I had a great view of the third pitch. Jim was a right-handed batter and I was standing there on first base with a full view. As the ball floated in, Jim reached back and with a quick twist at the hip and a snap of the wrists, he sent the ball screaming toward the school. The ball carried over the center-fielder’s head, and landed on the gravel laid out for the school buses to travel on. The ball had cleared the entire outfield in the air, took one bounce past the school and rolled all the way into the ditch by the road. I ran as fast as I could rounding second, headed for third.
At third, even Mike coached me. “Slow down, you’ve got lots of time.”
I rounded third, as quickly as I could and steamed home. I touched the plate, and turned around to see where Jim was. As I did, he touched the plate too, having slowed down, not to pass me. In the excitement, I was bumped to the ground. I got up quickly, slapped him on the back and said, “Way to go!”
“You too,” he replied. “We’re ahead three to nothing.”
The big guys came in to congratulate Jim. Everyone wanted to talk about his big hit. After a few moments of celebration, Mike and several others didn’t want to play anymore. It was too damp, they said. “We’ll play tomorrow.”
“We have to go too,” Jim replied. “We haven’t eaten lunch yet.”
“What about us,” Ron called in. “When do we get to hit?”
“You’ll have a chance to hit tomorrow,” Jim said, as we walked up to the school to measure the hit.
“We beat the big guys today,” I said to Jim. “Yeah, you had a big hit too,” he replied.
By Grade Four, Jim was completely overpowering at softball. He would prove he was the best at the school.
The Grade Eight’s had organized a hitting and throwing contest. They wanted to determine the best player at the school. The winner was a big strapping farm kid who was a couple years older than the rest of his classmates.
The Grade Eight’s then pitted him against Jim. “Gary, you hit first,” they said.
Gary threw the ball up into the air and with a mighty swing, hit the ball a long way out into the outfield. Jim was next.
“It looks impossible to beat that hit,” someone said, as Jim launched one that landed further than Gary’s had rolled. “I take that back,” he said quickly to roars of laughter.
The throwing event was a repeat of the hitting event. Jim threw the ball so far that all those who were there could only laugh. He was the undisputed hitting and throwing champion of the school, and he was only in Grade Four.
III—WAY DOWN UPON THE SWANEE RIVER
“Way down upon the Swanee River, far, far away…” so the song goes in words that I still find distasteful. Our Grade Three teacher standing at the front of the class was all business that day.
“Sally, recite Swanee River.”
To our surprise, Sally stood up and effortlessly recited every word of the song. Donna did the same. So did Marjorie and Martha after her.
With the boys, it was a different matter. Pete started it off, then Scott, then Charlie, then Jim, then me. None of us, except for Paul got past the title.
“Okay, you guys,” the teacher said, “you’re going to stay inside every recess and noon hour until you can recite Swanee River from memory. And then I want you to sing it to me.”
During the first recess, locked in the class room, we did everything we could think of, except study Swanee River. We looked at hockey cards, shuffled desks so that Sally’s was in Marjorie’s spot; Marjorie’s was in Charlie’s; Charlie’s was in Pete’s, and so on. We never even looked at Swanee River.
At noon hour, we resumed our unsupervised detentions in the classroom.
“Let’s sharpen pencils,” someone wise-owled.
“Great idea,” we replied as we made our way through the various desks, brought the pencils to the mechanical pencil sharpener and grinded away at them.
“Hey, guys,” Jim said partway through the noon hour, “let’s learn this thing and get out of here.”
We wanted to agree with him. We said things like, “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s learn it.” But we didn’t. We continued with the quiet mayhem, enjoying the sense of rebellion we were discovering.
The teacher came to the classroom about five minutes before the bell rang to mark the start of class.
“Is anyone ready to sing Swanee River yet?” she asked.
Jim put up his hand, his long hand, “I think I’m ready,” he replied, as he started to recite the song. To our surprise, he got through the whole thing.
“Good, Jim,” the teacher replied. “You’re free to go for the rest of the noon hour and for the afternoon recess.
The rest of us continued with the rebellion for a couple more days. One day, we found a whole bundle of pencils which had been left on the teacher’s desk. They were neatly wrapped with an elastic band, all of them brand new.
“Let’s sharpen them,” someone said.
“Good idea,” we all replied and got to work sharpening them. We pushed at each pencil until each one was sharpened as far down the pencil as possible, leaving short pencils, about two inches long. When we had finished the last one, we tried to bundle them and put them back where we had found them. We couldn’t bundle them with the elastic because the pencils were too short. After several tries at it, we decided we should glue them together with the white glue we had in our desks. The glue didn’t work either, so we made many small bundles with the elastic bands. We set them in the top drawer of the teacher’s desk. We thought we were heroes as we told Jim about it.
Jim listened quietly, then he said, “Come on, guys. Just learn the song so you can get out of here. Let’s build snow forts, or play ball or do something.” The next recess, we all studied hard.
“Way down upon the Swanee River, far, far away,” we repeated over and over again.
When the teacher came in at the end of recess, four of us successfully got through it. One stumbled in the middle of it, but the teacher let him off the hook. We were free to go. Everything would have ended quietly that day, except that once class began, one of the students put up his hand.
“Miss,” he said, “I need a new pencil.”
“What happened to yours?” the teacher asked impatiently.
“Someone sharpened it too much,” he said as the class room filled with laughter.
“Come up here,” she replied.
As our buddy walked toward the teacher’s desk, she pulled open the drawer on the top, left side of her desk. She shrieked as she looked in to see the multiple bundles of short pencils.
“Who did this?” she asked. “Okay, then. You will all stay in at recess until you tell me who is responsible for this.”
We were right back in detention. It was the girls who bailed us out. One of them said, “Let’s all take the blame for it. That way, no one will get punished too severely.”
Naturally,