All The Different Me’s: Grade School Paul

My recent item, All The Different Me’s prompted me to provide a little more detail about some of the me’s.

While I did not completely love myself in grade school, I loved school, and couldn’t wait to get there every day (It was a 700 yard/5 minute walk from my house). I  never missed a day of grade school, except that time Mom took me to spend a day with her at Portland State, where she was a late undergraduate.

On the first day of Kindergarten, when asked my name, I said, “Pauli,” which is what everyone in my family called me. For eight years, I heard shouts and whispers of “Pauli Want A Cracker.” I wouldn't say my classmates were mean; they were just being children.

I was already a PA announcer by the time I was in 8th grade (I also hosted a College Bowl based on 8th grade Social Studies), so on track and field day I announced events and results, and accepted slips of paper with “Please come” announcements.

In retrospect, I: can’t help but think I was in on the joke; I owned several hundred Beatles trading cards. In any case, in autopilot mode, I read the slip of paper handed to me: “Would John Lennon and Paul McCartney please come to the microphone.” I do remember feeling immediately embarrassed.

I was teased without mercy, but only bullied once by Sterling Spence, who followed me home and “fought” with me across the street from the school―and thus  beyond the school’s heavy hand of discipline. Neither of us was hurt; I suspect it was mostly a slap fight of the kind seen in comedy films and TV shows. Sterling died seven years ago.

I was NOT a sports person. I probably still hold the Gra-Y basketball record for fouling out in the first two minutes of the game. I don’t think the ref liked me. I couldn’t make any of the Beaumont teams, so I became the manager of several. As manager of the Golf Team, I was carrying Timmy Meyers clubs (he’s also gone-2001) when he roundly berated me for casting a shadow on his putting line. He was much shorter and lighter than me, but discretion was the better part of valor that day.