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Schoolboy Gets Off To Bad Start

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By F. CARL MILLER, Special to the Tribune

Published: November 6, 2007

TAMPA - In 1932, I was a 7-year-old boy living at the Children's Home, which was the orphanage in Tampa located on Florida Avenue.

That year, on a warm September morning, I entered first grade. Miss McLean, the Children's Home matron, believed me to be too immature to handle the trauma of beginning school when I was 6.

The streetcar stopped at the intersection of Tampa Street and 26th Street, the southwest corner of the Children's Home. It went on to B.C. Graham Grammar School. Unlike neighborhood boys, it was not my fate to ride to school. The fare cost money.

My fellow orphan and best friend, Steve, and I walked the mile or more to B.C. Graham. Steve was in third grade and knew the route to school and what to do once we got there. He would see to it that I arrived on time and also entered my correct class.

It was unusual for children from the orphanage to travel in groups, as we thought that it would identify us as being from the Children's Home.

But Steve was my role model. I mimicked his every action, in one way or another. When he ran, I ran. When he skipped, I skipped. When he got into trouble, I got into trouble.

On this eventful first day of school, Steve stopped in front of a thick hedge, sat down on the grass and took off his shoes. He then hid them in the densest part of the hedge. I followed suit. It felt good to wiggle my toes, which were no longer tightly imprisoned.

That was my first day - and my last - of going to school without shoes. It rained and my shoes were soaked when I returned to retrieve them. More important, being barefoot that day set off trouble that wouldn't end for years.

We arrived just in time to hear the bell ring. I was excited but also concerned. Any new adventure was a welcome change from the stilted and routine way of life at the orphanage, but my fellow inmates had described school as dreadful.

In front of the principal's office, most of the 6-year-olds were crying and clinging to their mothers and begging them not to leave. I was the only child without a consoling protector. A fifth-grader took me by the hand to Miss Stalker's class.

"Young man, where are your shoes?" was Miss Stalker's harsh greeting. Her tone startled me, and at the time, I was an extremely timid child. I didn't answer her, but trembled in shame and fright in front of the class.

"Carl Miller, I asked you a question, and I expect an answer," she said sharply. Terrified and unable to speak, I started flowing top and bottom. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and the crotch of my pants was stained dark when I wet myself.

Seeing my predicament, Miss Stalker grabbed my hand and ushered me to the back of the room. She put me in the cloakroom, a long, narrow enclosure used for storing furniture, class materials and coats, and also for exiling disruptive students.

This was the first of many times I would be banished there. A few chairs were in the cloakroom, but I usually would lie down on the hard floor and sleep during my confinement.

At morning recess, I was released to become a bona fide member of Miss Stalker's class, almost-dried pants and all. Miss Stalker said nothing more, but my fellow first-graders teased me unmercifully.

After lunch, I was no longer being teased, but worse, I was ignored and left to myself. I reacted in the only way I knew how, striking out and getting myself into more trouble.

A contraption called a "giant stride" was on the playground. It featured a pole topped with a rotating disc of metal and ropes dangling nearly to the ground. The game was to grab a rope's wooden handle and run around the pole faster and faster, until you were airborne.

By afternoon recess, I was unhappy and isolated. I picked up one of the stride's ropes and threw it hard. It swung around the pole, returning with blunt force to where I stood. The wooden handle struck just above my left eye and left a 2-inch gash. It took six clamps to close the wound. I bear the scar to this day.

From that day on, I went through elementary school with a chip on my shoulder. I hated school and was labeled the "bad boy" whom other pupils shunned. Ready to fight in an instant, I found myself constantly being punished. Hardly a day went by when I wasn't sent to the cloakroom or kept after school. Sometimes, my knuckles were rapped with a ruler or my britches swatted with a bamboo switch.

Later, my fortune changed and so did my attitude. I was successful for the first time in school when my junior high math teacher took me under her wing. In her class, I earned A's and also discovered my love for math. Her inspiration, along with the help of other caring people throughout my adolescence and young adulthood, put my life on a different path.

Despite a rough beginning, school would become my career. I went to college, earned an

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

F. Carl Miller, 82, lives in Tampa. After leaving the Children's Home, he joined the Navy and served in World War II. Miller was a schoolteacher and administrator in Hillsborough County schools and taught math at Saint Leo College. He and his late wife, Barbara Lee, raised five children and three adopted sons.

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