Military School At 4 Years Old In America.
Why Kindergarten Military school in Hollywood, California? Issue #01
ifOnlyi truly understood why my parents would do such a thing to a wee boy. They sent me to Military School at the age of four, so when I asked them later in life, I was told it was to learn 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!
I guess my parents wanted me to be “somebody”. I do know, or at least remember, that I wore what felt like a suit and tie with a brass belt buckle and black patent leather shoes every day.
However, this suit had a strip down the side of both of the legs, a plastic name badge hooked onto the right side of my dark blue jacket, and the left side was for all those beautiful ribbons and medals.
I had not earned any medals of honour yet nor had I earned any stripes either; it was as bare and as embarrassing as a little boy could imagine, but then again, I was only four.
When you see all the other boys and men wearing loads of honors on their chests and arms, it's intimidating, and all I wanted was to have some or most of those on my uniform too. I know it seems greedy, but visually, it's what I could strive for and certainly hope for as a young person.
I recall 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 and 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 to be punished in military school, and various forms of discipline were offered. 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 pencils wouldn't slip off the table. The pencil tip, well, stuck into my arms to keep my arms from dropping.
You had to stay like that until the teacher said drop, which could take over 20 minutes. You could also be sent outside to walk around the schoolyard with your arms out and rifles loaded on top of them. If you dropped any of the rifles, you were gifted an additional one and punished with extra laps.
One, two, then maybe three rifles, and the older one was, the more they would stack. The strange part is that I really have zero recollection of what I did to deserve any of the punishments.
As a Cadet, there was an option to be 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 it turned out, there was a massive accident that day. The bus rolled over, and many kids were hurt, and some were 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 wasn't a fan. And as luck would have it, once again, 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, I thought 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 7-year-old boy. 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 like I was becoming somebody, until I got punished/disciplined again. LOL.
The parents aggressively searched for another option for a year, as the next school I went to did not work out well for any of us.
Black Foxe Military Institute (BFMI) was the name of the school where I served as a Cadet in the 1960s. Yes, I know now—I was just on the edge of 4 years old! I had no choice in this decision. Who has options in life at this age? Not even these all-stars who 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 of Wikipedia
….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