Some Of The Important Things We Learned In School........

Close to 60 years ago, I began my official education at Washington Elementary School in Phoenix. One of the most important things I learned was how to make mud cups. On the far side of the playground, we boys would scrape together enough soft dirt to make a small pile. Then, we would run to the drinking fountain clear across the field and fill our mouths with water. After racing back to the mound of dirt, we would stick our elbow in to make an indentation and then spit the water into the concavity and watch the water soak into the dry dirt, maybe half an inch. Another trip across the playground for another load of water gave us the capacity to fill the cup again and, after it had soaked in, we would dig away the loose dirt surrounding the mud cup. It was an art form of the finest precision; digging away the dirt too soon or without the proper finesse caused the cup to break into pieces. But, with the proper patience and careful touch, we would hold in our hands a useless piece of cup-shaped mud that we could put in a safe spot in the sun to dry to perfection.

Think of the first grade lessons we learned from that exercise; perseverance, a light touch, how to run without breathing through your mouth, patience, hope. We could imagine ourselves like the Indians who made pottery hundreds of years before, in possibly the same spot. Strangely, I don’t remember Mrs. Williams ever congratulating us on our achievement. In fact, it’s likely she never knew.

Washington Elementary was an old school, even way back then. We had just moved in to our new home about a mile away, but a brand new school was under construction and the kids in our neighborhood would be changing schools the next September to be the first students at Palo Verde Elementary. Somehow, the art of mud-cup making didn’t transcend the boundary between the schools. 

The new playground for the first through 3^rd grades sported Monkey Bars, and a slide of infinite height and length attached to the end of monstrous swing set. All of the playground equipment was galvanized steel and, in Phoenix’s late summer, reached temperatures hot enough to melt the flesh right off the bones of the average 2^nd Grader. Fortunately, we were not average children; we had grown up in Phoenix and had learned all of the tricks to keep bare skin unburnt. We boys wore pants, but the girls were at a particular disadvantage. This was in the dark ages when girls were required to wear dresses, and they became quite adept at sliding down the slide with their legs in the air to avoid skin contact.

The lines to climb the ladder to the top of the slide were endless, and in time, the metal gave up enough of its heat to the bottoms passing by that it was tolerable to sit on. The Monkey Bars had the same problem. You could climb only until your hands could no longer grip the pipe, and then while balancing without holding on, allow your hands to cool enough to proceed to the top.

The playground equipment was nearly indestructible, but after a few decades, the Powers That Be determined that it was a safety hazard and it was all replaced with smaller, plastic-coated versions.