The Glory Days

First day of school, the mighty fifth grade here I come. As I sprinted out of my house without a second to spare to catch the school bus, my aspirations of what the next nine months had in store for me filled me with excitement. Fifth grade, finally the biggest kids in school, and finally the privilege to have recess after lunch which only meant if you ate fast enough you could manage to get five extra minutes to play. Yep, this was going to be a good year.

As we arrived to the school on the bus, the rush hit me once again. It seemed I always forgot that the first day of school also meant the grass on the playground was able to grow properly over the course of the summer, which meant there was a good two to three weeks of quality tackle football to be done before the field was ruined again. My bus was usually one of the last buses to get to the school, so after I got off a group of my friends were already sharing some of their stories from the summer, and arguing over what quarterback was better, Steve Young or John Elway. Which everyone knows is John Elway. When the bell finally did ring, we were assembled into single file lines and we all entered the school like cattle. Mrs. Merrill, my new teacher, had had my hellion of a brother only three years before. Thanks to him, I knew my limits on just how far I could push her to get a good laugh out of my fellow classmates without actually getting into trouble. I now already had an edge on my mischievous good friends Dane and Tate, who were also in the class. We weren't necessarily bad kids, we were just the typical immature fifth grade boys -old enough to know what was going on, yet young enough to still be naive to the outside world. Now, fifth grade was also the point in our lives when the girls in our class actually started looking good, and we didn't view them as cootie carriers anymore, but thats a whole different story in itself. As the school day went by, it seemed it was the usual stuff-social studies, math, English, the casual Mrs. Merrill yelling at Dane, phonics, music class, and RECESS! The best part of the day. Touch football usually was how most of our time was spent, every now and then an occasional game of kick ball or white lightning would slip in, but for the most part football overrode our time outside. It was always the best when the teachers weren't looking and we'd even manage to play a tackle game for a few minutes. When the school day finally came to an end, i'd usually be found walking with one of my best friends Jacob, who lived just on the outskirts of town. The walks to his house was always an adventure inside of itself. Whether we were throwing rocks at deer or just talking about episodes of The Simpsons it was always a good time. We'd hang out at his house for awhile before my mom would finally come pick me up when she got off work. Once back at home I'd do homework for a good fifteen minutes or so before playing video games or watching tv for the remainder of the night. I'd be in bed by 10:30, and be set to do the same routine the next day. Yep, that was a good year.