The Recess Posse

This is a true story from my youth. I haven’t shared it before now.

In eighth grade all of the "good" boys, as deemed by the school nuns, were impressed into the school's safety patrol. So I was picked to be a safety.

We were required to conduct ourselves in a morally fit manner, and were given specific assignments. My assignment was particularly bad -- I was to oversee the first grade class during lunch recess in the rear of the school.

I hated this. I was separated from anyone close to my age, and I had to enforce the nun's rules concerning recess. First and foremost, the first graders were not allowed to run! Heaven forbid they might trip and fall on the asphalt. So for the first two weeks I was constantly chasing after the violators and making them do a time-out by standing against a chain link fence.

It didn't take long before I noticed that it was the same bunch of kids that I was punishing day after day. Since I was going crazy enforcing the silly rule, I decided to make my own rules. I rounded up all of the "bad" first graders and deputized them. Of course, they wanted to know what that meant, so I told them that they were on my side and when I gave the order, they had to run after any kid they saw running and bring him to me.

What a great idea this turned out to be! Not only did I give them a chance to exercise, but I had the most enthusiastic enforcement team you could imagine. If someone outside the posse started to run, the posse would collar him right away. It was so effective that after a while, to relieve boredom, members of the posse would just start running to see how long they could elude their friends.

It never occurred to me that if the nuns found out what I was doing, I would have been severely punished, maybe even suspended. As luck would have it, I received a promotion and changed assignments. This wasn't due to the taming of the running lust of first graders, but rather to the fact that the captain safety was kicked off the force. He was caught talking during morning prayers and was instantly dismissed by the eighth grade nun.

Everyone near the top of the ranks was bumped up one position. I became lieutenant safety and was assigned the bicycle rack at an entirely different area of the school.

My story was never told till now.