TadyAtes

One thing about this school that soon became apparent was that you could look about and see what teachers gave which grades. Grandpa was more interested in what was going on outside than inside his classroom. The teachers informed his parents that he could get straight A’s if he wanted to. This caused much agitation at home. Threatening to sell him to “TadyAtes” didn’t seem to get the desired result either. TadyAtes was an old peddler who came up the street about once a week and bought and sold “stuff”. An old horse pulled his rickety old wagon. TadyAtes struck terror in the hearts of small children.

It was rumored that he had a market for small boys that didn’t work up to par in school. Every kid was terrified of TadyAtes. That is all except for Grandpa.
Grandpa was fascinated by his horse. He’d sneak down the street to where TadyAtes lived and would look in the “half door” of the barn. By pulling grass and feeding it to the horse Grandpa soon had a friend. All the while nervously watching out for the terrible friend who would undoubtedly grab him and keep him locked up. Kind of like the story of Hansel and Gretel. One day while feeding the horse, he was became rooted to the ground in terror. A voice said, “You like my house?” right behind him. Upon turning around the boy saw an old man, not an ogre. They got to talking and soon formed a friendship based on the horse. The terrible threat of being sold to TadyAtes held little threat from that day on.

One of the big events of the month was when Grandpa’s mother gave him a penny. Other kids usually got a penny from their mothers too. Down to the corner grocery store all the children went. There they saw about 4 feet of glass enclosed penny candy. The patient grocer would watch as the merits of each kind of candy was discussed at length and the final choice made. What bliss!

Meanwhile, back at school, things were not getting any better for Grandpa. He was going into the 3rd Grade and for three years now he had never seen a different 3rd Grade teacher. She looked a lot like what he imagined in his mind, the witch of Endor. Yet the school board kept hiring her back. Finally the day came when he realized she would be his teacher. Looking back at it some 70 plus years later, he still doesn’t understand it. She turned out to be the most wonderful teacher he ever had. She never raised her voice. The kids loved her and would do anything for her. The downside of the semester is that she proved to the ecstatic parents of my Grandpa, that “he could get straight A’s if he wanted to”.

During this time the war in Europe was raging. Every night dad and mom would read the newspaper to gather and talk about Hitler and the Germans. Then it was the Japanese. Kids gathered old rubber boats and tires for the war. Grease was in demand as well. When you brought any of this stuff to the nearest collection agency they gave you a full color picture of one of our fighter planes, tanks or PT boats.

The schools conducted huge paper drives and worked towards the goal of making enough money to buy a jeep. Finally, the great day arrived. Uncle Sam sent two soldiers to Grandpa’s school driving the jeep that the school supposedly bought. Everyone was caught up in a patriotic fever. Although Grandpa noticed that if that was the jeep they bought, it sure didn’t look very new.

About this time TadyAtes’ old horse tried to jump over something and broke its leg. A police officer arrived and talked to TadyAtes. He then pulled out his pistol and shot the horse in the forehead. Grandpa was greatly impressed by 3 things:
1). How quickly it put the horse out of its misery
2). What a small round hole it made
3). This would be a neat thing to own someday.
Old TadyAtes sat down against the barn and a tear rolled down his face. He sure didn’t look like anything that could be used by parents to straighten out wayward children.