MY CLASSMATE THE PRESIDENT

…a ‘No Kings Day’ reflection…

 

This song of the schoolyard bully is really very sad

He earned lots of infamy by simply being bad

 

He’d push his way through other kids, sneer at them as he’d pass

But no one had the guts to cross this big pain in the ass

 

With impunity he’d needle kids and throw his weight around

Trip up the unsuspecting and laugh when they hit the ground

 

He always drove the fastest car and clutched the prettiest girl

Brag about his conquests after every single whirl

 

He ridiculed the exchange kid, at school for just one year

We’d always hoped that foreign kid would knock him on his rear.

 

     And there-in lay the problem with which we’d not contend

We’d looked for someone else to stand, our honor to defend

 

The fact is really simple as has always been the case

To confront to a vile bully one must meet him face-to-face

 

But that simple tenet is oft tossed out due to angst and fear

Easier is always: “Step aside, make his path clear”

 

So because we all allowed it, junior tyrant had his way

No one displayed the courage to stand up to his sway.

 

     On graduation evening there were many in the crowd

And I and many classmates received accolades aloud

 

But when the bully crossed the stage, the cheering it did stop

It typified the adage about hearing a pin drop

 

He slunk off in the darkness, no one else to push around

Until I’m sure, he stumbled on the new group that he found.

 

 

Fifty years have come and gone as quickly as a flash

Our class did meet and reconvene, our history to rehash

 

The bully did not make our fest, but he didn’t give a fig

In the interceding years, it seems, he’d found a better gig.

 

     To the horror of his classmates, he’d became our President

Ensconced inside the White House where he wouldn’t pay the rent

 

His bully-ness did not subside, in fact it grew and grew

And though he was our President, he was still the creep we knew

 

He pushed right through our statecraft norms said he was much smarter

Than those who’d paved the road to peace with treaty and with charter

 

He took to subjugating folks with skin of different color

And deftly used the tools he had to divide each from one another

 

He gloried running roughshod over laws from sea to sea

And truthfulness and righteousness and basic decency

 

Surrounded by like-minded folks or those with none at all

He pushed our hallowed nation near a precipice to fall.

 

     But time does what time always does and soon his days were through

We looked at one another not quite knowing what to do.

 

         

A Presidential passage is not a thing to cheer

But somehow this was different, relief exhaled far and near

 

A few of us decided we should go attend the wake

We’d do it out of honor for our alma mater’s sake.

 

     The chapel was but empty as we peeked inside the door

Footsteps of fellow mourners didn’t scratch across the floor

 

The crypt to which they rolled his mass was deep and dark and cold

And soon he’d be forgotten like a story never told.

 

     ‘Twas sad indeed but sadder still is this dogged phrase complete

If  his legacy stays unshared, damned history will repeat.

 

 

Let’s not forget the tragic life that brought such pain and pall

And redouble fearless efforts to encourage good for all.

 

     Looking back, by backing down when he was just a kid

We underwrote the awful things he ultimately did

 

If one of us had glared him down then picked him up with song

Perhaps he’d have found the beauty in simply trying to belong.

 

     Our nation thrives on good will and our care for one another

In joining hands with those disdained – embracing like a brother

 

So hold with your friends those needing love, the sad misunderstood

For only in so doing will this land be truly good.

© 2025

Church of the Open Road Press

WALKING TO MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

the first of about 60

first days of school for me

 

 

 

My first day of public school would be my first day in first grade. Rosedale, my neighborhood elementary, was impacted for Kindergarten and Mom was told she’d have to cart me 20 minutes across town to Sierra View which she would not do because she knew with certainty, “All they do in Kindergarten is let kids play.”

     So with Roy Rogers lunch pails at our sides, Mom walked Beebo and me to the confluence of Stewart and Bidwell Avenues, there rubbing both of us on our Butch-waxed, slick-backed hair, telling us to walk up Stewart Avenue because it was straight and it didn’t go along the creek which she deemed dangerous even when reduced to a September trickle, and that she’d see us when we got home that afternoon. Adding, “Now don’t tarry along the way.”

 

As soon as she turned her back, Beebo and I winked at each other ~ me with both eyes ~ decided to ignore Mom’s instruction and ambled along Bidwell Avenue, passing the muddy trail down the Chico Creek embankment ~ the one with the stinging nettles we braved when, during the just-ended summer, we went down there to wade; rounding the big bend and the pool in the creek known as the Log Hole where the bigger boys often drank beer and swam naked and probably peed in the creek; sneaking through the sinister tunnel of black walnuts and oaks that arched over the road and the stream; tiptoeing past Jim, the crazy man’s house ~ Jim, a shell-shocked World War II vet sometimes was found in the middle of Bidwell Avenue on all fours, coughing and spitting up something; turning onto Highway 32 at Chico’s original La Hacienda Mexican restaurant ~ a place that emitted aromas making my mouth salivate and water involuntarily (maybe this explained something inexplicable about poor Jim to my six-year-old satisfaction); crossing Chico Creek on the highway’s bridge ~ tossing pebbles and bits of glass and road debris into the water; descending into the parking lot of the Triumph motorcycle dealer where we placed our noses against the shop window so we could peer into the darkened showroom ~ Mr. Brownell also carried lesser-known brands like Honda and Lambretta; passing Smitty’s Hudson, right next door ~ though Smitty went out of business along with that make years before, his Hudson sign still attached to the old, vacant building; heading west on to Oak Street; spying the alley where the bracero gleaners who picked up culls from our almond orchard lived in ramshackle hovels; and pausing, finally, in front of the Hoobler warehouse where Dad took our almonds to market ~ Hoobler, we were told, once ran sheep on what would become our five acres. 

     Beebo and I waited there until a big man in a suit and tie on the other side of the Oak Street told us we could cross safely. The big man turned out to be Mr. Self, the Rosedale School Principal who drove a light blue Lincoln Continental and who would later sell a Siamese kitten to Mom for ten dollars.

     Over in the parking lot, Mom sat behind the wheel of our ’54 Ford Ranchwagon waiting ~ making sure we’d made it to our first day of school okay.

 

© 2025

Church of the Open Road Press