The Stop-and-Go Sign

I moved to Grantsville, Utah in the summer of 1983. I had completed kindergarten in Kaysville, Utah, where I was born. That fall I started first grade at Grantsville Elementary School in the class of Mrs. Jan Baird. Since this was forty years ago, my memories of first grade are not entirely clear. I remember learning songs from Mary Poppins and participating in the First Grade Circus (where I was a Hippity-Hop and also took part in the Purple-People-Eaters number). I'm sure there was some reading, spelling, and math as well. But there is one memory from first grade that I still remember pretty clearly.

When we'd eat lunch in the cafeteria, the teacher on lunch duty would carry around a Stop-and-Go sign. It was literally two pieces of construction paper (one red, one green) cut into circles and glued back-to-back with a popsicle stick handle in between. The words "Stop" and "Go" were printed on the corresponding sides. The sign would be used to indicate if a particular table was excused to go out for post-lunch recess. I don't remember exactly how this worked. There wasn't a sign for each table, so maybe it was just that when a table was excused to go out, the teacher would go to that table and dramatically turn the sign from "Stop" to "Go." In any case, it was used in some fashion to excuse kids to go outside after they had finished eating lunch.

My best friend in the first grade was David Fawson (still one of my very good friends who I can always count on to show up to the Alumni Basketball Tournament). One day after school, on our way to wait for the bus, we stopped by the Lost and Found, which was located in the cafeteria. I believe one of us was missing something and stopped to see if it had been placed in the Lost and Found. We did not find the missing item, but sitting atop the assorted items, was the aforementioned Stop-and-Go sign.

At the time, I think I believed it had been misplaced or lost and that is why it was in the Lost and Found. I later realized that's probably just where they kept it. For reasons I no longer remember or understand, and in an act that for me, qualified as rebellion, and against Dave's protestations, I decided to take the sign.

It's comical to me now, but I can still recall Dave's disbelief that I would be so brazen as to just take the Stop-and-Go sign. I mean, how would we be dismissed for recess the next day?

The consequences that would come to the school as a result of my larceny notwithstanding, why did I even want the sign anyway? What was I going to do with it? It's appeal as a source of entertainment seems limited. If it had been awarded to me or given to me as a gift, pretty sure I would have thrown it straight in the trash. But since I was stealing it, I apparently wanted it desperately. I grabbed it from the Lost and Found and headed out to wait for the bus.

In what was maybe an indication of how I would fare as a criminal, I was not discreet about my theft. Instead, I proudly displayed my treasure to several others at the bus stop. When the bus arrived, I got on the bus and took the sign home. I have no memory of doing anything with the sign once I got there.

When I came back to school the next day, I left the sign at home. (I guess I had the good sense not to return the item to the scene of the crime, or something). Not long after the first bell rang and the school day had begun, Mrs. Karen Johnson (the school secretary at the time) came over the intercom: "Students, the Stop-and-Go sign is missing. If anyone has seen it, please let us know."

Never one who liked to be in trouble, I was immediately in a panic. But for a few moments, I thought I could get a way with it. I would just act casual, bring it back the next day, take it to the office, and claim I had found it somewhere.

With a swiftness that astounds me to this day, this fleeting hope was shattered. It seemed that the crackling of the intercom from Mrs. Johnson's initial announcement had scarcely gone silent when she came over the intercom again, this time only to Mrs. Baird's classroom: "Mrs. Baird, I've received several reports that Richard (I was known as Richard in those days) Mouritsen was seen with the sign." (Several?! Was this school chock full of narcs?!).

It seemed that every head in the classroom turned toward me with looks of disgust. Mrs. Baird looked at me disappointedly and asked sternly if I had the sign with me. I replied that it was at home. "Well, you better go to the office and call about it."

I slowly walked to the office. I entered, and Mrs. Johnson glared at me with maybe even a bit more sternness than Mrs. Baird had. "Are you here to call about THAT?" she asked icily, without a hint of a smile. "Yes," was my meek reply.

When I think about now, I still laugh at the gravity that everyone gave the crime. We're literally talking about two pieces of construction paper, a popsicle stick, and a bit of Elmer's Glue. You'd have thought I had vandalized the school and taken some precious historical artifact with the way people were acting about it. Did we really need to get it back right then? Could we have survived the day and I would have brought it back tomorrow? Couldn't the teacher on lunch duty just say, "You're excused to go outside." Just for one day?

I dialed my phone number (4-6967, in those days, we didn't even have to dial "884", just "4", although I honestly don't remember if from the school you had to dial "9" first to get an outside line. This was 40 years ago. I was in the first grade!).

I think about my mom, and what the situation at home would have been like at the time. I don't recall if this was in the fall or the spring, but I guess either way, my mom would have had three young boys at home. Carl would have been a little over or under a year, Alan about three, and Scott five, I don't know if my mom had a car at home or if we only had one car at the time, which my dad would have taken to work (at Zion's Bank in Tooele, which was at the corner of what is now Utah Avenue and Main, though I don't know if it was called Utah Avenue at the time. There's certainly another story there. Maybe another time). I believe at some point we received an old blue car (I don't recall the make or model) from my Grandma Nalder, but I don't know if we had yet. (All I remember about that car is that it didn't run real well and was certainly not winning any beauty contests).

I don't remember exactly how the conversation with my mom went, but do remember that she was not about to drop everything and bring the sign to the school. I told Mrs. Johnson I'd have to bring the sign back the next day.

And to the best I can recall, I did. And thus ended that chapter of my troubled criminal past.