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I had written yet another story for another scenario. This was sure to get me another five! What a way to make crossing a river exciting. I did happen to have a feeling that, in actuality, my “family” would not be so fortunate.

This class project was not so exciting. Our whole class was taking part in a charting game. We used trivia, writings, and other means to establish points for our wagon’s, which then affected how everything went.

As it turns out, I was unlucky. I got high marks, but the random aspect of things killed my possibility to succeed in this game. Pulling diseases out of a hat at random so they inflict your wagon hardly seems fair.

I actually found myself grateful for having my entire wagon die. The father on Mike’s wagon had diarrhea that never went away, which counted against his score each day. Then there was Andy who had exclaimed, “Why doesn’t my family get a disease? I want one too!” The ignorance of a fifth grader is astounding but fitting. He had no idea what a disease was.

“Wagon team one, you failed to cross the river. This time we’ll shoot baskets to see what happens. Nick, you go first,” my fifth teacher said.

“Alright…” I replied, taking my position marked by the tape on the floor closest to the wastebasket. Why did my fake wagon family’s fate rely on my ability to shoot a paper ball into the wastebasket?

She tossed me the ball, but stopped me before I could toss it. “Wait, you only have three family members?” she asked.

“Yes. The father and son died of disease yesterday, remember?”

“Well, you have to move back ten feet then, since your family is undermined.”

“Ok….”

I took a few steps back, now at the middle piece of tape. Any more and I’d be about half a classroom’s length away from this basket. I don’t think this is ten feet. I got ready to throw the paper ball just as she stopped me again.

“Wait, you only had one ox?” she asked, looking over her notes again.

“Yeah, my other three were stolen by thieves on Wednesday, remember?” I replied. I started moving back some more, heading towards the last piece of tape.

“Well, you, oh, yeah, last piece of tape. Alright, lets go!” she said looking up.

I took up my position. The basket sure was a small target now that I was a great many feet away. The rest of my classmates looked on, hoping I would make it. It was a team effort after all.

My “family” had already died twice before, as I seemed to by a magnet for thieves, disease, spoiling food, and other bad disasters. I swear the real people on the Oregon Trail did not have this many problems. I threw the ball and hit bounced off the rim off the basket. I missed.

“Ok, lets see….” my teacher muttered, consulting some form of chart, graph, or table. She continued, “Uh, Nick, the remaining two people in your family are swept down stream and are unable to be saved.”

I moved out of the way, unaffected by the answer. Not like this was new. However, it might be a new record, as my entire family had bit the dust twice in one week. Of course, so I won’t be left out, the wagon teams will find a lone wagon with my new family inside it tomorrow.

Sitting quietly at my desk, which was pushed to the side of the room to allow for kids to throw the ball, I watched the rest of my wagon team shoot, several missing. Some lost whole wagons; some members of their family, and some lost nothing.

I was the only one to flat out die… again. That makes three. How unlucky can one person be?

——–

We were asked today to recall an event that’s worth writing about that happened before the sixth grade. Thinking of such really only brought back fourth grade to me, which was a very sad year. However, upon a comment by David about two teachers I remembered all of the fun stuff about fifth grade. These are a few story ideas (and little story snippets:

1. Fruit/Veggie Cars: We were required to make cars out of fruit and see how far they would go. Strange but quite amusing.
< snip >
“Wow, that totally looks like a car too,” Ryan said. The squash made a convincing body, though the wheels were made of kiwi.

“No, that wont work. We need something…. Round. You know, like real wheels,” I said, grabbing and orange. We replaced the kiwi tires with oranges and rolled it a bit.

“Yeah, that’s better. This should go far!”
< /snip >

In the end we ended up getting a very short distance because our body (the squash) dragged on the wood. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a knife in the school to fix such a problem. Hacking away at a squash with a plastic butter knife is a fond memory.

2. Privateer: This was an exciting experience. We separated into teams, and everyone else commanded a transport vessel. We were lucky and got to be the Privateer’s, which was much more exciting. I was captain of our ship, and we were the first privateer group to win. We sunk two enemy ships. Sadly I can’t recall the battles well. All I remember is that it had to do with knowledge, and my group was pretty good at it.

3. Oregon Trail: Very similar to the Privateer thing, we had this. We gradually moved along, and were inflicted with problems (disease’s, looters, etc). What was interesting is how we got points or whatever to move. I distinctly recall a writing portion, in which we were given a scene/scenario and we had to write a short description of the scene. I remember because Mrs. Brewer praised my writing and I always got maximum marks on it.

The dice, however, were against me. My “wagon” (everyone had one) died several times. I couldn’t help it. Sometimes I had no choice, and others I had to shoot a paper ball into a trash can from the other side of the room. Quite interesting, but I did happen to lose my whole wagon four times.

4. Shaharra: I think I spelled her name wrong, but it has been seven years. This is a sad memory. A good and upbeat classmate of ours (yes, she was African American) died of an asthma attack. This impacted our grade greatly, and basically stopped the academic flow (and rightfully so) for a few days. We all got to attend the funeral. Later this year my great grandma died.

I’ve only been to two funerals, and both were within months of each other. It was very hard and depressing.

5. Iowa Project: This was where we had a week (or two, maybe three) for our group of three to compile a bunch of information on Iowa. Were it not for this, I would not know nearly as much of my awesome state as I do today. We had to name all of the counties (go die in a fire Gansen), the biggest states, state bird/rock/flag and all of that.

Also, this is where Austin, David, and I became friends. This was a long long time ago, before Austin took the path of crime and drugs. We were very good friends, all loving Harvest Moon 64 and various games. Some of my greatest memories were from times with these two. But they are times that have passed, and are merely memories.

——–

I was inspired a bit early to write this dry humor:
So, the blink box was all blinking and said, “Blink blink…blink blink blink”, and I was like, “WHOA! It’s blinking at me!”