School Setback: Part II

I turned seven and when September came I was finally registered to school. How I happily walked to school every day. I was very excited to be in school at last, and turned into an excellent, highly motivated student. I won all the contests and took prizes for being the best student. We had lots of fun on rainy days, taking off our shoes and socks, holding them in our hands and walking in ditches full of water! And when winter came and the water in the ditches froze, we would ice skate. Freely! Joyfully! But our cherished freedom and happiness were short lived.

One spring day, with less than three months left in the school year, I told my parents that my back hurts. I had to stay home and go to the doctor, but I refused to go, so my father brought Dr. Szucs home to examine me. I ran away to one of our gentile neighbors, the [Darocis], about four houses down the street. When the doctor arrived, my father forced me home. I was very angry with my parents and with Dr. Szucs. He hardly examined me since I tried to run away from him. At my parents' request Dr. Oskar Szucs wrote a few lines to the school principal asking him to free me from attending school until next September. I was so angry that I did not even want to say goodbye to my teacher and schoolmates. Looking back, I feel it was very cruel of the principal not to have certified my completion of first grade. We had already learned all the material and I was an excellent student! At the age of eight I would have to be a first-grade pupil again. I was so embarrassed - the thought of sitting bored and listening to lessons I already knew by heart.

© David Muskal, 2001