Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida Education Quotes

I imagined already being on the baseball team at school, and people looking at me. Not these people picking chilies or those sent away in the vans, but people I had yet to know, watching me as I stood mightily in center field. (1.66)

This time it was Stinky, twisting a stick in his hand, acting like he'd just thought up something terrific. He was in my grade at school, but about three years older than everybody else. […]

I'd always been afraid of him. Every year at school he made it a habit of punching me around to show he was still boss. Once he broke a bone in my little finger, and I lied to Mom about it, saying that I got it sliding into second base. (2.30-31)

The next day, Mom began thinking about the future. She wanted me to go to a better school across town, where all the white kids got educated. So I grabbed the number 42 bus down Chandler Avenue, walked two blocks to the brown, ivy-rusted walls of my high school, and presented a note from my mom to Mrs. Kingsley, the secretary. (3.1)

Besides, Mom wanted to keep it hush about me attending a school across town. She thought schooling could graduate me into places that would make her eyes gleam. Dad thought I should cut school altogether and get a dishwashing job. (3.3)

I was watching this when my old history teacher, Mr. Hart, came up and stood beside me. I remembered him because his favorite subject was the Civil War. He was wild about General McClellan, who he swore was a military genius and only needed a chance to put his sophisticated designs of warfare to work. […] Once, I remember during class, after he'd gotten all teary-eyed about the battle of Gettysburg, this smart-aleck guy named Malcolm Augustus leaked out this cheesy little snicker and the whole class bursted out laughing. Mr. Hart's face pumped red with embarrassment. (3.5)

When summer ended, I was again at the same school. Mom's plans to get me transferred didn't work out. The administration said it was too late. There were already too many kids in that school. There was an imbalance in the student body—whatever that meant. They said lots of things, but it all ended with me not transferring. (7.1)

We liked eating lunch there, because every day around twelve o'clock one of the English teachers, Miss Van der Meer, would step out of her classroom and swoon our minds with the gorgeous way she'd fluff her hair and fix the collar of her ruffly blouse. Her legs dangled from the hems of her skirt like two shapely white bowling pins, and her shoulders were straight as a geography book.

We acted like that wasn't why we ate lunch there, but it was. (7.2-3)

"We are a coupla idiots, you idiot," I said, defiantly, but I could see regret tightening on Albert's face. He was convinced that we'd never get another chance to moon over Miss Van der Meer on the sly. But to me, Lencho was right. It was stupid sitting out there stuffed in a mountain of double sweaters, waiting for some teacher to make a grand appearance. She paid us less mind than she would a wad of chewing gum stuck on the sidewalk. That much I could tell by the way she waved at me. (7.27)

I think every student at J. Edgar Hoover High knew the coach was a Golden Gloves boxing champion. Even in junior high I remember knowing, and I think even my dad knew, and my dad didn't give a rat's ass about anything that happened in my school. (7.46)

I hoped, in fact, that by some wildcard of luck they'd transfer me over from Mr. Shattler's class, where all we did was read magazines and play bingo games, to hers, where students read detective books and stuff by that Shakespeare guy. (7.64)