1st Grade

YAY, 1st Grade and guess who I got as a teacher? That's right, Mrs. Webber. As I stated in the Kindergarten post, Mrs. Webber was as sought after as the Golden Ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and I GOT HER. Oh, happy day, folks, oh happy day.

1st Grade was in the same building as Kindergarten, but now I was upstairs, because well..I was big kid now and I remember those stairs being very big, so big that it felt like you had to swing your leg out, up and down just to go up one step, and...you did, when you were a 1st grader. So, maybe I wasn't so big. But I wasn't a Kindergartener anymore either, so THERE :P.

We still had the same playground, same swings that I busted my nose on, stupid swings. But you know I did that in the winter, so they just shoved some snow in my face as an ice pack. See, there are advantages to growing up in the North.

We learned math and spelling and reading and all that stuff. We still got to take naps. We made frogs out of paper plates and red and green chains, clothespin reindeer and pipe cleaner candy canes for Christmas. Yes, my mother still has that stuff and yes she still puts it on the tree 33 years later.

I got to walk to school by myself, which as was cool. Remember it was 1978/79 when I was in the 1st Grade and I lived in a small town so we were shielded from the outside world of danger in the form of getting kidnapped. In fact, no one I know got kidnapped, nothing. But of course our parents would put the FEAR OF GOD into you (which was almost as bad as the FEAR OF DAD), if you went someplace without tellin' because well, "what if someone took you right away from me?"

So, we walked to school, down a hill (seriously and back up it, in the winter on the way home), but the sidewalk had a wall next to it and we all walked on the wall. You climbed up by the Stop sign and walked the wall to the end, where you jumped down. This of course was "dangerous", because you could "fall off the wall and cut your head open." By the way, you were always "cutting your head open" and never anything else. No broken bones, no cut legs, but your head, oh yeah, EVERY TIME, according to mom. I walked that wall every day, except in the winter, because the snow was too high and you couldn't, plus it was slippery. Did you want me to CUT MY HEAD OPEN, afterall? And everytime I walked on the wall and got caught, I got in trouble, but did that deter me? Um, no. And no, I didn't cut my head open, nor did I fall. I got mad wall walking skillz, y'all.

My best friend was Heath Robinson. I wore Garanimals clothing - give it up if you know what I mean. You know Garanimals, the original Izod, or the OI. Match the Rhino on the shirt with the Rhino on the pants, and BAM (which I said WAY before Emeril), instant outfit, fit for a 1st grader. Sesame Street had a line of clothing, I had a big bird hat that was yellow and red and the "pom-pom" on top was Big Bird.

We lived in an apartment on Oak street and my mom worked at the hospital down the street. My grandmother was my babysitter and came up every day to get us off to school and was there every day when we got home. Sometimes we'd meet my mom at the hospital, just to "see" her and she'd buy us Swedish Fish, only the red kind, from the hospital store and a soda, that always tasted funny. I learned later it tasted funny because the syrup wasn't mixed quite right, but it was still good. Sometimes, mom brough the FISH home as a surprise.

My father was an Ironworker (those skyscrapers and all tall buildings you see, thank my father and people like them, he and his Union built those) and always left very early in the morning, but was always home at night.

My brother was 2 at the time, that's all I remember about him for now.

So that was 1st grade and that part of my life as I remember it.

Enjoy.