seki900

We had just moved, my family and I to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range from the bay area. This was around 1972 as I was about to start 3rd grade. I had been just diagnosed as hard of hearing a short while ago and the hearing aides where on order but had not arrived yet. It was still however the first day of school.

Big changes new routines. It was very different from what I was used to. Before I could just walk to school just before the class started, now I had to take a bus that arrived at school about an hour before classes started. I played some of the schoolyard games before classes started and met some of my new classmates as well as some of the people that I had meet during the summer before school started.

The teacher assigned the seating alphabetically this put me near the back of the room. I quickly lost interest in the class I was waiting for recess. This came and went and I knew that the next break would be lunchtime. In the school that I came from we where just dismissed and made our way to the cafeteria I was expecting the same here.

It was different here it was a small school it didn’t really have a cafeteria or rather the cafeteria doubled as the kindergarten classroom. When the time came the teacher said “Alright it is lunchtime everyone line up by the door…” That was all I needed to hear, I made my way to the door.

Then it got strange there was a girl behind me that was seemed to be upset about something as far a I could tell it didn’t concern me. Until the teacher came up to me and said, “What are you doing here?” I told her, “Waiting to go to lunch.”

“Well we can’t go just yet, there is something out of place. Didn’t you hear me when I said girls in the front of the line and boys in the back?” I told her “No I didn’t.”
That got the teacher exasperated. “What’s the matter with you are you deaf or something?” she demanded. “Yes I am.”

“What! You know that’s not true. You’re just asking for a trip to the principal’s office.”
“No.” I told her, “It is true, it should be in my records, you did read them didn’t you?”
“Alright I have had enough of you, I am going to check those records and when I find that you are lying you are going straight to the principal.” Then she said “Class your going to be late for lunch and you can all thank this trouble maker here.”

The office for the school was in the next room there was a door that connected the two and that door had a window in it. I watched the teacher talk to the secretary asking for my records. I couldn’t make out what was being said but it didn’t look good. All the students were upset and they were pretty much sure that I was in for it. All I could do was just stand there and wait.

Both the secretary and the teacher where reading my records, finally the secretary pointed to something in the file and they both looked up and at me through the window. Then the teacher came back in, “I am sorry I didn’t know”, she told me. Then we went to lunch and after lunch I discovered that I wasn’t going to be included in the games anymore.