Elementary School Reflections
This post was first made on September 3rd, 2007, on Facebook.
My parents are moving to Portland about three days after I leave for school, so all three of us are packing our stuff and deciding what we want to move and what we want to leave. Yesterday we moved about a thousand boxes down from the attic and today we started sorting through them to figure out what was worth keeping and what wasn't. A whole lot of my toys went to the Union Gospel Mission, along with such gems as an LP player and my old stroller. We also had to sift through lots of empty boxes because my father insists on keeping the box for every piece of technology he buys. Do you think that the box for an original Apple printer is worth anything? If so, feel free to root through our recycling bin.
What we also kept up there were all my preschool and elementary school assignments. As I brought these assignments home from school, graded, at the end of every year, my Mom and I would decide that there was too much sentimental value there to throw the items away, so instead we did the next best thing: we threw them into big cardboard boxes which we then hauled up to the attic. To this day I maintain that forgetting about things in the attic is the best way to deal with them. The downside is that when you move, you do have to deal with stuff again. Today I went through these boxes to find out how much of my old work was, in fact, significant and worth saving. During this search, I discovered two things:
1) Had we given the mouse in our attic maybe another month, he would've probably eaten most of the evidence that I had ever gone to elementary school, and then pooped some more on whatever was left.
2) The stuff that was left uneaten makes for prime blog material.
When I look back at the work that I used to do, I can easily spot indications of my desire to be a writer, even though at the time I probably would've resented the idea of being anything but a tow truck driver. Several journals from first grade are full of pages where I'd scrawled down nearly incomprehensible entries, most of them beginning with "I wish...", accompanied by huge and bizarre illustrations that give the viewer a disturbing peek into the mind of Truman Capps, age 6. Rather than writing down what had happened to me during the day, which I'm sure my teachers wanted me to do, I would instead write down what I had wanted to happen to me that day.
I WISHE MY DADE WAS A USED CARE SALESMAN (I wish my dad was a used car salesman) - Having spent most of my summer around car salesmen, I'd like to retract this one.
I WISHE I GOT A MONTAN CABEN (I wish I got a mountain cabin) - Where did this come from? I really don't know. I've always had some form of vertigo and I never really enjoyed 'roughing it'. Most of my fantasies at the time came from movies that I watched, so I'd probably seen something on TV about the mountains before I wrote this.
I WISHE I HADE A MOBIL HOM (I wish I had a mobile home) - As you can tell from the original spellings here, I had a lot of trouble with writing as a little kid. To this day I have terrible handwriting and it hurts my hand to use a pen or pencil for too long, and it was even worse back then. In order to get my overly creative fantasies onto paper, I would instead draw what I saw in my head. These pictures usually featured the characters from the Mario video games involved in epic car chases ripped off from the James Bond movies I watched. The illustration for 'MOBIL HOM' (on permanent display at the Guggenheim) was of a boxy mobile home that was probably well over eight stories tall and included a swimming pool and gym. So I guess I still do want a mobile home, but only if it's that mobile home and I don't have to drive it through any tunnels.
I completed half of first grade at Columbia Heights Elementary in Longview, Washington, a pleasant little paper mill town that always smelled like cat pee. After Dad lost his job there, we had to move, and that was how the Capps family wound up in Oregon. I really hated the move: my new first grade teacher, Mrs. Whotam, was a fat lady who always seemed to go out of her way to be mean to me. Once, during lunch, she walked past me and stole my Twix bar, probably intending to make some sort of joke. She left the room with it sticking out of her back pocket and I got right up and followed her. I trailed her out of the classroom (it was against the rules to leave the room without permission) and into the supply room (strictly off limits due to all the dangerous craft tools), where she turned around, saw me, and scolded me harshly for breaking the rules. Well, bitch, what did you expect when you stole a candy bar from a goddamn six year old!?
Ahem. Long story short, I really hated it in Salem, so I was really happy to receive a letter from my first grade teacher back in Longview, Mrs. Ellis. I wrote back to her (I don't remember what I wrote, but it probably had a lot to do with what I wished Salem was like), and then about a week later I got a big envelope in the mail, full of letters that she'd had my entire Longview first grade class write to me.
(Note: In case you didn't know, I went by Scott, my middle name, until I was a Freshman)
Brianna: "Daer Scot Yore cooL. Ps rite bake."
Kyle: "Dere scott I hop you are haveing a good Time aT Salem. our clas miss you ho and reemember wen you goT in a fite wiTh That Kid and me and Kyah helpt you" - Maybe I remembered then, but I certainly don't now. A fight? Me? That doesn't sound right at all. Also, I like how Kyle called me a ho in there.
Spencer: "Dear Scoot why did you adopted a wolf p.s. read this to the family" - My Salem first grade class 'adopted' a wolf in some wildlife refuge up in Alaska or Canada, by which I mean Mrs. Whotem mailed some conservation society a few dollars every month (money she probably made from fencing stolen Twix bars, the old whore) and they sent us updates periodically about what our wolf had been doing. I guess I included this in the letter that I sent to Mrs. Ellis and she told the class, but Spencer evidently didn't hear much beyond 'Scott adopted a wolf'.
Brianna: "Dear Scot I hop yore haveing fun in Salem. I wish you wr in are clas. yore nise scot. I Like you Scot."
Matt: "Are you having fun in Salem? The rats dide. And we got guinea pigs."
Brianna: "Dear scot I Like you Love Briana"
Alicia: "Dear Scott. Why did you adopted a wolf. Did you know that when it grows up it is going to be a wiled Animal?"
Brianna: "Daer scot I Love you Love Briana"
For the life of me, I can't remember who Brianna was.
My parents are moving to Portland about three days after I leave for school, so all three of us are packing our stuff and deciding what we want to move and what we want to leave. Yesterday we moved about a thousand boxes down from the attic and today we started sorting through them to figure out what was worth keeping and what wasn't. A whole lot of my toys went to the Union Gospel Mission, along with such gems as an LP player and my old stroller. We also had to sift through lots of empty boxes because my father insists on keeping the box for every piece of technology he buys. Do you think that the box for an original Apple printer is worth anything? If so, feel free to root through our recycling bin.
What we also kept up there were all my preschool and elementary school assignments. As I brought these assignments home from school, graded, at the end of every year, my Mom and I would decide that there was too much sentimental value there to throw the items away, so instead we did the next best thing: we threw them into big cardboard boxes which we then hauled up to the attic. To this day I maintain that forgetting about things in the attic is the best way to deal with them. The downside is that when you move, you do have to deal with stuff again. Today I went through these boxes to find out how much of my old work was, in fact, significant and worth saving. During this search, I discovered two things:
1) Had we given the mouse in our attic maybe another month, he would've probably eaten most of the evidence that I had ever gone to elementary school, and then pooped some more on whatever was left.
2) The stuff that was left uneaten makes for prime blog material.
When I look back at the work that I used to do, I can easily spot indications of my desire to be a writer, even though at the time I probably would've resented the idea of being anything but a tow truck driver. Several journals from first grade are full of pages where I'd scrawled down nearly incomprehensible entries, most of them beginning with "I wish...", accompanied by huge and bizarre illustrations that give the viewer a disturbing peek into the mind of Truman Capps, age 6. Rather than writing down what had happened to me during the day, which I'm sure my teachers wanted me to do, I would instead write down what I had wanted to happen to me that day.
I WISHE MY DADE WAS A USED CARE SALESMAN (I wish my dad was a used car salesman) - Having spent most of my summer around car salesmen, I'd like to retract this one.
I WISHE I GOT A MONTAN CABEN (I wish I got a mountain cabin) - Where did this come from? I really don't know. I've always had some form of vertigo and I never really enjoyed 'roughing it'. Most of my fantasies at the time came from movies that I watched, so I'd probably seen something on TV about the mountains before I wrote this.
I WISHE I HADE A MOBIL HOM (I wish I had a mobile home) - As you can tell from the original spellings here, I had a lot of trouble with writing as a little kid. To this day I have terrible handwriting and it hurts my hand to use a pen or pencil for too long, and it was even worse back then. In order to get my overly creative fantasies onto paper, I would instead draw what I saw in my head. These pictures usually featured the characters from the Mario video games involved in epic car chases ripped off from the James Bond movies I watched. The illustration for 'MOBIL HOM' (on permanent display at the Guggenheim) was of a boxy mobile home that was probably well over eight stories tall and included a swimming pool and gym. So I guess I still do want a mobile home, but only if it's that mobile home and I don't have to drive it through any tunnels.
I completed half of first grade at Columbia Heights Elementary in Longview, Washington, a pleasant little paper mill town that always smelled like cat pee. After Dad lost his job there, we had to move, and that was how the Capps family wound up in Oregon. I really hated the move: my new first grade teacher, Mrs. Whotam, was a fat lady who always seemed to go out of her way to be mean to me. Once, during lunch, she walked past me and stole my Twix bar, probably intending to make some sort of joke. She left the room with it sticking out of her back pocket and I got right up and followed her. I trailed her out of the classroom (it was against the rules to leave the room without permission) and into the supply room (strictly off limits due to all the dangerous craft tools), where she turned around, saw me, and scolded me harshly for breaking the rules. Well, bitch, what did you expect when you stole a candy bar from a goddamn six year old!?
Ahem. Long story short, I really hated it in Salem, so I was really happy to receive a letter from my first grade teacher back in Longview, Mrs. Ellis. I wrote back to her (I don't remember what I wrote, but it probably had a lot to do with what I wished Salem was like), and then about a week later I got a big envelope in the mail, full of letters that she'd had my entire Longview first grade class write to me.
(Note: In case you didn't know, I went by Scott, my middle name, until I was a Freshman)
Brianna: "Daer Scot Yore cooL. Ps rite bake."
Kyle: "Dere scott I hop you are haveing a good Time aT Salem. our clas miss you ho and reemember wen you goT in a fite wiTh That Kid and me and Kyah helpt you" - Maybe I remembered then, but I certainly don't now. A fight? Me? That doesn't sound right at all. Also, I like how Kyle called me a ho in there.
Spencer: "Dear Scoot why did you adopted a wolf p.s. read this to the family" - My Salem first grade class 'adopted' a wolf in some wildlife refuge up in Alaska or Canada, by which I mean Mrs. Whotem mailed some conservation society a few dollars every month (money she probably made from fencing stolen Twix bars, the old whore) and they sent us updates periodically about what our wolf had been doing. I guess I included this in the letter that I sent to Mrs. Ellis and she told the class, but Spencer evidently didn't hear much beyond 'Scott adopted a wolf'.
Brianna: "Dear Scot I hop yore haveing fun in Salem. I wish you wr in are clas. yore nise scot. I Like you Scot."
Matt: "Are you having fun in Salem? The rats dide. And we got guinea pigs."
Brianna: "Dear scot I Like you Love Briana"
Alicia: "Dear Scott. Why did you adopted a wolf. Did you know that when it grows up it is going to be a wiled Animal?"
Brianna: "Daer scot I Love you Love Briana"
For the life of me, I can't remember who Brianna was.