The Special School...

I went to Busch School for fifth, sixth and seventh grades. I would have been there for eighth grade, also, but we moved out of St. Louis. Busch School was a special school, "For the Gifted and Talented." I don't know what made any of us there so gifted or talented, but many of us were quite special! The importance of that fact will become apparent in a little while.

Mom and Dad took us to Manchester to see our new house for the first time shortly before we moved in at the end of seventh grade. We walked around in the house and wandered around what seemed to me to be a massive backyard. A small creek ran between our new house and the house behind it. The family living in that house was out working in their garden as we walked around. They had a daughter who looked to be about Kim's age and a son who looked to be about my age. Mom lined us all up along the edge of the creek and they lined up on the other side of the creek for the obligatory introductions.

They were the Kilkennys. As I had guessed, Karen, their daughter, was just a little younger than Kim and Ron, their son, was a few months younger than me. Although Ron and I came to be inseparable, it almost didn't happen.

Mom introduced the girls and then introduced me. I'm sure she thought she was paying me a compliment as she introduced me and proclaimed that I went to a "special school." Now, special school meant something very different in Manchester than it did to Mom. Ron told me later that his mother had instructed him in no uncertain terms that he was to be nice to me since I had some sort of disability that required me to go to a special school.

Ron wanted nothing to do with the kid from the special school! He managed to avoid being out whenever I was in the yard for several days after we moved in. I suppose he figured that was the easiest way to deal with the kid from the special school.

Eventually, though, our paths crossed and we were forced together. We were playing catch in the yard when the conversation somehow turned to fishing. It quickly became apparent that fishing was a passion that we shared and Ron informed me that there were two small ponds within a short walk or bike ride that he fished regularly.

We quickly gathered our gear to head to the pond when Mrs. Kilkenny told Ron that he could not go fishing until the grass was cut. That edict caused us to team cut the grass at breakneck speeds. I'm sure the grass cutting job was somewhat less than perfect as we raced to finish quickly so we could go fishing. We finished, though, and quickly dug some worms from their compost pile and headed off to the pond in Glan Tai subdivision.

We sat and talked while waiting for fish to find our baits. The talk, naturally, turned to the special school. We had a great laugh as I explained what Mom meant by the "special school" and laughed again as he recounted his Mom's mandate that he be nice to the kid with whatever disability it was that I had.

A friendship was forged that day. Ron went on to be a jock in high school and I went on to be the kid with the calculator case on my belt, but we were friends. While time and distance have made that relationship less than it once was; I will always consider Ron to be one of my closest friends. And he, I hope, remembers those days with the kid from the special school with a special fondness, too.