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EVERYBODY’S DANISH – Vermont Avnue Grammer School
By fred | April 7, 2009
The past weeks have been so very sad, I lost the best friend I ever had, a buddy that was there of rme the last sixty odd years, my bother in law Jack Anderson. He died of throat cancer, and no he did not smoke. He endured several operations, Chemo treatments, all that crap, months in the hospitals on meds, he tried, God knows he tried, but it was one thing he could not whip.
Many of my buddies know him, heck we all went to school together, the guy was a winner, be it high school football, or later in life golf, or as a areo space engineer, or as a husband and father – he was top of the line. I guy you could count on. When I married Sally, I figured I was about as lucky as it gets, however I soon found out that she came with a several bits of baggage that would enrich my life forever. Her brother Jack and her Mom Ann. Both adopted me as their own. Down the line you will be reading more about these two.
I have not cried for years, but somehow this past week, everytime I think of Jack I start getting tears in my eyes. Jack would think I was being silly, maybe so – Jack old buddy but I will miss you so much.
Back to Everybody’s Danish,- I am slowly growing up, this is about the Grammer school I attended and my first fight, my first love.
VERMONT AVENUE GRAMMAR SCHOOL
When I think of grammar school years, my memory gets hazy, very dim. However, there are some parts of that period of time that are crystal clear.
When we moved from Lynwood, California into the big city of Los Angeles it was a big wake up call. It was a big move for a little child, moving away from my cousins David and Soren, my Aunt Olga, and my Uncle Chris. They always were living right down the block, family like that was a sort of support group for me. I also had fond memories of a grammar school in Lynwood with some very loving and wonderful teachers.
We moved to a large Spanish style frame house with three bedrooms, a huge kitchen, front room, and dinning room, back laundry area, with the unheard of luxury, in those days, of an extra toilet off of the laundry room. Most homes in those days had only one bathroom, no shower, and only a tub, it was a classy house for those days. The home was on Twenty-fourth Street near Vermont Ave, not far from Central Los Angeles.
The grammar school called Vermont Avenue Grammar School was just five blocks south of Twenty-fourth Street, on, you got it, Vermont Avenue. I well remember my first day; I was scared to death. The place seemed so big much bigger than the grammar school I had started school in, in Lynwood. Mom left, I was alone but then for some unknown reason I started to stutter all my words. A day or so later I was taken to the principal’s office, and my mother was called in. The principal told my Mother that I would have to go into a special class for children that stutter, and have learning problems. Mom could not understand, she said, “He never stutters at home, I wonder why he does it in school.” Well, she said go ahead, but let her know how it all goes.
Three days after being put in the ‘special’ class I stopped stuttering. A few days later my Mother was again called into school. The lady principal was a nice lady with gray hair, she said, “Evidently your son was just nervous entering a new school. He has stopped all of his stuttering and has no learning problem that we can find, so we will return him to his regular class.” I remember being happy about that, because there was a very cute little girl by the name of Dorothy, in that regular class. It had been love at first sight. Maybe ‘that’ was the reason that I had been stuttering, just being tongue tied around her. Besides Dorothy, there were a couple of the guys that were fun to play kickball with.
Two other things stand out from that nine to eleven-year period in my life.
I was in the fifth grade, the grammar school was from first to sixth grades, and Marvin Voss had moved into the house next to us. Marvin and I became great buddies, he was a year older, but I had started school very young, almost too young as I will get to later, so we were in the same grade. Marvin was not a big guy, a sort of lightweight, with black hair, he always sort of stooped a bit, I think he figured it looked kind of ‘big time’ to slouch. I tried it, but Mom would always say, “Fred, put your shoulders back, do you want a curve in your back?” Marvin as a neat guy, a very good buddy, and we walked to and from school every day, it was only five blocks and with a buddy it was nothing, always fun, until——this big ape, Paul, moved in a few blocks further than us on twenty second street.
Paul was a bit retarded, he was in our grade, but at least three years older. I was never a small child, but this guy was at that age was a head taller and with a T-shirt on had arms that seemed muscle bound to me. Marvin and I were scared to death of him. He would push you around, just shove you, and say stuff like, “You guys walk home with me or else.” Then he would give a shove to emphasize his point. So, we walked home with him, we would try and turn off at our street, but no, we were not allowed to, we had to keep walking until we got to go to his house, several blocks out of our way. Then if he decided we had to do something, we stayed no matter what.
This went on for months; Marvin and I were dreaming up stuff to do to get out of Paul’s clutches, but nothing really came of it. Finally, one day on our walk home, he shoved Marvin so hard that Marvin fell into a tree and cut his head. I remember being shocked, seeing Marvin bleeding, then I got so damn mad. I remember very little after that, Marvin said I went for Paul, swinging wildly, with luck, one of my punches connected in his stomach and another in his face. He started bawling and turned and ran for home. For some reason in life, in the very few fights I have ever been in, I never can remember a thing – I get so damn mad, that I just go crazy.
I got Marvin home, and after he got his Mother to fix him up, he came over to my house. “Fred, what in the heck are we going to do, Paul is going to kill us tomorrow.” Well, I had never thought about it, I sure did not want to have another go at him – he was just too damn big. I must have been crazy to even try and hit him that day. I probably would never have done it if I hadn’t got so darn mad, and concerned about Marvin being hurt.
The next day, both Marvin and I were worried, we took a different route to school, and tried to dodge Paul during the lunch period, but it wasn’t to be. He spotted us and I remember thinking, ‘Boy, am I going to get it now!’ He came over to where Marvin and I were eating our lunch on a bench in the schoolyard and just kept his eyes at his feet and said, “Could I walk home with you guys today. I’m sorry if I hurt anyone, I just wanted some friends to walk with.”
Marvin looked at me, and shrugged his shoulders, and I said, “If it’s O. K. with Marvin, its O. K. with me.” The guy just looked like he didn’t have a friend in the world. Heck, the way he had been treating guys, it was probably the truth.
Marvin, was always such a cool guy, he said, “Paul, where is your lunch? Go get it and come over and eat with us.” Paul turned and ran as fast as he could and was soon back, happy as a lark.
From that day on, Paul was never a bully, never laid a hand on either of us. Always asked us if he could play with us, he never tried any rough stuff on anyone else in the school either. The big guy was just looking for some friends; he just didn’t know how to do it. I will never forget the lesson it taught me. I told myself that never again would I let someone stomp all over me for months again. Better to get it over with once and for all.
The last thing I remember about Vermont Avenue Grammar School was in my senior year, my sixth grade. They had races, I think one was the fifty yard dash, and another was the hundred yard dash. I am not sure, but one was a lot longer than the other one was. I won both of them, beat everybody in school, and got two bright blue ribbons. I went over to some girls I knew, and casually asked where Dorothy was; Dorothy was my beauty with the black hair that I had the crush on. I had some remote idea to give her the ribbons, sort of like a Knight of the Round Table hundreds of years ago would give his lady. However it was not to be. “Oh, Fred, Dorothy is out sick today, she has a bad cold,” one of the girls said.
It was like somebody had kicked me. When I ran, I had figured that she had her eyes just on me. Why, she would, when I never said anything to her, I don’t know, but in my mind, I ran every race just for her, I just knew she was watching me win. The disappointment of that I remembered all my life. You may laugh but I never did tell her how much I cared for her, I just never had the nerve. I had gotten myself all geared up to give her those Blue Ribbons, and when that didn’t work, my nerve expired.
Girls at that age were such a mystery, so beautiful, something to be explored by a lad, but how do you do it when you are so tongue tied and nervous. I left Vermont Avenue Grammar School without having said more than ten words to Dorothy, the first real love of my life, at least the love of my imagination.
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