Remembered: Knight on a Shining Bicycle

Prompt:As a writing teacher, I often have my students write memoir/nonfiction pieces. In the beginning, most students want to write strictly about themselves. One of the lessons I teach them is that other people help shape who we are through their words to us, their actions, or their lack of action. Your assignment for this week is to write about a memory of yourself WITH someone else.


I can't remember his name, just that he was older than me. Old enough to be a hero in the eyes of a second grader, anyway. He'll always be larger than life in my memory, stuck in the fifth grade. But I will call him Mr. Knight.

There was a bully in my life. A boy in my class had started teasing me, taking things from my lunchbox, and otherwise making my life miserable. I had no defenses at the time, no fortifications for my Self to hunker behind.

I was a victim. Until Mr. Knight rescued me.

It was recess, I remember, and the bully had pushed me down. Encircled, I was lying there in the dirt, crying. There weren't any teachers around to watch us back then, but kids didn't 'tattle', so it wouldn't have mattered.

All of a sudden there was this fifth grader standing between me and my bully. He was yelling at my bully and his entourage. They scattered in the face of his rage. He turned to me, held out his hand and helped me to stand up. Mr. Knight patted me on the shoulder, and he spoke to me.

I don't remember exactly what Mr. Knight said. The gist of it, I believe, was that it was wrong of the bully to hurt me, it would be okay now, and that he would protect me. I had to look up at him, and I remember the sun was right behind his head, because it kept shining in my eyes. I remember that I was awestruck at the idea that someone, anyone, would stand up for someone that they did not know. This was a novel concept, this idea of being protected, just because I couldn't protect myself.

I suddenly had my very own superhero, who would appear whenever I was in danger. My bully did not want to give me up. And there was Mr. Knight, riding to my rescue on his bike, his friends trailing behind him. We moved to Germany soon after that, and I never saw him again. Or maybe I've seen him again, whenever I see my son helping one of his playmates or comforting them when they're crying.

I stopped thinking of myself as a victim, that day, when Mr. Knight rescued me. In fact, I tried to follow his example and protect other kids, especially the ones smaller than me. That did not work as well for me as it did for him, but I kept trying. I am still trying.

RemembeRED: School Trip

Prompt: School trips. We all go on them. What trip do you remember the most? Where did you go? Who was with you? How did you get there? Have you ever been back?

I don't like to go on field trips. I'll just get that right out there into the open. Field trips in elementary school almost always reminded me that I didn't fit in.

For one thing, I always wore hand-me-down clothes that my mother got from various people. Those clothes never felt quite right on my body, so I remember feeling awkward all the time.

I fell down a lot.

I was tactile defensive. As in, don't touch me, for I will punch you right in the face.

As an Army brat, I was almost always the new kid.

I also never knew what to say to people in unsupervised situations; I can remember other kids looking at me like I was an alien species.

In the logic of the herd mentality that was elementary school, I should have been chased out of the collective, forbidden access, so that the lions would eat me.

But the real reason that I hated field trips was that I never got enough time to actually look at what the class was there to see. Field trips were usually a large group crammed onto as few buses as possible. The places we visited did not welcome our arrival. The zookeepers happily envisioned the boa constrictors in the reptile house having a particularly obnoxious child or two for a meal. The museum docents cringed at the thought that one of us would actually touch a priceless piece of art, or worse, break off a piece. Oh, these people put on a good show, but it was always clear to me that they all heaved a sigh of relief when the buses finally drove out of the parking lot.

Consequently, the museum/zoo/exhibit people, as well as the teachers, tended to rush us all through whatever exhibit we were there to see, and by the time I had a chance to look around, we were already back on the bus heading back to school. Once back at school we had to write a paper about what we saw, and all I ever saw was a blur.

I discovered during all these blurs that I am a browser. When I am in a museum, I like to read the little description of the painting/sculptor. I like to hear a story about the artist and the times in which he/she lived. I like to sit back and contemplate the painting. At the zoo, I like to read about the animal, where it is from, etc. It's not really such a bad thing, to be a browser, especially when the world is moving so very fast. I realize that now, but back then when I tried to fit in, my browsing ways did not sit well with anybody, including me.

Probably the only field trip I remember enjoying was in fourth grade, when I went to Hamlin, Germany, with my mother as a chaperone(don't get too excited--we were living in Nurnburg at the time). My memories are pleasant, if faded. My roomie was a cute blonde girl who wore her hair in two braids. I had an awful orange pants set outfit thing that my mother made me wear. We all stayed in a youth hostel(sans any cutting instruments, co-eds, or Eli Roth), someone's bra ended up at the top of a flag pole, and we rode in a boat. No Pied Piper sightings, however.