Life Lessons Learned in Grade School: Part 1

By Don Eggspuehler

Life Lessons Learned in Grade School - Part One is a series of over thirty stories, each with a moral or lesson involved. Part One covers kindergarten through third grade and Part Two covers fourth grade through sixth grade. These are the character-building moments most parents want their kids to learn at an early age.

The main character,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ewings Publishing LLC
• Release date: May 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890312488

Don Eggspuehler

Don Eggspuehler has lived in Richardson, Texas since 1975, but he grew up in Iowa Falls, Iowa, a small town in the heartland of America. Don graduated from The Ohio State University with a B.A. in International Studies in 1969 and later became a Marine Corps officer, who flew combat bombing missions in A6-A jets in Vietnam.He was married for twenty-three years to Linda Combs and they had three children, Cari, Jaime and Chad. She passed away from a brain tumor at age 46. Don's business career included 30 years in computer software sales, management, and consulting. His hobbies have included: golf, tennis, traveling, creating home movies, and writing. Don is now retired and happily married to his second wife, Lynda Lou (Sherman). Don has written numerous articles for newspapers and magazines, and he previously self-published two books: one a family memoir titled Star Benchwarmers (2011), and a historical fiction of Iowa Falls, Iowa, from the early settlers and Civil War through the 1950's, titled Teachings from Pop (2014). Life Lessons Learned in Grade School is his fifth book. Additionally, he wrote two other thrillers that have not been published.

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Copyright © 2023 Don Eggspuehler.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 979-8-89031-246-4 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-89031-247-1 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-89031-248-8 (e)

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Contents

Dedication

Introduction

1952–Six Guns in Kindergarten

The Dime Store

Pop Stops By

First Trip to the Dentist

Sand Box

Dental Parade 

Lightning Bugs

1953–King of the Mountain

Bobcats

Brother Bob

Masked Man

Summer Concert

Our Basement

Kemo Sabe Rides Again

The Belt

1954–Roll Up Your Sleeves

Snowballs

The Prospector 

River Oaks

The Rocket

Christmas

1955–Kites and Mickey Mouse

Mount Rushmore

The Centennial

Creating New Life

Caves

Disneyland

Super Dog

Epilogue

About the Dedication

Acknowledgements

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my late brother, Jack J. Eggspuehler. He was at my side during many of these early stories…we were with each other from the very beginning.

Jack was a year younger than me and had completely different interests, but we got along together as pals. We learned many lessons together and from each other. Even though we fought several times, we had each other’s back…no matter what.

Jack and me

Introduction

When I was about 5 years old, I had a recurring dream almost every night. I dreamed I was wandering on a never-ending spider web big enough for me to walk on. It had large gaps between the strands with just blackness beyond, which made me afraid of falling through one of the holes, where I could fall forever. I concentrated on stepping carefully across the endless squares, but it became a never-ending nightmare.

Before going to sleep, I’d tell myself, Don’t dream about that spider web! The next thing I knew, I was carefully stepping through the endless strands. It was like a maze—I couldn’t get out—couldn’t stop the dream from happening. I dreaded going to sleep.

One night, while in the middle of the web, I tripped and fell, but didn’t hit the hard surface. Instead, I hovered about six inches above it. As I focused harder, I realized I could lift up into the air—gently. I could leave the web completely, now flying over my neighborhood.

I was floating above other kids, as if riding on a soft cushion of air. I could talk with them but couldn’t take them along for the ride. I could only lift myself. Before long, I was coasting over trees and houses, rising as high as I wanted to go.

After some practice, I found I could maneuver in flight. Unlike Superman, rifling through the air faster than a speeding bullet with a whistling sound trailing behind him, my flying was much quieter—no noise at all, barely moving forward. I called my secret place DonnyWorld.

My dreams changed completely—from a nightmare to a wonderland where I had special powers. I had control of the dreams too. If in too much danger, I could tell myself that I was dreaming and wake up. Poof! The threat was gone.

I could visit DonnyWorld during the daytime too, even if for only for a few seconds at a time. When I got that glassy look on my face, more than one teacher asked me, Donny, are you paying attention?

I’d quickly emerge from my trance, answering, What?

Did you hear what I was saying?

I’d shake my head. I’m sorry. I didn’t.

Okay, please pay attention.

As soon as she looked the other way, I’d be daydreaming again.

Author’s Note: My childhood adventures always seemed to involve getting into trouble. Growing up in a small, rural Iowa town in the 1950’s, I had a lot of freedom to get into mischief. My parents didn’t worry about me during the day—they barely kept track at all. They allowed me and my brothers to play all over the neighborhood. We just needed to be home in time for dinner.

This kind of freedom is unknown to today’s kids. I was one of the millions of babies born right after World War II, called the boomer generation. When we were young, we didn’t have modern distractions like video games, the internet, or cell phones—we had to use our imaginations…and my mind could come up with some pretty crazy stuff.

Six Guns and Black Hat

1952

Six Guns in Kindergarten

Miss Hoffman - Kindergarten

1952 - Six Guns in Kindergarten

As a five-year-old, I was only sure of one thing: I wanted to be a cowboy when I grew up. I’d just started school at West Elementary and had a crush on my kindergarten teacher, Miss Hoffman. When I first met her, she complimented me, My, what a handsome young man! I love the cowboy outfit!

I liked her right away and asked mother, Mom, would you take our picture together?

Sure, she replied. Mom had a hard time walking on the front lawn with high heels—she had to tiptoe into position as she aimed her Brownie camera at us. Miss Hoffman smiled politely. I puffed out my chest—stretched to be tall on my first day of school.

Miss Hoffman focused on one thing that first day, saying, If you’re going to get along together as students in this school, then you need to show each other respect…and trust each other…

She hesitated, then continued, Most importantly…there can be no stealing. Do you all know what stealing is?

Kathy Mullane had her hand up, shaking it vigorously.

Yes, Kathy.

She stood up, straightening her dress. Stealing is taking something that doesn’t belong to you.

Very good, Kathy. She’s right, we can’t have people taking anything that doesn’t belong to them.

Ms. Hoffman looked down at me. I was daydreaming. Donny, what do you think?

I fessed up immediately, I once stole my brother Jack’s baseball card. I offered him ten other players for his Mickey Mantle, but he wouldn’t take the deal, so…I stole it from him.

She looked a little surprised at me, saying, I didn’t mean for you to admit stealing, but now that you’ve brought this up, how did you feel after you stole from your brother?

Shame crept up my back. I felt awful about it. He didn’t even notice it was gone, but I couldn’t stand it. Every time I looked through my cards, there was Mickey staring back at me with his bat, saying, I’m your stolen card. A few days later, I snuck it back into Jack’s deck of player cards and he never suspected a thing.

Ms. Hoffman announced, That’s a good lesson for the entire class. If you do something wrong, you know it. And if you have a conscience, you will want to make things right. It’s so much easier to never do something you know is wrong. Think before you act.

She seemed very smart to me and also taught me how to color with crayons properly. l liked coloring because I could pick any shade I wanted for each picture except, of course, Superman still needed a blue outfit with a red cape. Miss Hoffman pointed out how careless I colored the edges, scribbling well past where the picture ended. Then, she showed me a trick—tracing the outside edge and pretending that was a wall. I would color inside that wall from then on. My finished projects looked much better.

Miss Hoffman liked my cowboy outfit so much, I wore it to kindergarten every day—my black western shirt, black jeans, black cowboy boots and black cowboy hat. The only white items in my get-up were my ivory-handled six shooters. Actually, the handles were made of cheap white plastic, but I’d convinced myself they were pure ivory, just like the Lone Ranger’s.

My six-guns didn’t have real bullets. I had to settle for caps. When placed in the breech, they made a loud bang, even discharging a little puff of smoke. I could go through an entire roll of caps in a matter of minutes, so I’d learned over time to conserve my ammunition.

About once a month, we had fire drills. Each class would form a line and walk out of the building calmly, stopping at a certain area of the playground to wait for all clear signals. It was a good waste of an hour. We also had duck and cover drills, where we dove under our desks and covered our heads. Miss Hoffman told us this would keep us safe in the event of an atom bomb attack. I believed everything she told me.

Around September, the trees that lined our parking all dropped their leaves at the same time. We called it the parking, but it was just a twenty-foot-wide lawn with six huge trees between the sidewalk and Highway 20, which ran right past our house, across the bridge and into downtown. When those trees lost their leaves, our lawn was covered completely.

Dad asked us, Do you boys want to help me rake the leaves?

Sure, Dad!

Jack and I took turns with the rake, but it was just too big for us to handle. Dad did most of the work. After the pile got stacked high, Dad picked me up and threw me in. I struggled to get out when Jack got lobbed in on top of me. We thrashed around in the dusty leaves in the middle, trying to escape. Dad got a big kick out of watching us struggle, only to catch us and throw us back into the pile again. Now, the leaves were scattered once more, so we raked them into one big heap—to do it all again.

I raced into the pile in a full run, never making it through without crashing to the ground. It was like running through a shallow swimming pool—trying to keep your legs churning without losing balance, but my body always got ahead of my feet and I would crash every time.

This year I discovered a new comic book at the dime store called MAD. I liked Alfred E. Neuman, the goofy-looking kid with a missing front tooth, who was the main character in many of their