I still remember the first field trip I led as a brand new teacher at Cutler Junior High.

I was taking a busload of kids to Sturbridge Village, a site I had visited before and many times since. Just before we left, my principal, George Sneider, approached me and said, “Mr. Welt, you might need these,” and handed me a half dozen Ana-kits.

I must have looked a little pale when I saw those hypodermic needles. I had no idea what they were for or how to use them. As it turned out, they were for bee-sting-allergic kids, and apparently I had some with me.

Mr. Sneider went on to say, “Relax, one of your parent chaperones is a registered nurse.”

Readers should be assured that things have improved since then. There is now a field trip checklist to follow and one of the steps is to provide the school nurse with a list of students going so that she can have all the necessary medications ready for the trip. And Ana-kits have been replaced with EpiPen auto injectors.

Thankfully, in 40 years of teaching, I never had to use one. It always seemed strange that I could give a kid a shot, but not an aspirin for a headache.

I still recall another field trip I organized while teaching at Cutler. One year in the ‘70s I had five classes of seventh graders. While normally in junior high one taught two or even three grades levels, my department head wanted to teach all eighth graders, so I got what would have been his seventh grade classes. Was I lucky!

They turned out to be five classes of some of the nicest students I’ve taught. The field trip I took them on was to New York City: to the United Nations and the Statue of Liberty. I convinced Charlie Miller, a health teacher, to go with me, plus a few parent chaperones. Off we set in two coach buses for the Big Apple with permission slips and meds in hand!

As we approached the city, the driver of my bus, which was in the lead, asked if I thought the kids had ever seen ocean liners. I told him I doubted it. He got on the CB radio to the other driver and they agreed to go down the West Side so the kids could see the cruise vessels.

At the Battery we boarded a ferry out to the Statue of Liberty. I told the kids to always stick with their group and if they had to go to the bathroom, take a buddy. Before we left the island, Joe, one of my boys, came up to me and told me that a big kid from another school had taken his dinner money from him in the men’s room. His buddy hadn’t been much help, but when I saw the perpetrator, I understood. He was definitely bigger than my youngsters.

I hunted up a park ranger and told him the story. The ranger said catching criminals wasn’t his job. I pointed out to him that he was wearing a badge and that he was the authority figure on that island. He agreed to stand with us at the ferry landing. Sure enough, my boys spotted the older kid getting on the boat. I turns out he was a ninth grader from a junior high in the city.

We talked to his principal, who was himself a big fellow. He took the miscreant to the stern of the boat, pointed at the Battery and then at the water. The kid dug into his pockets and came up with the two dollars he’d taken from Joe. I didn’t ask what the principal had said, but Joe got his dinner money back.

Our next stop was the United Nations. I guess I didn’t do my homework well enough because I found when we got there that we didn’t have enough chaperones to meet their leader/student ratio. I needed two more.

I went out and found our bus drivers and, bless them, they agreed to each chaperone a group.

When we left UN Plaza, my driver asked if I thought the kids would like to see Chinatown and Little Italy. Thus, we got a tour of lower Manhattan during rush hour. Those drivers were incredible!

On our way back to Mystic we stopped on the turnpike at a McDonald’s and pretty much filled the place. As I was eating, two elderly ladies approached me and asked if I were in charge of this group of children. Suspecting that they were unhappy about something, I looked around to see if I could spot Charlie and send them his way, but to no avail.

I owned up to the fact that they were my kids and waited to see if I had to apologize for something. Much to my delight, the ladies complimented me on what a nice, well-behaved group they were. I thanked them for their comments and then gave them my principal’s name and the school phone number and urged them to give him a call.

One of the best parts of the trip was that when we got back to school, all the parents were there to pick up their kids, and Charlie and I didn’t have to wait for an hour for the last parent to arrive!

Robert F. Welt of Mystic is a retired longtime teacher in Groton Public Schools.