Old School. . .New School. . .Sep 11 '03 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Looking back on my childhood, I know that I was blessed!!!
For those who don't already know it, I'll confess again that I could be a handful when I was growing up. If you don't believe me, just read Debbie & The Brat: http://www.epinions.com/content_1606525060 I like to tell people--as if I were actually proud of it!--that, somewhere within the headquarters of South Madison School Corporation, there's a bronze paddle serving as a tribute to me! Actually, the above is just an urban legend (made up by yours truly), but it could very well be true, because I earned at least one paddling per school year clear up to and through fifth grade--and was even threatened with one when I was a high school freshman! If you're curious about the latter, you can find it in my long, meandering story called Hush Puppies--which might be required reading to go along with this piece, as you will also find a lot of useful information about other topics we'll be covering therein: http://www.epinions.com/content_3144654980 Anyway, I think it's time to share with you a few anecdotes from my school days--and what it was like to go to school back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Let's start with my short stint in tap-dancing school when I was four years old. My teacher was Ann Harmeson (who would later be Ann Harmeson Hardacre--and who is to this day affectionately known as Miss Ann). If you were to go to Screaming In The Subway: http://www.epinions.com/content_40143130244 and read the little section called Sidebar, you would become even more enlightened about what a demon-seed I could be at times!!! Anyway, in spite of everything, I hope that I made school fun for my teachers, even if they didn't want to admit it at the time, because it was certainly fun for me!!! When I was younger, I would usually ride the bus on the return trip home and be driven there by Mommy in the morning. That way, I had more time to read on the toilet (generally, the funnies in the morning paper) and to eat a leisurely breakfast. Was I spoiled or what!?! To be frank, Jesse (my bus driver--in case you didn't learn this already) was probably glad to only have to deal with me half of the time most of the time. My elementary school (grades 1-8. . .I went to kindergarten but had to be driven into town for that) was a comforting, old building that had been built onto over the years. It was a warm, welcoming place that I can still bring to life again in my memories. There was one room for each grade, and the eighth-grade teacher was also the principal and basketball coach--plus anything else needing done, including helping out the custodian (who was also a bus-driver--not to mention someone I had a killer crush on). Our cafeteria was down in the basement, and all of the cooks were mothers of kids who were either currently going to or had graduated from Fall Creek Heights Elementary. We had good ol' home-cookin' with nearly 100% of what we ate made "from scratch." What we didn't eat was collected in buckets and given to the pig farmer next door for slop. If the pigs had depended on the amount left on my plate, they would have starved for sure!!! When I was in second grade, I decided that we should have a Girls' Club that would meet during recess. The rest of us girls decided that Melanie should be the president--for one thing, she just seemed as if she would make a good president. For another thing, she had a big brother who had told her about the candy store in the eighth grade room where funds were being raised for their annual end-of-the-year trip to McCormick's Creek State Park. Therefore, Melanie was the one who supplied the refreshments--generally, Turkish Taffy. What did we do? We generally would sit in a circle in a corner of the room and bring up funny incidents. Such as? For one thing, we had separate restrooms and cloak halls for boys and girls (shared by the first-graders, as well), and I just happened to be seated where I could see in the cloak hall when the door was open. Since nobody was undressing in the cloak hall, there was no reason to shut the door. Well, one of my male classmates (who will be called **** for this story) came out of the restroom into the cloak hall. He had remembered to pull up his undershorts but hadn't remembered to pull up his jeans, which were down around his legs. I saw it first and started pointing and laughing--and, soon, the whole class was in stitches, as **** hurried up and turned back into the restroom to finish getting decent! And, then, there was the case where something became funny to me due to something that had happened at home. It all started out when my mom's first cousins (John and Shannon) had come out with some produce from their gardens--among their offerings, hot peppers. Before anyone had time to stop me and tell me that it was hot, I grabbed one of those peppers and took a bite out of it, requiring several glasses of water right afterwards to get my mouth comfortable again! At the time, I had been working on one of these books where you pasted stamps of different things (e.g. animals, flowers) into this activity book. Before my hands were properly washed, I managed to transfer some of the heat to those stamps. I wasn't trying to, and I was surprised when I went to lick the stamps and found out that they now tasted like hot peppers!!! So, a couple of years later, my second grade teacher, Mrs. Lois Whiteman, was putting some stamps into a book and made the comment to the class that the stamps tasted nasty to her. This reminded me of the pepper incident, so I found it to be rolling-on-the-floor funny and couldn't stop laughing! So, back to our club. . . Melanie might say something like "Remember them nasty stamps?" And the whole bunch of us would dissolve into giggles. And I would say, "Remember when **** came out of the restroom with his pants down?" And I would then do an imitation of how he waddled out and waddled back in very quickly when he found out how he looked. Of course, we were all hysterical by that time! And it went on and on! Then, some of the boys came over to our corner with these weapons they had made out of Tinker Toys and started goosing us with them! There was only one way to escape, and that was to start holding our club meetings in the girls' cloak hall--with the boys right outside the door (now closed) showing us their weapons through the window! There are so many wonderful memories from my school days that I wouldn't be able to list them all in the short time that I have--but I'm going to give you some more links to go to and remember with me: That 1967 Freshman Class Christmas Party http://www.epinions.com/user-review-20C6-ABF394E-3A1807BF-prod4 "I'm Counting To Ten!" (A Parable) http://www.epinions.com/book-review-4A00-2748F2D5-3A21F6D8-prod5 The Shower After The Storm http://www.epinions.com/kifm-review-A2-1208AD1E-39959BA5-prod1 We kids felt the comfort of the ordinary--that we would have four recesses, one milk break, and one lunch period between classes. That music was on Tuesdays & Thursdays and art was on Wednesdays.--and loved the adventure of the unusual--Those times when the bus got stuck in snow or stalled in flood waters either going to or returning from school; those parties we had to celebrate different holidays and birthdays. All through my years of going to school, I was constantly making wonderful memories--after all, I wasn't getting paddled ALL of the time (and even paddlings can become something to look back on and chuckle with the passing of time). But--just as it is at the end of a vacation--it was always good to come home to Mommy and Daddy. To know that, more likely than not, that wouldn't be changing for a long time to come. The year before I started first grade, I also had Grandpa to come home to--and how excited I would be to run into the living room where he was sitting in his favorite chair, throw my arms around him, and tell him all about my day!!! The weekend before I started first-grade, Grandpa went to the hospital. He was taken out of the house on a stretcher, and I wanted to hop on it with him, but I was told that kids weren't allowed to go to the hospital unless they were sick. I didn't realize how sick he was--and I was shocked when I came home from my first day of first grade to find out that he had passed away. For a long time after that, I would always make the same wish when I pulled the wishbone whenever we had fried chicken: That God would send Grandpa back to live with us! One night, I had a wonderful dream that Grandpa had come back--and I guess that was as close to granting my wish that God saw fit to do in His wisdom. I remember when I was in second grade I found out that people could be fatally struck by lightning. One morning, I was sitting in class during a thunderstorm, and I suddenly wanted to go home and make sure that Mommy was all right. I was crying and begging Mrs. Whiteman to take me home, and she reassured me that my mother was okay--that she would know enough to stay in a safe place. Mommy later reassured me of the same thing. I never knew how close I came to losing my dad when I was in fourth grade, because nobody ever told me about the complications related to his open-heart surgery that had almost killed him. It would be many years before I found out how close he had come to dying--and, around that same time, how close we had ALL come to dying, because, back in the fall of 1962, we were on the brink of World War III!!! There was a safe feeling to my childhood--and there were so many September 11s when I would leave for school, have a wonderful day, and return home to the love of both parents, starting with hugs, kisses, and a nice, warm meal!!! This piece is dedicated to those children who went to school on September 11, 2001 expecting to return home to their folks--little knowing that they had seen one or both of their parents for the last time for the remainder of their earthly lives. And it's dedicated to people in various walks of life who are doing what they can to sow seeds of love where there is hatred in hopes that this won't happen again!  |
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