Can you remember going to first grade? I am three quarters of a century old and I can remember some of it. I can remember my teacher and how wonderful she was. I started school in a three room old wooden building that held first, second, and third grades. Fourth grade and up went to a newer, large brick building with inside toilets.
Yep, the first three years of my schooling was in that building. There were no indoor toilets but had two "outhouses", one for the boys and one for the girls. Since I then lived up north where the winters were cold with blustery winds and heavy snows, the trips to the outhouses were not always very comfortable. I always questioned why the youngest kids had to deal with the weather and the walks to the "outhouses", but the fourth grade up through the seniors had nice heated inside bathrooms.
OK, so you see I do remember starting to school. Now, maybe I should have never told you about this because now you are thinking that I must be very, very old. Well let me tell you, I am young at heart (grin). Oh yes, I also remember steam locomotives, home milk delivery, coal bins in the a closed off part of the basements along with special rooms off to the side of the basement for keeping food and home canned goods. I actually enjoyed "the good old days" and have a lot more fond memories of those days. For you younger folks, the good old days are not quite as far back in time as mine, but everyone has good old days, so tell me yours and have a great day, you hear?
I cannot even recall yesterday much less first grade.
ReplyDeleteI can remember things way in the past better than yesterday.
DeleteMy good old days are a lot like yours, although we were in the city and had bathrooms for all grades in the school. I loved 1st grade except for the time all the students were in a circle and the nun would ask a question and point to one of the kids who had their hand up. At one point I had to go to the bathroom really bad and raised my hand, but she didn't call on me until I had peed on the floor. Then she was contrite and said "Oh, do you have to be excused?" Well duh, by then I had no need to be excused. Other than that 1st and 2nd grades were wonderful - both years I got an award for having the highest grade average of all the students in my class.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember a lot about it, but some things from then do stand out in my memory.
DeleteThe first couple of days of first grade went Okay. Then it occurred to me that I was expected to do this school thing day after day for years. Right then I knew it was going to seriously impact my fun time.
ReplyDeleteI was an only child and really enjoyed being with other kids, school or not.
DeleteMy sister Started at the old one room with the outhouses and then ended up in the new block school with the "inhouses."
ReplyDeleteYep, almost like I did.
DeleteWe lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina when I was in first grade. We had indoor toilets but I do not recall much about my teacher.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do recall my pre-K and Kindergarten teachers who were sisters and were wonderful caring individuals. We went back twenty plus years later and the new owner of the house informed us that one of the sisters had passed away and the other was still alive but she had no idea where she had moved to.
It sure is hard to go back to your past. I have tried it but even going to the same places you enjoyed as a child wasn't the same as I remembered.
DeleteAll I remember of (as) the 1st grade was being punished by sitting outside the classroom door.
ReplyDeleteMy kindergarten teacher walks by & says "So Robby, sitting out in the hallway again?"
Sounds like your kindergarten teacher had you pegged.
DeleteI can remember Kindergarten but after that well the dislike for school set in. I remember later years and not being a very good student. I blame the teachers haha
ReplyDeleteDidn't have Kindergarten back then where I lived, so first grade was the first taste of school. Yep JO, it couldn't have been your fault, blame the teachers. . . of course, I have a lot of good teachers but also there were some bad ones, too.
DeleteSpeaking of historical memories, go check out a blogger named "Prunepicker". He was born in 1925 and has some really good stories on occasion, of his early life.
ReplyDeleteFYI
Ok, I will try it.
DeleteI will try to read some of his stories as well. My mom was born in 1920 and I loved hearing stories from her and my dad (1910) about their childhood years, which were largely shaped by the depression.
DeleteMy mother used to talk about the depression. I think that the people who lived through it became a lot more thrifty afterwards.
DeleteI will attest to that. Those who lived in this time also passed their 'methods' and 'madness' down to us children, which today has formed me into a Saver. I waste nothing to speak of and find myself rarely doing without, although my children are in a panic. I say to them, "No Worry!", "I'm Happy".
DeleteDizzy, you are right about that to the point of being an understatement. Dad was born in 1912 and Mom was born in 1918. As adults in their 40s, they were not poor people. But they could not shake off the Great Depression and could squeeze the red off of a penny. Even when gas prices were going up in the 1970s (they were use to 36 cents a gallon gas), we would go shopping for groceries at the Bargain Corner, and Mom would not buy meat at a higher price than she thought reasonable. She always failed to calculate that if we had to pay higher gas prices, the producers bringing that meat to market also had to pay higher gas prices. She always thought there was a sale on meat to coincide with her price somewhere; hence, what she ended up buying was poor quality meats. Sort of drove me nuts!!
ReplyDeleteWe (I hope) will never go through what our parents did during the great depression. The only good side was that those who had a job or had money could purchase stuff at an extremely low price.
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