It All Started At 4 Years Old In America

Why Kindergarten Military school in Hollywood? Issue #01

ifOnlyi… understood truly why they would do such a thing to a wee boy and send him off to Military School, so when I asked them later in life, I was told it was for the purpose of me learning discipline and manners. I think it worked, well at least the manner’s part did but the discipline - not so much - more on that coming... I promise!!

Black Foxe Military Institute (BFMI) was the name of the school where I served as a Cadet in the 60s. Yes, I know now, I was just on the edge of 4 years old! I had no choice in this decision for my life. Who has options in their life at this age? Not even these all-stars that also attended, to name a few….

• Harry Carey Jr., actor

• Charles Chaplin, Jr., actor, son of Charlie Chaplin.

• Guillermo Endara, president of Panama from 1989 to 1994.

• Larry Hagman, actor who played JR Ewing on the TV show Dallas.

• Alan Hale Jr., actor who played The Skipper on the TV show Gilligan's Island

• Gary Lewis, musician, son of comedian Jerry Lewis,

• Jack Banta, halfback in the National Football League (NFL)

• Brown Meggs, record executive, signed the Beatles to Capitol Records in 1963.

• Robert Wagner, television and film actor.

• Gene Wilder, film actor

*Famous cadet details courtesy Wikipedia

Sons of stars at the Military Academy

I guess my parents wanted me to be somebody too :-). What I do know, or at least remember, is that I wore what felt like a suit and tie with a brass belt buckle and black patent leather shoes every day. Except this suit had a strip down the side of both legs, a plastic name badge hooked onto the right side of the dark blue jacket, and the left side was adorned with all those beautiful ribbons and medals.

As I had not earned any medals of honour as of yet, nor had I earned any strips either, it was as bare and embarrassing as a little boy could imagine, but then again, I was only 4, and it was a start. When you see all the other boys and men wearing loads of honors on their chests and arms, it's intimidating, for sure, and all I wanted was to have some or most of those on my uniform too. I know, greedy, but visually it’s what I could live for and certainly hope for as a young lad.

What I do recall is how, every day, aside from the homework, I had to polish my brass belt buckle and shine my shoes to perfection. At this point, I was stoked that I had no medals to shine daily, as it was a chore. (Wait until you hear about my young life of shining & polishing every single week, no matter if I was good or bad, that story comes later.)

You may think that I was a picture-perfect child, but no, they did not seem to think so. There were many ways of being punished in military school, with all kinds of discipline on offer. They would either make you stand in the corner of the room or put both your arms straight out in front of you, palms facing down at your desk.

I did cheat from time to time by taking two pencils and putting the eraser side down on the desk so the pencil would not slip off table. The pencil tip well, that stuck into my arms in order to keep my arms from dropping.

You had to stay like that until the teacher said 'drop,' and that could be upwards of 20 minutes. You could also be sent outside to walk around the school yard with your arms out and rifles loaded on top of them. If you dropped any of the rifles, you were gifted an additional one, as well as adding laps to your punishment.

One, two, then maybe three rifles, and the older ones were the more they would stack. Strange part is I really have zero recollection of what I did to deserve any of the punishments.

As a Cadet, there was an option to be either one of the many boarders or take the bus. I took a school bus daily for 4 years. Funny how things work out. One time I missed the bus and as life would have it, there was a huge accident that day. The bus rolled over, and many kids were either hurt or killed. It was headline news in The Los Angeles Times newspaper.

Do you call that serendipitous, a piece of luck at such a young age? I thought my years of going there would never end as I was not a fan, and as luck would have it, once again for me, the school that opened in 1929 closed in 1968, yippee... I recall my mother once sharing that my father and other parents tried to save BLACK FOXE with donations, but it wasn’t enough. (Thank-God).

So now I am thinking my Military school days were over, but not so! I left BFMI with three stripes up and one down, which meant I was a Staff Sergeant for a boy at 7 years old. I have to admit the medals were way cool as well, and to have earned them over the years, they looked fantastic on Friday afternoons when we had to perform military drills in front of the school leaders and our parents. It was such a feeling of pride, and I started to feel as if I was becoming somebody, until I got punished/disciplined again. LOL.

For a year, they, the parents, aggressively looked for another option as the next school I went to did not work out well for any of us.

ifOnlyi….stories are published in chronological order and will follow my life from the young age of 4 so if you are new here it will make sense to start reading stories starting here with….Issue #1