Fourth Graders

By RJ Lenarcic

One of the great joys of my life was the time I taught fourth grade at Deerfield Elementary School in 1966-67. And I’ll be forever grateful to three people for the opportunity. My late cousin Donnie Wenberg who taught 6th grade there informed me of the opening. Mrs. “I can’t remember her name” whose morning sickness was too much to bear, causing her to take a leave of absence six weeks into the school year. And finally, the great principal Harold Quayle who hired me even though I was educated (B.A. and M.S. at Fredonia St.) to be a secondary social science teacher. Obviously and luckily, there was a dearth of elementary school teachers that year. Employment not only kept me off the dole, it kept me out of Vietnam.

Despite being unprepared, I was able to muddle through, learning on the job. I can still remember the names of a couple of pupils (wonder where they are now?) Gordon Ruhm, Regina Restive and Steve Aceti-a smart kid who helped me learn the “new math” (I dropped Geometry in high school). If nothing else in life, I’ve been blessed with an ability to make little kids laugh and thus the class and I had a lot of fun. Expensive fun. I must have spent half my weekly check on candy which I passed out when the occasion arose-reward for a correct answer, celebrating a birthday or holiday or T.G.I.F. Nothing brought me more pleasure, save for maybe Pete Wiliczka’s laugh, than being able to put smiles on the faces of children.

Benefactors of this “gift” run the gamut from those fourth graders to my grandchildren to kids in our various Hunger Coalition programs (e.g. Gram Lorraine Children’s Christmas Program) to the winners of our coloring-essay contests at Benton Hall Academy (Little Falls) and Dolgeville Elementary. The smiles are special because they’re authentic, gracing the faces of children whose innocence will always remain paragons of a virtue often lost in short years to come.

As I write this column, two things come to mind involving children-one joyful and the other hideous beyond compare. Firstly, the Amazon delivery guy just dropped off large boxes of sugary delights (chocolate eggs, marshmallow chicks, jellybeans) which will fill colorful baskets for 65 children who are part of the BOCES Migrant Educational Program. Us Coalition members believe that every child should benefit from the Easter Bunny’s generosity. Secondly, Kay and I just delivered the Raymee the Leprechaun coloring contest forms to Benton Hall and Dolgeville Elementary -said contest always seems to stir the creative juices of those fourth graders. Every child receives something for participating. Smiles on faces all.

Now the hideous. A week after it happened, I still can’t erase from my mind the thought of some 150 girls, including fourth graders, who were vaporized by a bomb dropped on them by an American plane. Every time I think of the B.H.A. and Dolgeville kids smiling and laughing and enjoying classroom experiences, I can’t help but think of their Iranian counterparts doing likewise until, through no fault of their own, they couldn’t. Ever again. What makes me feel all the worse is that I was partly the cause. My tax dollars helped finance the bomb that killed them. As did yours.

Regarding the Iraq “war.” Israel proved perfectly capable of taking out Iraq’s political and military leadership. And they deserved to go. But there was no need for our direct involvement. Continuing to send military aid, especially those 2000 bombs so effective in reducing Gaza to rubble and in the process killing thousands of civilians including Lord knows how many fourth graders, would have sufficed. (Note: regarding civilians, I wonder how many have been killed since I began writing.)

The Trump administration’s garbled, often incoherent explanations for involvement omitted this one-distraction. The president’s popularity is in free fall for numerous reasons (e.g. economy; ICE hooligans; using the Department of Justice to go after critics, the Epstein files). What better way to remove these albatrosses and, simultaneously, unite the country than to go to war. It worked for his goomba Netanyahu whose political future was hanging by a thread until that October 7th. The heinous attack, which he knew was coming, served its purpose very well. Distraction. Gaza obliterated, so attack Lebanon. Distraction. Hostages returned, so attack Iran. Distraction.

Venezuela didn’t work for Trump as a distraction, no more than change, one dictator for another, has worked for the Venezuelan people. Check it out. Based on the latest polls as of today, March 8th, it doesn’t look like Iraq is working either. What’s next? Cuba? Greenland? Trump and BiBi are incorrigible narcissists, hopelessly addicted to power, wannabe autocrats legally empowered by an uninformed electorate and willing to do anything to sustain that power. Devoid of compassion, killing innocent people, including fourth graders, is a price they’re willing to pay.

Next week, I’ll pick up the coloring contest entries by the fourth graders. After judging them, Kay and I will gather the winners together for a group picture; boys and girls smiling, holding their masterpieces and excited about getting their pictures in the paper. But for the grace of God, they could have been in that school in Tehran when it all began.