Writer, Photographer,

I have been blessed (cursed?) with a really good memory. Last night I couldn’t get to sleep and was thinking about random things I remembered from high school, then junior high, then elementary school. I thought I’d do a little series to record these memories for posterity, so without further ado, Installment 1: Elementary School.

In preschool (yes, I’m serious!) there was a little girl with long blond hair who I desperately wanted to be friends with. I asked my mom how I could “make her be friends with me”, and Mom wisely replied that I couldn’t make someone be friends with me, they had to want to be my friend, too. 

Kindergarten: Mrs. Reed was my teacher, and memories include being distressed the first day about whether you pronounce it kindergarDEN or kindergarTEN. We had a huge brown stuffed bear named Bernie that we got to take turns taking home, I still remember exactly what the room looked like, and one time I got in trouble with 3 classmates for being late in from recess. We’d been having a really good time swinging on the swings and making up a song about all of the kindergarten teachers. I also do remember show and tell, and learning to take test by “filling in the donut all the way.” I went to afternoon kindergarten and had a pita pocket with melted cheese in it every day for lunch before going to school. Also: letter books!

First Grade: Mrs. Luhan was my teacher, and I loved those books you learned to read on. There was one notable one about a zoo, I think. During Christmastime we all put a shoe outside and “Santa Clause” came by and put treats in them. I was totally not fooled. 

Second and Third grades: I had the same teacher, Mrs. Parkinson, so these memories blend together. Mrs. Parkinson was a smoker, now that I look back. She was forever popping the Nicorette. My best friend was Erica Walker, but we got into a fight one time when a note I wrote got confiscated and read by the teacher. The note was making fun of some other girl, but Erica thought it was her. Mrs. Parkinson had a reading loft in her room, which was pretty much the best thing ever. We also had a day each school year that was a read-a-thon, where you brought in a pillow, snack food, and books and just read all day. That was pretty much what I like to do in my leisure time anyway. My teacher’s neighbor was some Cardinals football player named Aldel Grecko, or something along those lines. She was pretty proud of that fact, and even dragged the sucker in to meet us one day and give us signed photos of himself. I was not impressed. They separated the students out for math, according to your skills. I’d been in the top math group until I had issues with subtraction and was moved to the normal group. My teacher promised I’d be moved back up when I learned subtraction, but I was kept down. 

Fourth Grade: I remember that this was an election year, Clinton won. My teacher was Mr. Towarnickyj, pronounced Towarninsky. We learned cursive and I was not a fan, but we also did a class newspaper and I liked that. We had a project involving babysitting an egg all week, then building a contraption to put our egg into so that it wouldn’t break when dropped from the roof of the school. My egg didn’t make it. From this year I remember Friday Fun, which took place for the last hour/half hour of school on Fridays. If you were good you got to go on the playground–I was always good.

In fifth grade during music class at Halloween time, we learned a song that was very disturbing to me. It went: “Have you seen the ghost of John? Long white bones with the skin all gone…wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on?” The music teacher, Mrs. Norton (she’s another story), had us lay down like we were in a coffin and she’d turn the lights off and have a strobe light going while we sang it. I told my parents about it and got excused from music class until Halloween was over. My teacher for fifth grade was Mrs. Stone, and for Halloween she wore grungy clothes and said she was dressed as one of her sons. That year we learned the 50 states and capitals, watched some guy dissect a cow eye (traumatized!!), and took turns reading chapters to the class from “My Brother Sam is Dead.” We also did reports on a state of our choosing. I did North Dakota and it was boring. What’s interesting about North Dakota?? There was a kid named Jason in my class, and we would kinda pick on each other back and forth. At one point he got pulled from the school to be homeschooled. I hope it wasn’t because of me.

Sixth Grade: my teacher was Mr. Smith, the basketball coach. I had a little boyfriend, Kyle Johnson, whose phone number I still remember. We did a unit on the Wright Brothers and got to build planes out of balsa wood and fly them. Coolest project ever! There was a French exchange student in our class named Julian, and Mr. Smith made him sing the French national anthem in front of the whole class like 7 times. I wasn’t a fan of math, and let all the talk about “formulas” kinda skim over. For Social Studies we would have this thing called “The Great Debate” before tests, where each table got to take one page of notes and would then try to stump the other tables. Winners got licorice! I sat next to Kyle–one day he erased the ink from a chapter heading that said “The Age of Discovery.” When he was done with it, it said “The Age of Disco.” Still makes me laugh!

Stray memories include field day, where we did outdoor activities and had relay races, and also the carnival we had every year. I remember walking to  and from school every day and thinking it was the longest trek known to man. I loved the library, and loved playing Oregon Trail during computer lab. My favorite thing to do at recess was daydream on the swings.

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