Mount Olive Elementary School has since been renovated but when I was in the fifth grade it still had creaky hardwood floors. In the winter, the cast iron radiant heaters would belch and groan to reach their poorly regulated and often sweltering hot temperatures. It was a yearly guessing game for administrators. If you turned the valves too soon the heat would become unbearable on warm fall days. Too late and the entire school body would freeze. Even in the dead of winter the windows would be cracked open to release some of the stifling heat and the smells of fifth graders. Accompanied with these odorous vapors was the scent of melted wax from the array of Crayola crayons hues melted like draped afghans accidentally or purposefully over the hot metal.
In the summer the windows would remain open. There was no air conditioning. The ventilation allowed flies into the classrooms. My classmates and I would have bounties on the black house flies. Our weapons were Trusty No. 2 pencils with pink cap erasers which we would flick down on a settled fly smearing it between eraser and desk. Throughout the day you might hear a thud followed by a numeral whispered to the other participants. We got pretty good. The flies were sluggish until the heat of summer reached its high pitch noon performance. By afternoon, the flying nuisances became a true challenge.
Although our fifth grade memories were long enough to keep count of our downed prey, they were too short for more important things. I’m not talking about science facts or spelling words. More critically, or hygienically, was remembering to keep the pink cap erasers from between our teeth. There were many a day that I found myself spellbound in contemplation with pencil in hand and eraser wet with saliva remembering suddenly where it had landed an hour previous. In the end, I guess the flies had their nasty revenge.