turn they called the school and district to complain.

We never did see the teacher that day, but the principal was another story. Apologizes were made, my suspension was lifted and for the next week we had a substitute teacher – our regular bitch teacher was put on some sort of disciplinary leave.

The good news in all this, I got my watch back.

The better news, fortunately I had no idea how to properly do the Pile Driver.