First Day of School in 1974

Our little boy had attended kindergarten the previous year, but the first day of school in a new home and a new city was very frightening for us.   Of course there would be mom tears when the school bus doors closed for the first time. 

In order to prepare for this very important first day, we loaded the kids in the family truckster, a brown Dodge with a beige vinyl roof and drove to his new school.  It was a daunting building that was brand new.  It was bigger than the combined three buildings that we had left behind.

"Son, this is where you are going to go to school tomorrow morning," I said.   He looked up and said something like, "Wow, it's big."  "Yes, it is son, but inside, you will go to your room, and have your own teacher and your own desk," I said, "That won't be too bad."  Then we actually got out of the car, walked up to the front door and peaked inside.  It still looked brand new and the floors were very shiny.  He seemed okay with it.  The school was only about a mile from our new house.

Morning rolled around, and his mother was crying before breakfast, during breakfast and all the way out to the bus stop.  The kid was fine.  He had insisted on dressing himself and had chosen a brown, red and white plaid shirt and brown and green plaid pants.  He looked like a cross between a street person and a color blind drug dealer.  It was the seventies, you know.  

He jumped onto the elementary school bus.  The bus pulled away.  His mother was a basket case.

It was about 11:30 AM when she received a call that went something like this, "Is this Mrs. Jacobs?"  "Yes, it is," she replied.  "Do you have a son by the name of Nicky?" they asked.  "Yes, I do," she said with a degree of hesitancy in her voice.  "Is there something wrong?" she asked.   "Well, Mrs.Jacobs, your son is at our school.  He has been here all morning, and we have no record of his having been enrolled here, "the voice on the other end proclaimed.  "Can you come and get him?"  "Sure," she said.
 
So, off she went to get the kid.  He was at the wrong school.  Later that evening, I asked him why he had gone to St. Bernadette's School.  His reply was innocent enough, "I really wasn't paying attention when the bus stopped, Dad.  I met a new friend, Heidi, and we just got off the bus and ran inside," he said.  Then I asked him what made him realize that he was in the wrong place.  "First of all," he said, "My name wasn't anywhere, but I figured you guys had messed up."  "Then," he said, "I heard them  speaking Catholic."