Priscilla

October 12, 2025

Image by Cole Stivers from Pixabay

It’s been many decades since I went to elementary school, and my memories of those times are hazy. I recall a little about second grade. I have a vague picture in my mind of what the classroom looked like and where I sat. Three double rows of seats attached to desks were bolted to the floor, and a banner with the alphabet in upper and lower case hung above the blackboard. The names of a few kids and something of their personalities still linger in my memory. Nelson was a master at building with blocks, prim Eileen always had the right answers to the teacher’s questions, and Curtis gnawed the wax off his milk container after drinking its contents. We read stories from a primer and articles from the Weekly Reader. It must have been an eventful year for me to recollect that much of it.

By contrast, I remember very little about first grade. I do recall, however, that the teacher handed out stars for good conduct or doing well on a spelling test, or writing letters well with straight lines that reached the right height on the three-line grid. Good character and citizenship were determined by how well we stood and recited the Pledge of Allegiance and if our hands and fingernails were kept clean. They were inspected every afternoon. We placed them on the desk, palm down, and then turned them over. Those who passed muster got a star.

They were red stars stamped on flimsy yellow paper cut into little rectangles. When you got twenty-five of them, they could be exchanged for a much coveted gold star. Our pockets would be stuffed with the crumpled yellow papers, and our parents would reckon our academic achievement by how many we amassed each day. Ten gold stars could be redeemed for a gift, maybe a box of crayons or something of that sort, so everyone was eager to collect as much of that classroom scrip as possible.

Well, not everyone. Priscilla was awarded as many stars as any other student, but instead of treasuring them like the rest of us, she’d casually empty her pockets and toss the valuable stars out whenever she walked by the wastepaper basket in front of the room. We all wanted to be chosen to empty the basket at the end of the day, because whoever was assigned that task was able to dig out Priscilla’s stars. We were disappointed to be chosen to erase the board, or to do any chore other than emptying the basket. None of us could fathom why Priscilla threw away her stars. We thought she was strange. We didn’t really care about her reasons, only about scooping up her discarded stars.

I don’t think anyone asked Priscilla why she threw away her stars. We were too preoccupied with trying to get hold of what she didn’t want. I don’t remember anything about that girl except that she never kept her stars. That’s one thing more than I remember about any of my other classmates that year, although I assume some of them became my classmates in second grade. All I really recall about first grade is what I’ve related here—that our hands were inspected, we were awarded stars, and we rummaged for Priscilla’s discarded stars in the wastepaper basket.

Even though I have no memory of what she looked like, I’ve thought of Priscilla many times over the years, and still think of her. I think of her when, once again, I realize I’ve been taken in by some popular fad or notion, when I follow what others are doing instead of doing what I want to, when I realize that an opinion or belief I hold is based on nothing more than conventional wisdom or the latest understanding of what matters. It’s so easy to be dragged along by the current and follow the crowd. I can’t help wondering how, at the age of six, little Priscilla already understood that she didn’t have to do what others did, or want what others wanted. She didn’t feel the need to collect those damn scraps of paper with red stars to get gold stars to exchange for something she didn’t need in the first place.

I’ve given lots of thought to why Priscilla didn’t care about the stars, and rejected any idea of her being mentally incompetent and unable to comprehend their value. As far as a I recall, she was normal in every respect other than her indifference to stars. If she was intellectually or socially impaired, she wouldn’t have been able to earn those stars. No, it had to be a decision she’d come to that those stars weren’t worth the effort. She didn’t want her pockets cluttered with scraps of paper or her mind cluttered with thoughts of pathetic rewards. Maybe her mind was already full of wonderful ideas, visions, and symphonies that she was listening to or maybe even constructing. Maybe what was occupying her was so much finer, of so much more value than the paltry gifts the stars could ever provide.

The truth is I’ll never know what was going on in Priscilla’s mind that made her spurn the stars, but throughout my life she has been a model, a reminder, to find my own way and not follow blindly the dictates of others. I’m not claiming any great success in that respect, but I, at least, can think of Priscilla and appreciate her strangeness, as I stumble through a life cluttered with tawdry distractions.