Flights of Fancy

It was September of 1957, and I was about to enter the fifth grade at Sunset View Elementary School in San Diego. A month into it, I would turn ten, a milestone age being the first one with two digits. But, seriously, a month before my birthday, I had to start the school year, and there would be gifts ~ by which I mean toys ~ but precious little time to enjoy them because, you know, school. In adult hindsight, this was the view from the playground. Pretty nice as schools go!

Anyway, I got my shots, filled out the paperwork, and duly presented myself sometime during the first week in September for assignment. I was given my packet and was delighted to find that I had been assigned to Room 5, the domain of one Mrs. Warner, a grandmotherly type who, unlike every teacher I had had up until then, had a reputation for being genuinely interested in children and more importantly, to enjoy working with them. Things were looking up!

Now, Mrs. Warner was no pushover. She assigned work appropriate to grade-level, and expected to see growth, but she approached teaching a little differently. She had projects designed to challenge growing preteens, and one of them was writing. Once or twice a month, she would set aside a free hour for us to write a piece of fiction, using a series of pictures she set out around the blackboard trays if we needed a jumpstart. The bell for lunch would ring, and thirty-odd shrieking kids would bolt for the dining hall.

Upon our return, we would find her at her desk in the classroom, having read our stories. She would then read three or five selections ~ don’t quote me, it’s been a long time ~ without revealing who had written them. She would then ask the class to rank them for plot, grammar, execution, and so on. She frequently selected mine, and when she did, they were frequently chosen among the best. For the first time that I can remember, I had found enjoyment in a scholastic activity, and I have no doubt that it was all down to Mrs. Warner. If she were still alive, she would be 127 years old, but if you’re out in the aether somewhere, lady, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

You must understand that at the age of ten, I was writing the sort of drivel that interests ten-year-old boys everywhere. It was the ’50s, after all. Monster movies were all the rage, followed closely by war movies. All I remember is writing tales of my little neighborhood friends taking military weapons into the canyon by our houses and fighting live dinosaurs or repelling a Japanese invasion. We were all heroes in some of the silliest stories anyone ever put to paper, and in the course of it, I learned to love writing and the process of getting better. I never did get good enough to be mentioned in the same breath with Stephen King or Sue Grafton, but the journey had begun. Little did I know that writing stories would be the stable event in a life filled with hobbies that came and went like summer flings.

So, thanks again, Mrs. Warner. You pointed me down a path and gave me a gentle push, and I’ve had a lifetime of pleasure from it. To use a phrase my children used to favor, “You da bomb!”