I learned more than just the three “R”s.

By the time I had gotten to school on that first day back in 1965 almost everyone else had been seated in Mrs. Brokaw’s fifth grade classroom. My buddy Charleyhorse and I weren’t exactly late, not officially anyway. In fact, we had just gotten there in time to grab the last two seats available where we could sit next to each other. That seating arrangement lasted about twenty seconds. Just long enough for Mrs. Brokaw to lift Charleyhorse up by his shirt collar and drag him to an empty seat nearer to her own desk in the front of the room.

I was left alone in the fourth row; five seats back with an empty desk to my right. I quickly scanned the room and noticed that my other pals Norm Keller and Richard Morgan had both already been seated. I felt sick; I was going to get stuck sitting next to someone I didn’t like, or worse, some cootified girl.

Then she entered the room—Uteena Tansovich. She was carrying her school supplies in a tote bag and swinging it to and fro as she moved up the aisle looking with dread at the only empty seat left for her in the classroom. She smiled at Ruth Coddington, the creepy girl sitting in front of me and then looked through me as if I weren’t there.

Suddenly I found myself fascinated by Uteena; her big green eyes, her golden brown hair, the summer tan that contrasted nicely against her pink sundress. I stared as she sat down with the gracefulness of a ballerina and felt my eyeballs start to pop out of my head as she bent over to put her school supplies under her seat. I nearly fainted when she looked up and caught me staring at her as if I had never seen a pretty girl before—I hadn’t.

Then she smiled at me and whispered a soft “hi” in a voice that only an angel could possess. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. My jaw was moving, I could feel my lips forming syllables but there was no sound—I was breathless. The frozen moment passed quickly and Uteena moved on with her day. I suppose I did too after I regained my senses, but I was forever changed.

I doubt I can recite anything that I remembered from that year in Mrs. Brokaw’s fifth grade classroom but the one lesson I learned on the first day stayed with me the rest of my life.

Girls aren’t so creepy after all.