The Years of My Life, 1954

1954

In fifth grade, well, I had a witch

Who walked into our class to teach.

She wasn’t really one (so rich!)

But looked like one, a wrinkled peach.

Now these are unkind words, I know,

But such were in my fifth-grade mind.

“Oh, no excuse!” I hear you go.

“How could you be so mean? Unkind?”

Well, so it goes when you are ten.

The Good Guys/Bad Guys sort of thing.

You are not what you should have been—

But Time much better things can bring.

It was a most unpleasant year—

Just lean and mean and full of stress.

I didn’t like a witch so near—

But not much I could do, I guess.

But Disney now was on TV—

And Davy Crockett! Hero mine!

And Mickey Mouse Club humored me—

Doreen, I thought, was really … fine.*

And so the year rolled ever on—

I didn’t know that just ahead

Would come a most unpleasant dawn

When Change would usher in some Dread.

*I knew I had no chance with Annette, so I didn’t waste any libido on her.