9-12-08...FIRST GRADE 1950
I talked to a couple of my school classmates just recently. We talked about School days of course. The conversation got on our First Grade teacher, Miss Sallie. There are conflicting memories but I just have my memories so that's all I can relate to. Miss Sallie had been a very gifted and educated teacher in her time. She was old as dirt I think and her mind tended to wander. My friend Ruby says she just loved Miss Sallie to pieces. My friend Tommy and I both remember her being very weird. My first grade was tramatic any way you look at it with me bawling every day and Brenda across the hall wettin' her pants. I had plenty of adventures but today it's Miss Sallie I'm focusing on. Miss Sallie had a big knot of hair that hung kinda' hap'hazzardly on the side of her head. Probably was supposed to be on top but I think it slipped. She had big thick glasses that made her eyes look big and buggy. I dont remember much teachin' going on. She told us stories. She would take her desk chair and move it in the middle of the floor near our desks. She told stories like, Jack and The Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs and other children stories of the time. I don't remember her telling them the way I heard them from my Parents, or anywhere else for that matter. She just scared the ever'lovin' stuffins' out of me. I was so sure her stories were all true and factual. The one story I remember her telling that wasn't any I ever heard then or since then was just horrifying to me. She said that when she got ready for bed each night a little elf, that lived in her watch, jumped out and hopped around her bed and chattered and giggled. Then she said when she got ready to come to school the next morning the little elf got back in her watch and stayed there all day. She would take that little gold watch off and put it up to her ear and listen. We got to listen too if we dared, which I did, and of course the watches ticked then. Sooo! The elf took form ,at least in my mind it did, and became reality. The one time I told someone about it they laughed at me and called me a liar. Guess I told the wrong person. Miss Sallie never married and lived with her Mother next door in the house she was probably raised in. She took us over there all the time and I was just scared spitless. I couldn't really remember but I thought her Mom was still there and My Friend Tommy confirmed that she indeed was. I got a clear picture from his description of her. Solid white hair pulled up on her head in a not too tidy bun. Kinda big and has long hairs growing out of her chin. That old house as I remember it was like the story of Hansel and Grettle that Miss Sallie had told us. So Of course the lady was the witch in the story as far as I was concerned. I hated going over there but My Friend Ruby told me she just loved going. I remember one day I said to my friend Billie, lets run and we started to do just that but Miss Sallie saw us and told us, Come on now girls, we are having an adventure, there is more to learning than books. Well for my part of that I'd rather have been back where the books were! I just knew that little elf was lurking around there getting ready to jump on my back and chatter in my ears and I sure didn't want that. The house was dark, drab, and musty smelling to me. Horrible Horrible Horrible. Now I realize now that Miss Sallie must have taught us something, that is just not the part I remember. Surely to Goodness we learned, at least some of us did. As I remember there were about 15 in our first grade class but 9 of us is all that made it to the second grade. And it was us 9 for the next 11 years. We graduated in 1962 and we aint any of us no dummy. We had to of learned. That was Miss Sallies last year to teach. The next year Miss Bonnie was the first grade teacher. Miss Bonnie had never married either. Sometimes I think those were the smartest people but they were weird to me then and still are. Yep my first grade of school was certainly a big adventure. But I did ok. No worse for the wear. Yep did pretty good I'd say. YEP
