A Tough Year
The fourth grade for me was a tough year. I began the school year in Spokane. My father’s job of ferrying minuteman missiles around to the silos ringing the area had come to an end. A friend from this job, had told my Dad about another down in San Jose, CA, with a coin washing machine business.
So, after only a couple of months in my new grade (we’d lived in Spokane since I was in the second grade), we were pulling up stakes and hitting the road.
My father went on ahead to his new job and to look for a new home. It fell to my mom to get two boys and our little sister on a bus to San Jose, where we would join him.
The Trip and Resettling
I remembered the trip being sunny, but long and boring. We passed through Portland OR on our way.
I recall stopping in a Moose hall in San Jose shortly after arrival. It must have been for some financial help or assistance. While in the waiting room each of us kids was given a net-like Christmas stocking with Christmas candy in it. You know, candy canes, candy ribbon, hard shells with liquid cores, etc., and some tiny toys.
We only lived in San Jose a total of four months. Long enough, however, for the school district to be redrawn on us. So, I started our time there in one school, only to change to a school that was farther away two months later.
Another Move and the Reason Why
And that is why the fourth grade was so tough for me. Four schools in one year; moving from the laid back West Coast to the more progressive East. And along the way being tested and labelled with an high IQ and placed in a gifted program at Saltonstall School in Salem MA. (This was our second move to my Dad’s home town).
That, and again having to leave some things behind – the best Christmas presents I ever received as a child – a WW2 Hellcat fighter plane and an astronaut mobile command unit, a truck tractor and trailer, complete with a “TV camera” in the caboose.
My brother and sister must have had to leave some neat things too. (I just don’t remember what – selfish of me, I know).
I do know that we weren’t too bothered about it. We were a family and together, and all making sacrifices.