My 1st grade teacher was Miss Bowers. It was easy to remember this because it rhymed with flowers. She was very petite, which was nice for short little 1st graders like myself.
My 2nd grade teacher was Miss Giese. She was extremely interested in Japanese culture. That year, we had a Japanese exchange teacher (whose name I can't remember), who taught us how to use chopsticks, write our names in katakana, fold origami, and let us sample salted dried cherries. Miss Giese gave us each a shell necklace when she returned from a trip to Hawaii, too.
One day in 2nd grade, we were doing a student-parent project of making a pie. I was pretty much the leader of our small group, and I decided we were making a lemon-meringue pie. I'd never made one before, but I thought they were tasty. We definitely didn't have all the necessary equipment and ingredients to make the pie, so I got permission to run home and get a pot and a few other things. I don't think our pie turned out too well.
I really liked authority figures. I felt I could be helpful and important to them. One such person was the principal, Mr. Wells. I don't know how many times I visited him or left him notes, but I'm pretty sure he probably thought I was a creepy little kid.
In the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade, I participated in this patriotic I don't know what you'd call it. Anyway, I wrote "A Bill of Rights For Kids" that was highlighted in a newspaper article about the event.
In 3rd grade, I wasn't chosen for the special combined 3rd-4th class. This made me jealous of the students who were. I was in Mrs. Kluender's class instead. I remember that we had tadpoles in our class, and we played "Pass the Witches Broomstick" and sung H-A-Double L-O-Double U-Double E-N spells Halloween.
In 4th grade, I had Miss Smith. We had hampsters in that class - Skippy and Scooter. I got to take Scooter home for the summer. Scooter escaped from his cage, got into rat poison and died. I felt really bad to tell Miss Smith the next fall, but she didn't seem too broken up about it.
My 5th grade teacher was Mrs. Smith. She had a penchant for telling us scary stories from her past, like hunting will-o-the-wisps, and the time a girl was attacked and killed by an alligator when she was lifeguarding. She had a twin sister and her maiden name was Fortune. She didn't like the song Jingle Bells because of the "misfortune seemed his lot" part. I took up, briefly, the viola this year. It was the first year that we could learn an instrument, and even though I didn't want to play a stringed instrument long-term, I took it start reading music. I chose the viola because it seemed "different." At the end of 5th grade, we were headed for Howe elementary. To send us off, the music teacher, Mrs. Bures, had all the other classes line up in the hallway and sing "The Wind Beneath My Wings" to us. I teared up.
No Specific Year:
I was on the safety patrol. Looking back now, it does seem like a lawsuit waiting to happen if you allow other elementary school students to dictate when classmates should cross the street, even if they are wearing ridiculous neon orange sashes. My friend Megan H. (see more below) became the Safety Patrol leader, and gave me all the crappy assignments. Bitch.
The gym at Pitsch was pretty pathetic. It wasn't built with the intention of allowing kids to play any sports other than jump rope, because it had giant curved beams that were maybe 12 feet off the ground at the high point. Volleyball nets had to be hung limply to allow a ball to go over them. They didn't bother with basketball backboards - they simply put up a pole with a hool on it in front of one of the beams.
There was a yearly bike rodeo, where Officer Arnie would come and teach us bicycle safety. There were special events involving bicycling ability that would earn you points. My pink banana-seated bike wasn't up for the task (or maybe it was just me), but I never did as well as I wanted.
One neat thing was the gym event at the end of the year. It was sort of a mini-Olympics, with different events, such as a timed obstacle course, races, etc. Again, I never did as well as I wanted, but it did mark the start of summer for me.
We had fundraisers each year. Most of the stuff was pretty cheap and crappy. Porcelain bells in the shape of anthropomorphic bears with their legs as the clapper, multi-spice dispensers, I can't remember what else. Despite being so close to an elementary school, most of the neighborhood was comprised of elderly people who moved there shortly after the school was built in the 60s and didn't leave. They didn't want to buy crap from me.
Each summer, I would attend summer school. One memorable year after 3rd grade, I took German and Spanish simultaneously for a session. I'd learn German, then go downstairs and learn Spanish. Other than drama a couple of times, I don't remember any other classes I had.
Recess:
During recess, we played on a number of what would now be considered highly dangerous pieces of equipment. There was a merry-go-round, swings, monkey bars and gymnasiums, and a concoction of tires and beams with two tire swings. During 2nd grade, a few friends and I played a game called "Superman", where one person would be down in the middle of the tire swing and spin it on one foot, like they were doing a pirouette. Three other people would be standing on the tire between the chains. When the tire was going fast enough, the standing people would jump and "fly" while holding on. One day, I was the one in the middle. Becky W. was one of the people holding on. She ended up letting go, falling off, and hitting her chin on the wooden support beam. She got a cut, and I was told by Miss Bowers that I "bit of more than I could chew", which didn't have a lot of meaning for me at the time.
On this structure, we also played a game called Toilet Monster. It was a little like tag in that the Toilet Monster, below the angled net of tires, tried to reach throw and tag someone as they ran up the tires to the top beam.
We also had a couple of creaky gymnastic pieces of outdoor equipment. There were two metal bars, one high and one low, that we would try doing penny and cherry drops from. Kills the underside of your knees, and it had the thrill factor of possibly landing on your face.
From about 3rd to 5th grade, hand clapping (Down by the Bay, Miss Mary Mack, etc.), double dutch, and throwing little rubber balls at the "gym" wall were the popular recess options. We also had another way of injuring ourselves, if tire swings weren't enough. There was a set of really high swings on the older student side of the playground. Kids a year older than me figured out that a swing could be hitched over the end of one of the metal supports. You'd then sit on the swing like normal, and could hoist yourself up so you were standing on the support with the swing behind you. Someone would do the same with the other swing on the opposite side. On the count of three, you'd both jump off and out, and tangle up in the chains until you bumped into each other. Great fun. The teachers eventually caught wind of what was going on and we weren't allowed near the swings anymore.
Friends: I had a couple of "friends" in elementary school. Looking back, I am amazed how petty and mean the girls could be. There was definitely a social heirarchy that I always fell very short on, and it was painfully obvious during recess. There was another tire-and-beam structure that had tired drilled in vertically on each side of a vertical beam. My "friends" would each sit on one of the top tires and hold court. Usually, I wasn't one good enough to have my own seat and was forced to be on the ground. This same group was obsessed with horses. I pretended to be, too, fake-galloping my horse around the ball diamond, drawing horses, whatever. I tried way too hard to be liked, I know that.
