Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.
Fourth. Grade.
My final year at Woodland Elementary School.
I had Mrs. Jones.
I needed to make the final year at this school a good one.
And that's exactly what I did.
I came into the school year with a new sense of "purpose".
I had a lot of things going for me!
I was about to turn 10.
I had a killer flat top haircut.
But most importantly?
I had a Four Square Championship to defend.
My friends and I had been playing Four Square all summer long.
We used a crack in the middle of the road as one of our dividing lines.
Then we took rocks and scraped them on the pavement as our own "chalk" to make the squares.
The squares we made were AT LEAST twice the size of a regulation square.
Why you ask?
Simple.
If you can handle a square that's twice as big, then a regular square won't be a problem.
It worked.
By the time school had started, I thought they had made the squares even smaller than the year before.
That's what using squares twice as big all summer will do to you!
Everything else on the playground didn't even exist to me anymore.
Not the Seesaw.
Not the Merry-Go-Round.
Not the Swings.
Not even The Playscape (which is still the best playground I've ever been on to this day).
For me, it was all Four Square, all the time.
The game had become so popular that some of the TEACHERS were starting to play.
Maybe they thought I was going to cut them some slack.
I did no such thing.
I had fun sending my gym teacher to the back of the line.
On her very first time in, she tried to get ME out.
Big mistake.
I made her look FOOLISH.
She deserved it.
The playground was like the prison yard, it was our time out there.
Everywhere else we had to walk in a single file line.
We had to sit at desks.
We had to raise our hands.
But not on the playground.
We could run.
We could jump.
We could PLAY.
In my case, that meant diving for ANY loose ball in Four Square.
On blacktop pavement.
No protective equipment.
I scraped my elbows and my knees more times than I could even count.
But I always got to the ball, and I always got someone else out doing it.
My reckless abandon was never in vain.
Sometimes I would get that "oohhhh" or "aahhhh" reaction from the crowd.
But it was never about that.
I wasn't trying to impress anyone.
Not even my crush, because once again, she could wait.
I was just doing what needed to be done!
When I wasn't playing Four Square at recess, I would spend almost every waking hour thinking about when I was going to pay it again.
I would pretty much daydream as often as I could during the "regular classes".
Math?
Social Studies?
Science?
English?
Sure.
Is it recess yet?
Lunch was always unpredictable.
I quickly figured out which lunches were going to be good, and which lunches were going to be.....well, bad.
American Chop Suey? Good!
Weird name, especially since it's elbow macaroni with meat sauce, and I've never heard it called that ANYWHERE but on the school lunch calendar.
Sloppy Joe's? BAD!
Let me clarify, I love Sloppy Joe's.
I make them all the time.
They are delicious, WHEN I MAKE THEM.
Now I don't know what "recipe" the school was using, but those were NOT SLOPPY JOE'S.
The buns were always toasted/stale, and the filling itself was......dreadful.
Friday was always Pizza Day.
However, all pizza's ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.
If it was the "Pizza Boat", it was delicious.
But if it was the "Soggy Brick", you'd be better off asking for an extra milk instead.
The desserts were just as "Hit or Miss" as the lunches they accompanied.
Warm Jell-O?
Not a fan.
Dry cake that's topped with a substance which was formerly known as frosting?
I'll pass.
But, there was one dessert that I'd go back to school to have right now.......
There were actually two variations of this dessert, and both of them were AMAZING.
Imagine a thick square of chocolate (or peanut butter) that's cold to the touch, but it starts melting in your hand almost immediately when you pick it up.
Inside these thick squares were two of my absolute favorite things, raisins and peanuts!
I've always wondered who came up with it, and to this day, I still want to try and replicate it!
As the year was coming to a close, the announcement I was waiting for all year was made...
The Four Square Tournament was going to happen right before Field Day!
All of the hard work in the summer.
All of the other games I could have played, but I avoided to play more Four Square instead.
It was all for this.
I was ready.
They actually made MORE Four Square courts for the Tournament, because it had become so popular!
This also allowed more people to actively be playing, instead of waiting in line, because in the tournament, every out counts, and you can't get any points for yourself while you're waiting in line, so I was all for it!
Then the day finally arrived, and the tournament had begun.
After my showing the previous year, I already knew what was going to happen going in...
I was a marked man.
I didn't care.
This is what I had waited all year for, and NO ONE was going to stop me.
I had go out out on top, there was no other option!
I got off to an even stronger start than I had the year before.
People were trying their hardest to get me out.
It was adorable.
Then in the blink of an eye, the tournament was over.
They announced the results at the end of the day.
I got 1st Place again.....but so did someone else!
It felt tainted.
It left a bad taste in my mouth.
A tie for 1st Place?
What happens now?
All of these thoughts ran through my head for a good 3-4 minutes before I had a Root Beer popsicle and got over it like all 10 year olds do.
The next day, the principal from the Middle School came to my class to ask myself and a few others about Four Square.
Apparently it was becoming so popular that the Middle School wanted to add a few courts of their own, and they wanted to know how the game worked!
I now had something to look forward to in 5th Grade already, but we'll get to that part in the near future!
Until next time!
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