I started a new school in Dumas. Where they changed classes! I had a big yellow book bag that my parents brought home after a parent teacher conference because I had it full of papers and junk. My brother and I flew to visit a family friend in Houston and I got a new purple one from a kiosk at the Galleria called Everything Purple.
My deep hatred of spelling words began. There was only one set of books in class and we had to copy down the words. I would write them down wrong.
Somebody wanted to be my boyfriend on the third day. I can't remember his name. He was in the 4th grade and we used to meet at the fence.
There were rumors that Mrs. Everett would throw tennis balls at kids in her science class or make them get in her storage closet. I never saw this with my own eyes, but she did keep tennis balls on her desk. She taught us that you should never sniff scientific experiments, we should waft the fumes towards our face with our hands. She also told on me and my boyfriend for meeting at the fence.
My math teacher was Mrs. Tyler. She had the biggest lips I've ever seen. She taught us our times tables and how to tell time on a real clock. I remember a problem in her class about a clock and how many times it chimed in 24 hours if it chimed the hours and every half hour.
Mrs. Southerland was our reading teacher. We had those stupid workbooks where you had to write the answers in complete sentences, which I thought was a waste of time. So I used ditto marks, and got in trouble. I hated those exercises. She used to ask us questions in the last few minutes of class. One day she asked us to name mammals. I said whale and she tried to argue with me that I wasn't right. I was. She had someone come in to teach us French. I don't remember one word.
I got sent to the principal's office (not the last time I encountered the principal's office) because of some stupid girl fighting about who was friends with who, and when someone was absent, Kristin wanted to be our friend, but when Mandy was there, she didn't. Everyone got their feelings hurt and there was a lot of cattiness. The principal was one of the girl's grandfather. While we were in his office, he artfully removed his paddle from the top drawer to threaten us to get our shit together. I think it worked.
We used to ride the big blue school bus to the church on Monday afternoons for choir when it was raining.
We played jacks on the sidewalk at lunch, I had a little pink suitcase of them. The boys played popping pencils. Nolan Moore was the undisputed pencil popping champion. He also had the tightest rolled jeans.
Once you sat down in the lunch room, you couldn't move again. Drew was the slowest eater and would end up having to shove a whole fruit roll-up in her mouth at once because we had to leave.
I have no earthly idea how you remember so much about 4th grade. FOURTH GRADE! I can't even recall my teacher. If I pulled out the yearbooks more memories might come flooding back but sheesh, I can't even remember where those yearbooks are!
Clearly I wasn't blessed with a good memory like you. And your brother too apparently...
Posted by: SJ | November 08, 2009 at 08:39 AM