Elementary Years
Where do I start? The only think I remember about
kindergarten is Mrs. Thomas. She was a little “old” lady teacher at Robbins
Hill Elementary School. And I am sure she wasn’t old but to a 5 year old she
was. St. Stanislaus Elementary didn’t have kindergarten so Robbins Hill was
where we had to go for kindergarten. One other event comes to mind from
kindergarten days. That was winning a Pumpkin shaped cake at the cake walk at Robbins
annual Fall Festival. I remember being very excited. Don’t remember if it was
delicious but I do remember it looked beautiful.
I went to Stanislaus from first grade through eight. I have
random memories from those days. One is when the nuns had all of us girls knee
on the floor with our hands out for misbehaving during class. The practice was
to come down the row of kneeling students and whack their hands with a ruler.
You know, back then if one misbehaved all got the punishment. Well, the boys
started laughing and the nun had them take our places and receive the
punishment instead. Talk about saved by the bell, so to speak.
I remember Christmas plays and being in the classroom in the
evening when it was dark outside waiting our turn to perform. It was such an
eerie feeling. Almost magical.
I remember the first morning of summer vacation and lying in
bed and thinking I have three full months of not going to school and loving
that thought.
I remember Good Friday and spending three hours in church in
the choir. And speaking of choir, I remember singing at funerals and weddings
and having the families involved giving all choir members huge candy bars at
the end of Mass.
I remember Hold Saturday morning and taking a serving of the
Easter meal in baskets to be blessed. The church smelled so good with all the homemade
polish sausage in those baskets. Agony, knowing we couldn’t taste any of it
till Easter morning.
I remember the recess when a bunch of kids piled on the
teeter totter, too many on each side. Some on the one side jumped off and guess
whose ankle was under the falling teeter totter’s other side? Yep, mine. A
couple of kids carried me 5 blocks home and I was on crutches for a week with a
severe sprain. Never have liked teeter totters after that. Actually, I wasn’t
fond of them before that. I was such a skinny Minnie that everyone liked to try
and bounce me off. They never succeeded though. I could hang on pretty tight.
I remember a good friend stepping on a bumble bee in our
yard and blaming me. We never were as good as friends after that. I remember
being the only girl on our block and being able to beat all the boys when we held
our “track meets”.
I can remember my two younger brothers and me building
go-carts out of scrap lumber and wheels off scooters and wagons. One time we were
pushing John down the driveway. He got to going pretty fast and turned towards
the house to stop, we didn’t know how to make brakes, right into the basement
window. Half of go cart outside, half inside hanging over my dad’s work bench. No
one was hurt but we knew we were in deep trouble. I don’t think we ever got all
the broken windows from our childhood paid off. My older brothers caddied at
the local golf course and would bring home golf balls. We sunk veggie cans for
holes, one in the front yard and one in the back yard. The object was to hit
the ball from one hole to the other. Problem was, there wasn’t much space
between the house and unattached garage. And the garage door had windows across
the top. I am sure you can figure out the rest. None of us were a Tiger Woods.
So many memories come back as I write. But I think it is
time to stop for today. Next week I will cover memories from St. Joseph High.
Have a relaxing Sunday,
Rose
p.s. Hubby isn't in to this question answer thing, but I am still working on him.
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