2nd Grade

Wooo to the hooo, 2nd Grade here I come. And I get...Mrs. Palmatier. Let me just say this, only the COOL kids got Mrs. Palmatier, much like Mrs. Webber, you WANTED Mrs. Palmatier. And I got moved to the BIG SCHOOL, on the hill. Yeah, my town had alot of hills, it was in the middle of the mountains, deal with it, I did. The big school housed K-12 but it was split up. The building was shaped like the letter "C" and had been tipped on it's back, with its arms sticking straight out, like this |_|. On the left hand side was K-6, then the back of the "C" had admin offices and some classrooms that began 7-12, the right hand side of the "C" was all the 7-12 classrooms.

I remember Mrs. Palmatier to be the "motherly" looking type. Black, almost bee-hive type hair do with loose curls, glasses that had a chain attached to them, red lipstick, more like a grandmother. Warm, inviting, fun, but very serious when necessary.

We each had our own little desk and a plastic chair, all the chairs were blue, you didn't get a choise, you got a blue chair, which was fine by me, I mean blue being my favorite color and all.

We had a bigger playground and sometimes got to go down to the football field to play, which was cool.

There was also a bathroom in the classroom, each classroom had that setup, you'd go in, lock the door, do your business, wash hands, come out. However, you could pick the lock with a pair of pointed scissors in no time. Yes I had that happen to me, yes I did that to someone else.

In this class we were introduced to the SRA reading series and everytime you finished a level satisfactorily, and this was something you could do at your leisure, in addition to regular school work, you got a HOTBALL candy. Lord I LOVE me some ATOMIC FIREBALL HOTBALLS. Yeah, I said HOTBALLS. I finished that entire set, no small feat, in a school year. I could read like a Mo'Fo' as well as spell like one too. FEAR ME. Anyway....

I thought Mrs. Palmatier was so cool, because she'd been to China and she'd had octopus and frogs legs and was the first to say to us that "frogs legs do taste like chicken and she didn't know she was eating octopus, but it was ok". This to the squeals of GROSS...hey we were 7/8 year old. China was literally that foreign and eating something you caught down near the ice pond or the hospital creek, GROSS.

Because of her China trip, we got to try eating mandarin oranges with chopsticks and I remember that it was hard. Now I can use chopsticks like a pro and eat almost anything with them.

I think Mrs. Palmatier has passed away by now, in fact, now that I think about it, I know she has, as my father mentioned to me. And I immediately missed her, but smiled at the memories.