Randi Kreiss

The worst day of school (and nothing bad happened)

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First weeks of school, 2015: Little legs trundle down the block, wobbling under the weight of outsized backpacks.

Older children meander toward the bus stop with parents in tow. At the corner, kids restlessly shift from foot to foot as their older companions, mostly moms, study their phones. These days, kids don’t walk to a bus stop without minders. A sign of the times, or of over-reaching anxieties?

These back-to-school days always trigger memories for us of our own first ventures out of the house and into the world. I can almost smell the yummy egg salad sandwich packed in my Roy Rogers lunch box — along with 5 cents to buy milk. Just pointing out a good memory, Mom. (She claims I only remember the bad stuff.)

And now, on to a really traumatic reminiscence.

I attended P.S. 156 in Laurelton, Queens, until fifth grade. There was no school bus service, so my mother would drive me to school, taking my baby sister along for the ride.

One snowy January day in 1954, when I was a 7-year-old second-grader, my mother woke me out of a deep, warm sleep. “We’re late,” she said, shaking me out of bed. “School started already. Get dressed.” So I got ready, and we trudged out to the car in our rubber snow boots. My mom’s plan was to leave my 3-year-old sister asleep in her crib while she drove me to school. It was just a few minutes away. What could happen?

She drove as best she could through the unplowed streets, across Merrick Road and up to the front door of the school. “Go, run in,” she said. “I have to get back to the house.”

In I went. It was completely dark. Silent. Empty. I walked to my classroom. The door was closed and the lights were out. I hadn’t yet watched my first episode of “The Twilight Zone,” but I was living it.

I decided to walk home. I started in what I thought was the direction of my house and just kept going, one boot in front of the other. Finally I came to Merrick Road, a big street, which I was not allowed to cross by myself. Luckily, I spotted a policeman walking nearby. I remember telling him I was lost and asking him if he could call my mother for me. I told him that she had brought me to school but no one was there. We walked into a luncheonette, and he put a coin in the public phone, a dime, I think. My mother answered . . .

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