Tonight my grandson called me because he had to do a report on a relative about their experiences in 1st grade. His mother told me that her children like to call me because I always give them good stuff! She was probably being kind with that statement.
The thing is, I remember a lot about my elementary school days, but 2nd grade is a bit of a blur. I think it is because my mom made me go see Theda, to have my hair permed. My curls were so tight – and UGLY! I hated it and tried so hard to comb out my hair for school pictures. It is OK if your curls are natural – but to cause your hair to be unnatural is just wrong. As you can see, 1st grade was just fine, don't have my 2nd grade photo scanned - then 3rd grade came along, and it was a little more tamed down.
My daughter was surprised that the elementary school I attended had about 800 students! K-8, with 5 classes in each grade of 30+ kids – yep – it was that big. It was a great school, with lots of happy memories and of course a few not so pleasant! We had quite the diversity then; Mexican descent, Indian descent, African-American descent and Caucasian. I wouldn't be able to tell you what the percentages were because we were all friends! I am sure there was racism, but we never knew it. None of us knew our families were just getting by, because most all were in the same financial situation. There were a few girls that had store bought clothes, but the majority of us had mothers that made all our clothes. The girls wore dresses to school, the boys wore jeans and shirts. Nothing fancy. By the time you were in 5th grade you had PE everyday and had to take showers! But then living in Yuma, AZ and playing outside, a shower was a good thing for stinky kids! I do remember the locker room smelling a little rank some days! We had choir programs and band, home economics, wood shop – but no organized sports. However, my grade had a great girls softball team, I played pitcher or shortstop. It was quite the competition with the older girls – we usually won!
We had an assembly every week, with Mrs. Price leading the singing. We learned so many great songs, of which I can't remember any now! Mrs. Price was a 3rd grade teacher. She was quite flamboyant. I had her for 3rd grade, and for Easter we got to visit her home where she had peacocks roaming the yards. We would try to catch them, but only got a peacock feather for our efforts. I diverged…we also had the best Halloween carnivals in the whole city. The gymnasium was transformed as well as classrooms. The cafeteria served their famous homemade chili. All in all it was a great fund raiser for the school. Then in the spring we would have our annual BBQ event and talent show, where the students had to sell tickets. For several years I was the top girl ticket salesperson! Then for my 8th grade year, Mrs. Price decided she wanted to teach 8th grade. She got to produce a couple of shows, the Christmas program and a musical with the 8th graders. Lucky me, I got leading parts in both shows! But she returned to 3rd grade after that year – it wasn't the same.
Well, I could ramble on about my memories, but I will stop.
