Moment: 060 Five Palms Elementary

When I lived on Echo Valley I went to Five Palms Elementary- At least I think that was the name of that school- I went to like 3 or 4 different elementary schools so it gets a little confusing. Anyway-

Five Palms was alright. I mean, I liked it- more than my other schools so far.
For third grade I had Mrs. McCormick and for fourth grade I had Ms. Buck.

Ms. Buck I'll never forget because she gave me a ride home after the fourth grade picnic and we did the egg race together. She was very pretty. She had long, straight, dark hair and a butt that was- thick- meaning she was a healthy girl but by no means fat- Hmmmm- I would say she was like Jennifer Lopez but not hispanic-

Okay, spending waaaaaaay too much time thinking about Ms. Buck's butt.

*Ahem*

So- one of the really cool things to do in the morning before school started- a lot of boys would bring tennis balls to school. They would stand back about 10 feet off the wall behind the school.
Boys who hadn't brought a ball would attempt to run the length of the wall without getting hit by the hail of tennis balls being thrown at him while they ran.

That game was fun as hell! I always got a great rush out of running past that wall with tennis balls slapping against the brick with that loud "SPOOCK!"- sometimes it would be right in front of your face.

Another game we used to play- and looking back- this game was soooooo UN-Politically Correct in it's name- It was called "Smear the queer".
Now, this game was known across every playground and school yard in Texas I'd ever been on and non of us kids had any idea how fucked up the name of this game was- Honestly! It was just what it was called.
I felt that way about "Gerry-rig" too until I heard the word "Nigger-rig" (Gerry-rig is the German or Nazi version of Nigger-rig).

I digress...

This is how you played smear queer (as if you didn't already know)-
You get a group of people together and a football.
You all huddle together and throw the ball up in the air.
The person who picks up the ball runs for their life while everyone else tries to tackle (smear) them.
When that person is tackled eventually- they throw the ball up in the air and we start all over.

It's a hell of a game and beats the shit out of Atari.

So sometimes we would play Smear The Queer in the morning.

There was one dude who was mad popular in my grade- his name was Ronnie. He was this black kid who was hella fast, so he was our track star. He hung with this blond haired kid- named Mathew, I think.

Another kid was named Nathaniel. Nathaniel was- as my mom would say- "so black he was purple" and he was a fuckin' bully.

Now, when Ronnie got the ball we spent a long time chasing him- and when Nathaniel got the ball we spent a long time trying to knock him down.
I fell somewhere in between these two but I could run the ball for a good long while.

Ronnie was friendly- kinda but he kinda treated me like the nerd I was and did I mention that Nathaniel was a bully?

One time we played a game of STQ and Nathaniel ripped my house key from my neck and sent it sailing- the bell rang and he just laughed as he trotted away. Man! I was pissed (I was a bit of a hothead back then anyway).
I spent a long time looking for my key but I finally found it and went into the school. I actually challenged Nathaniel to a fight later but somehow it never went down. Maybe he didn't take me serious- I can't remember...


Sometime after that there was this new kid who came to our school. I'm gonna call him Steve.

Here's the thing- Steve was 9 and was sure he was gay. And he pretty much was! Everything about that kid screamed that he was gay- from the way he carried himself, to the dolls he would have- We used to draw comic books together and I would draw Spiderman and he would draw Wonder Woman.
All of his Wonder Woman adventures would be cool as hell though- she would be kicking ass and trying to look beautiful. And he had a real nice style for his age- I remember him drawing her with real long legs.
Steve and I were pretty tight friends- but all the other boys would make fun of him for being gay and therefore make fun of me for hanging with him. I didn't understand what the big deal was- It was so stupid. We were outcasts but we had a good time.

Steve must have had some weird shit going on in his house (I feel like I went there once but I can't clearly remember) because I remember seeing him in some weird places all by himself just hanging out.

One Saturday, my brother and I got up at 6am and went down to the living room with our covers and a big bowl of cereal and started watching cartoons- That's what you did on a Saturday (I just realized my kids do the same fucking thing- except the cereal is usually a Nutella sandwich and cartoons come on EVERY day so it doesn't have to be Saturday).

So everything is going cool when about 7:30 someone rings the doorbell- And it's fuckin' STEVE!
I invited him in- the three of us are sitting on the couch with the covers draped across us- watching toons.

About 9:30 or 10- my Parents came out-
Now, my parents are anti-social out the ass. They didn't like kids coming over or us going to stay at other people's houses or any of that shit. So here it is- 10am and there's this little white kid sitting on the couch with us. I thought they were gonna freak-
Of course they didn't- Steve had breakfast with us and hung out and my parents were really cool about the whole thing. My mom kept looking at him all weird like "WTF?"
But that was really fun.

I don't know what happened to Steve- I did run into Ronnie when we started going to this big Baptist church downtown. Ronnie's dad was one of the bigwigs that worked with the Reverend there. That church was on the radio and everything- it was HUGE and you would be there like a job as it went on for like 6 hours-
So I ran into him one week- then the next week they had this big sermon on the evils of being gay- I was like- "that stupid motherfucker".


Yeah. Five Palms...It was cool.