Reggie Jackson Sent to Principal’s Office After Hitting White Kid for Calling Him a Nigger
I was a classmate of Reggie Jackson when my family moved from Philadelphia to the suburbs where I was enrolled a fourth grader at Wyncote Elementary School in Wyncote, PA. I remember the playground, all the white kids, maybe four or five black kids. One of them was Reggie.
Reggie was not my friend. Reggie was an acquaintance. My friend was Alan Charne, a scrawny psycho who, while we were sitting outside the principal’s office one sunny day for some infraction I don’t recall, said to me, “See that teacher walking down the hall? I’m going to feel her up.”
He got up and walked quietly behind the woman and ever so gently slid his right hand up her ass, then quickly turned and walked back towards me. The teacher turned, puzzled, not sure what had happened. Hell, I wasn’t sure what had happened. We were fast friends until I flunked 10th grade.
Anyway, so I’m on the playground, maybe the third day of school, I’m the new kid, and I hear a teacher cross examining two kids, a white kid and a black kid. I edge closer. The black kid, Reggie, tells the teacher (with a tear in his eye) I hit him cause he called me nigger.
With that the teacher grabs Reggie’s arm and pulls him through the school door, presumably to the principal’s office. The white kid just stands there, alone. I walk away.
I said Reggie was not my friend, so I don’t recall the circumstances which led to him coming to my house for lunch when we were in sixth grade. My mother served us tuna fish sandwiches. I don’t remember anyone talking much. Lunch finished, she drove us to the bus station on Cheltenham Ave. where Reggie and I paid a nickel each to ride the C-bus down Broad Street to the Logan Theater for a matinee showing of King Kong. The original King Kong. Cost us 25 cents each, but boy, what a fucking cool movie. I remember casually glancing more than once at Reggie during the film and thinking how his wooly head resembled Kong’s wooly head.
Reggie and I were in a class together in 10th grade. Holly Sukonik (a wonderfully sweet girl who suffered greatly because of her surname) was passing around a stuffed animal. It was a birthday present or something, and she wanted everyone to write their name on it. When it got to me I hesitated. I don’t know why. I was always the oddball, the kid who one day posted a one-sheet hand printed tabloid in the cafeteria called The Lisa Ledger (Let it Steep Awhile!) making fun of my teachers.
“Just sign the damn thing!” Reggie yelled, obviously frustrated. That fucked me up bad, so I mumbled, “I don’t sign my name on stuffed animals.”
I remember Reggie when I was made assistant manager for the football team. I didn’t volunteer for the job. My parents and I sat down with the principal (who looked exactly like Howdy Doody) when I flunked 10th grade and it was decided that together they would help me build character. (It didn’t work.)
I mainly cleaned up the shower room and during practice I would spray Tuf-Skin on the players’ blistered feet. Stung like hell, I guess, judging by their reactions. Even Reggie would whine a little as I shook the container.
Our high school had a swimming pool. One time, Bill Moleton held me under until I reflexively breathed in a lung full of water. In the far distance I heard Coach Trimble yell, “All right, Billy, let him up.”
Billy was a brawny, likable kid. I liked him. Everyone liked him. Had a good sense of humor, except when he tried to drown me. One day in swimming class, Billy nudges me. He’s laughing, really laughing, uncontrollable. “Look at Reggie, watch him… watch him… there he goes!” And I started laughing with Billy as the very white soles of Reggie’s feet disappeared into the water.
I remember Reggie and the other players in the showers after a tough win against a neighboring school. He was laughing and yelling and shaking his body like a human vibrator he was so happy. I was happy too.
The big championship game… football! Cheltenham High School versus Lower Merion High School. We fought hard but we lost. The only loss of the whole season. On the bus ride home I tried to cheer up the team. Making silly jokes. Nobody laughed. Just silence, except for my stupid mouth. As the bus pulled into the school parking lot, I had a vision of the team beating the shit out of me. So I got off the bus first and ever so quickly walked to my car, never looking back.
For more of Reggie’s backstory, check this out.
