Not a little boy anymore, I was in middle school student. In the hallways of Marshall, it changed for the worse. In the fifth grade, I ate lunch in my homeroom. I had a sack lunch from home or had a hot lunch from the school. My world was getting bigger. The expansion brought both opportunity and pain.
As a fifth graders, I was a lunch monitor, knew hot lunches were Styrofoam boxes with lids, and was stacked on top of each other in large orange totes dropped off at the school’s front door from the high school kitchen. The scent of hot food locked in those Styrofoam boxes is a something I can recall to this day. The teacher sent me to the office with the count of hot lunches needed for my homeroom.
Walking to the office made me, in my mind, part of the process and was a freeing…show more content… We each went to the spot where we would be expected to be by the bell for the start of class. It was akin to a military formation, three rows deep and six to eight kids wide. My class lined up at the first set of bleachers, on the left side of the stage. I had my place where I was expected. One thing I was very good at was following directions, if that was my spot that was my spot.
Before the first day of school, I was aware of what expected in gym class. I went to school the first day holding my gym clothes. The next day would be the real thing; I would have to change clothes in front of other boys. It was a daunting experience for a shy boy, as I had already noted, I had one friend in first grade and left grade school with two. I had a small personal space I did not like having crossed. Maybe when my mother told me that I potty trained myself, it was from my having a visceral need for privacy. I had developed a strong area of personal space that I did not like
