4th Grade & Eddie Bar & Co.

...Back to my olden school days at Saint Thomas More...I pretty much flew thru 3rd Grade unscathed except for my first introduction to Science...In as much, every other subject was a cake walk for me...the wonderful world of Science just baffled me to no end...and would be my consummate enemy...from the get-go...

I can recall, my first Science teacher, Mrs. Reidy, burning a sugar cube, in front of her young, doleful pupils...all aghast as the tiny white sugar cube...turned black & burnt...She glowingly pointed it out, that this was some chemical change releasing carbon dioxide into the air...and on & on & on...It blew all our minds...for about 10 seconds...Then we all grabbed a handful of sugar cubes and chowed them down...releasing our own, endless sugar buzz, into the air...

After the 3rd Grade, came 4th Grade of course...and one of my most influential teachers I ever had, Mrs. Deters...came along...Nobody in their right mind, would say something like this, because she was a very difficult teacher who shook our very soul, trying to push us to our absolute limits...There seemed to be endless pop quizes...and endless homework assignments...Heck, we were turning into quite the disciplined bunch, facing her onslaught of difficult challenges...

And oh my God...How she would torment my new school chum, Eddie Barkowski, to no end...Eddie was the class clown and the most down-to-Earth kid in class...But Mrs. Deters, had this odd fetish, of grabbing Eddie, and shoving him, under her desk, anytime he acted up...Of course, you can imagine Eddie, underneath the desk, listening to the chuckles of classmates, as he was forced to linger there for 5 or 10 minutes...at least once a week...for sure...

I got to know Eddie, alot better, as I ventured off of my block and rode my bike 3 blocks North to his humble domain on 84th Street...There, there was quite a crew of young enthusiastic boys, all of them, who liked to play alot of touch football in the middle of the street...There was Tommy Kelly, the Sheahan brothers, Maggie and Eddie's 2 younger brothers, Neil & Mark...

And then you'd throw the wild Murphy brothers, John & Mike....and my good, good chum, Slim Farrell, into the mix...from a block away...and it was a great, great time...These guys had some skills, throwing themselves all about...They had a passion to compete...and several of these kids would go on to become stellar athletes growing up...

I'll throw this old flashback at you...Eddie Bar is quarterback...it is the last play of the game, and we faced insurmountable odds, because all we could do was throw a "Hail Mary" all the way down about 50-60 yards down...way, way down the block...and hope someone could catch it...Well, as you would expect, Eddie B, hurled a rope, way, way deep...just floating and fluttering into the sky as dusk was ascending upon us...at dinnertime...

There we were, sprinting down to the end zone, one last time, under the hue of the blueish glow of the streetlights that had just flickered on. All the kids came to a cluster, in the imaginary end zone...at the other end of the block, fighting for position to get at the ball, about 6 to 8 kids, grappling, shoving, screaming...as the football reached closer and closer and closer...

Suddenly, a bunch of kids collapsed to the ground...and I was there, all alone, the only one still standing there, as the warbling spiral just plopped into my hands, stinging them, quite severely. I kinda had to wrestle with the football but somehow, it just stuck in my hands like glue.

Everyone on the ground looked up in awe and disbelief...as I caught the ball, and then held it high, a victory had been sealed on this final play...Of course, Eddie B, some 55 yards away, came scampering up, jumping up and down, laughing with delight...elated with throwing his illustrious gem, and having it count as the winning touchdown...

There were alot of moments like this...for all of us kids back then...Just stuff, that sticks in our minds, for eons and eons...as impossible moments that remarkably transpire before your eyes...

It was a nice change of pace, to ride my bike, past 84th Street, from time to time...to see who was hanging out...Just running into Slim or the Murphs or Eddie B was always cool...These guys would become life-long friends, who remain some of my closest buddies, to this very day...It's funny, how none of us fore-saw any of this coming...

Back to the classroom...Mrs, Deters amidst her inescapable reign, really tried to get us to think outside the box...and have us write something different...We all kind of scratched our heads, because we didn't know what she meant...but I took up the challenge and cranked out my first writing masterpiece....MY MOM IS A CHOC-O-HOLIC...

Just the title alone, had Mrs. Deters in stitches...and it was quite a funny piece about my Mom's endless love of anything chocolate...I was introducing a new word to the English vocabulary, also, that haven't even been invented yet...CHOC-O-HOLIC...

It was quite a hoot for my Mom & Dad to read this story...too...From there on, Mrs. Deters always challenged me to write some more stuff out of the box...I think I may have also used one of my other creations, DRIVER GERM, a reference to me always getting sick and staying home from school, where I'd play with my Hot Wheels cars...just was a hoot...for lots and lots of laughs...

It was a sensational rush...to try to come up with some new words...just imagining all the possibilities out there...I loved it so much...I knew I had such a knack for it...This little spark that came out of Mrs. Deters influence upon me...would last forever...I can't thank her enough for raising my level of awareness beyond the ordinary hum-drum school work....

Even some of her pupils, still possess somewhere up in their attic...MY POETRY NOTEBOOK...a gathering of poems we were forced to create and combine into a 10 page lay-out that was then, posted into a nice cellophane cover...to make it look like it was our first little book...our very first novel, of sorts, that captured our mind-set...of the ways and days...of our 9 year old hearts...

Even to this day...most of my friends just cringe at the thought of Mrs. Deters, especially Eddie B, but this relentless taskmaster, had a little penchant for elevating our abilities to heights none of us could have ever expected...I really do appreciate that...her intensive skill and insightfulness...that almost everybody overlooks...except me...

Oh...don't go away...the heroic adventures of the great Slim & Eddie B & the Murphs & the crazy little kid from 86th Street are just getting started...as a bunch of new kids would join our gang and turn the neighborhood, completely upside-down...for many years to come...

(p.s....as a footnote...Eddie B, still remembers that pass, also, vividly...and estimated it was more like 50-60 yards...I counted it off and it was about 5 or 6 houses long...quite a long, long way...With all of Eddie's athletic accomplishments, I thought for sure, he had forgotten...His response...Not a chance...It was still up in his brain...just waiting there...)