Red Belly Day

School started up again this past week. I watched with amusement as the 7th and 8th graders wandered into the building on the first day. It is as quiet as they will be all year. They were just one big bleary- eyed hoard. The 6th graders, on the other hand, came in with a different sort of look on their faces. The look was a mix of confusion and fear. They really don’t have much to be worried about. They have their own hallway and don’t mix with the older kids much at all. However, you can’t convince them that they have nothing to worry about. You see, they’ve heard “stories” about what sometimes happens to 6th graders in middle school. I can relate to their fear as I, myself, as a 5th grader getting ready to make the jump to junior high once feared the dreaded “red belly day”.

All 5th grade boys lived in fear of the red belly. The story was that 8th graders from the junior high across the street would get together two or three times a year and venture over to the elementary school to administer the standard initiation for all soon to be 6th grade boys. That initiation was the much dreaded red belly. According to the legend, the older boys would grab a helpless little elementary kid and hold him down. One of them would then lift the little kid’s shirt up and slap him on the stomach repeatedly thus creating the “red belly”. This may sound ridiculous now but let me tell you there wasn’t a 5th grader in school who wasn’t terrified of the thought of receiving a red belly. Hazing was still very much alive back in the late 1970s and early 1980s so it seemed plausible to us.

Several times during the year the rumor would be whispered that it was red belly day and we had better all watch out. It didn’t matter that nobody actually knew anyone who had received a red belly (we assumed nobody had survived) as the mere mention of this being “the day” would send scores of 5th grade boys into a panic. All the proof we needed that this was a real phenomenon was the fact that our elementary school let out 15 minutes earlier than the junior high. The reason for this, it was surmised, was to give us a head start on the blood-thirsty belly busting 8th graders. Lingerers who failed to take advantage of this head start risked being pounded. I’m willing to bet that nobody hated red belly day more than the school nurse. Without fail, 5th grade boys would become “ill” en masse and need to go home early. I wonder if that nurse ever knew what was really behind these miniature epidemics? Red belly day was also the day we all decided to run, not walk, home from school. We weren’t scared, of course, we just needed some extra exercise.

Needless to say, I never received a red belly nor did any of my friends. Of course, once I reached junior high safely I perpetuated the legend of the red belly by telling my younger brothers what was waiting for them on an, as yet, undecided date. I know my friends did the same with their little brothers. To the best of my knowledge, the legend lives on to this very day in my hometown.

As far as I know, the legend of the red belly was confined to my little corner of Southeast Texas. However, every now and then I will catch a glimpse of a 6th grade boy running down the street away from our campus for all he’s worth and I wonder if maybe, just maybe, he isn’t running for “extra exercise” but because of his fear of having his mid-section beaten on like a bongo drum.

As the 6th graders came into school this week I tried my best not to chuckle at their stuttering voices and big as saucers eyes. After all, I understand their fear. Even now, once or twice a year I will have a dream where I am running down Helena Avenue away from a pack of torch bearing pitchfork wielding 8th graders who want nothing more than to slap my belly until it turns fire engine red. Rational? Maybe not, but what if there is a list of the "one's that got away" out there somewhere? That is why,even now, I always sit with my back to the wall when we go out to eat. After all, those 8th graders are relentless.

My best…