SCHOOL DAZE

OK, everyone close your eyes. Think wayyyy back, to when you were in grade school.

Remember how every thing looked? Remember how big the desks were? And the coat rack. How about how huge the lunchroom was, and how big the gym was. Remember mimeograph paper and how it smelled? And the paste and how it tasted? How about construction paper in all its colors.

Do you remember your first hot lunch? How about buying lunch tickets? Did you ever buy stamps at school and fill up the book so you could get a savings bond, signed by the president?

And who was the president at the time you were in first or second grade? Do you remember the playground? Did you have to rush out and be the first one to grab a swing? What about girls having cooties? And us guys were just plain gross to little girls.

Any of this bringing back any fond memories at all?

Well today, I went back in time, so to speack. I stoped at my first gradeschool. The year was 1961. I went to school in Edgewater at Lumberg Elementary, 1st through 3rd grade.

Today I walked through the front door and went to the office. It is different and they have added to the school. I got to see the principal, whom I had seen a few times years ago.(Different story some time.) She was very nice. I told her that I had been a student back in the 60's. She gave me a look like I had stepped out of horror movie. She asked me my name and I gave it, thankful that it was not a name remembered at the school.

She gave me a guick tour. Boy was I in for a treat. I got to see my first grade classroom. It had shrunk. And so had the desks. And the coat rack looked like it was two feet off the ground!

When she showed me the lunch room, I saw that IT had shrunk also! Everything seemed so tiny and small. I really do not know how parents can go to parent teacher conferance and get their butts in them desks. And if we tried to eat in the lunch room. . . well, we would all be a hell of a lot skinnier than we are.

And the gym! It looked the same but so much smaller. As a kid it seemed like it took forever to run across it and we would be out of breath. Now I could run it, and . . . still be out of breath.

But the ropes...ah, the ropes. They were still in the same spot as when I was there so many years ago. I loved those ropes. That was the one thing I was good at: I could climb a rope like a monkey. Nobody could climb like me. I even beat the teacher several times. Now...all I can do is maybe swing like a monkey.

It was really nice to see the school and how some things there are still the same as when I was a little rascal all them years ago. They have added a few new things to the school, which is nice. My favorite drinking fountain is still there. And the water is just as cold now as it was then. But it is sooo close to the ground it is hard for an adult to get any water.

It was at this fountain that I met my friend Marc Halverson for the very first time.

Such BIG memmories, from long ago, when things seemed SO BIG back then. I hope that the memories do not get smaller too and fade away.

I hope that maybe this will make you think back to your gradeschool with fondness also.