The Day I Tackled Abber Murphy

In Miss Guimond’s sixth grade class 

I was one of the goodie goodie students, 

raggedy penmanship 

but number two in spelling 

and decent at arithmetic. 

At recess on the playground though, 

a different kettle of fish. 

I was the littlest sixth grader, 

the youngest, the scrawniest. 

When picking sides for football, 

I always stood there waiting till the end. 

Come November’s first big snowfall, 

the boys turned to “Tackle”. 

A simple game, just one rule: 

one boy was named the runner,

the others’ job, to tackle him. 

Two dozen scalawags, 

hooting and hollering, 

chasing the runner from here to there. 

He who tackled the runner became the new runner, 

and the game began all over again. 

Runners zigged and zagged, 

dodged and stiff-armed, 

but the playground was only so large 

and the runner always got cornered. 

The only question was how 

long he could stay on his feet. 

The runners, nearly always the same: 

Abber, Gundy, Jimmy B, 

John John, Deeny Boy. 

Abber Murphy was the champ by far, 

the fastest toughest kid in our school, 

the fullback on the football team. 

One time we surrounded Abber at the back wall 

and he turned around and 

he looked me straight in the eye 

and I thought to myself, 

“I knew it, he’s going to kill me.” 

I crouched down, stretched out my arms,

shut my eyes, held my breath. 

Abber slammed into me head-on and, 

wonder of wonders, he lost his footing 

and we both tumbled into the snow. 

All the boys started cheering 

(at least that’s how I imagine it), 

and Abber said, “Good tackle, Bud!” 

So I was the next runner 

but I only got eight feet or so 

before somebody knocked me down. 

It didn’t matter, my heart 

was bursting with joy. 

Though I never got to be runner again, 

I’ll never forget the time 

that it was me who tackled Abber Murphy.

Pencil Tale

We got our pencils September seventh

The very first day of first grade

That very moment we joined the big kids

My new pencil, I felt less afraid

My pencil was a Ticonderoga

Actually, Ticonderoga No. 2

No one ever saw a No. 1

They must have produced just a few

The lead in my pencil was black as coal

Its wood, more yellow than the sun

The tip had a perfect eraser

Any errors were quickly undone

Our teacher had rules about pencils

Never run with a pencil in your hand

Don’t poke or stab at your classmates

And carving on desktops is banned

The bad kids chewed on their pencils

The shaft would be covered with bites

Their pencils, they claimed, still worked perfectly fine

But that was the saddest of sights

The sharpener was mounted by the blackboard

We asked for permission to use it

Some of the boys tried to make lots of noise

Our teacher, Miss Gries, would excuse it

With my pencil I learned to write cursive

First “A’s” and then “B’s” and then “C’s” 

By Christmas I wrote my entire first name

Though sometimes I had backward “D’s” 

The U.S. had entered the World War

My father was in the Pacific

With my pencil I drew pictures of Hitler

That helped to calm feelings horrific

I also drew hearts with my pencil

Each one said “DL + MC”

“MC” stood for Mary Carter

The winner of our class spelling bee

My pencil did other amazing things

I’d add numbers and also subtract

I learned how to draw a cat and a fish

And locate my house on a map

June came and my pencil had shrunk to a stub

It was only five-eighths of an inch

Saying goodbye brought a tear to my eye

As we know, first grade is no cinch