IF A FAT GUY GRABS YOU AND PUTS YOU IN A BAG, DON'T WORRY, I TOLD SANTA I WANTED A GOOD FRIEND FOR CHRISTMAS!
Sometimes at Christmas it takes only the smallest gesture to touch our hearts in very unexpected ways, a special Christmas card, a gift of cookies, or a phone call. In this case the unexpected came in the form of an email with a funny message of friendship from a treasured classmate and his wife in the class of 1963. Jennifer and I, both feel very blessed to have received this affirmation that old friendships are being rekindled perhaps with a little help from our blog. Jennifer calls it "The Miracle of the Blog" and I agree. I am sharing this message with all of you. I hope you, too, will find your hearts touched in simple and unexpected ways throughout the coming year. A very heartfelt thank you to Harold and Donna.
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22 comments:
My thanks as well to Harold and Donna, who likewise touched me with their wonderful, unexpected e-card, and the expression of friendship it contained. More good vibes were found in the next item in my Inbox ... a sweet and thoughtful Christmas wish from Jack and Rebecca Petty. Double joy! It is truly amazing how some small gesture, or a few words, can lift spirits and brighten a day with the thought that a friend has remembered you and wishes you well.
Both cards not only warmed my heart, but caused me to pause and reflect on what I have come to consider "The Miracle of the Blog". The idea that I would ever have received such greetings from Jack or Harold (and their wives), or would actually have been able to correspond and communicate with so many friends and former classmates, after SO many years, just totally thrills and stokes my soul.
We never know when the "unexpected" thing may grow into something of great importance in our lives. For example, when Yahn and I moved to Denver from Dallas in 1980, Yahn had totally burned out on "Corporate America" (the Tenneco subsidiary he mentioned in his recent post ... LK, you can relate to this, I'm sure) and was seeking a new "challenge" to spark his interest and our lives. One night, after work, we agreed to meet for drinks at a favorite place ... where they happened (unbeknownst to us beforehand) to be doing a themed "Circus Night", with jugglers and acrobats and palm readers and other acts and characters. Yahn was late in arriving, and when he entered the room I was sitting at a table with a clown and a wizard in full regalia ... nothing unusual, of course.... Yahn joined the table, and in the course of conversation, the wizard suggested that Yahn might want to contact the Art Institute of Denver, which was looking for teachers. Although he had never before thought of teaching, Yahn took the wizard's advice ... and began another career with Art Institutes International, from which he retired 23 years later as Chairman of both the Graphic Design and Animation Departments at the Art Institute of Houston. Proving once again (as some of us have always known) that it nearly always pays to talk to clowns and wizards.... But I digress....
Of course, I sent responses back to my "new" old friends Harold and Jack ... I believe good wishes resonate and are rendered more powerful by genuine reciprocity. And I sent a note to Nicki, thanking her again for all her efforts, and for this forum, and not least for the blessing of a new, true friendship which I could not have imagined a year ago.
Many thanks and good wishes are due as well to those who have graced us with their presence on the blog ... to share reflections, memories, and good (sometimes hysterically funny!) stories and thoughts to keep the "miracle" alive: Mike and Jim Sr., Sheila, Linda Kay, Clara, Darryl, Yahn ... your voices and perspectives have added immeasurably to the content here.
Nicki and I also appreciate all those who have made singular or limited appearances, as well as those who may be hesitant to write for publication here, but who have told us by e-mail or phone that they read the blog regularly and enjoy the things those who do write have to say.
All of you have inspired and encouraged Nicki and I when our enthusiasm might have flagged. The blog IS a miracle ... and it is so worth the effort ... whatever it takes ... to keep it going. If we sometimes get discouraged, we will remember and reflect on such things ... and continue in our hopes that more will join us, and be heard, as we progress.
As 2007 draws to an end, I look forward so much to the bright new things 2008 has to offer ... among them the promise of "new" or rekindled friendships which may be only a "comment" or an e-mail away ... and continued contact with those recently found, or never "lost".
'Tis the season of miracles, to be sure.... Blessed is the match that kindles such joy....
)O(
Clara, I know the Mack Truck feeling [comment to "Glad Tidings, Great Joy"]......anyway.......I told you I loved all you Childress girls.......but I possesed the spine of a squid.....so I always just wrote secret notes and buried them along the Red River so no one could ever find them....
On another note.....I know you do not remember it.......but I am now preparing a story about the Great Shootout Massacre.......when Don Seal and I blasted you with a watergun.....now that is funny!
I am coming out of my funk... I am at work today for couple of hours……but back home soon….
Also...you know?...if we could just get Yahn to paint Western Art....I would buy everything and he would be rich...he is so darn talented ...and Western Art is where it’s at……
Please…..everybody have a wonderful Christmas………. Of course…my best memories are of Xmas in Childress….
I’ve noted in some comments how some of you are surprised (but grateful) to have discovered friendship links that didn’t exist when you were all in high school. I think that’s pretty much the way things go. In high school we tend to be so insecure in our own self-concepts that we ally with those who give us back our own best reflections of ourselves—thus all the cliques and claques that develop in high school to the exclusion of other possible close relationships.
A friend of mine says that she believes that people really never change—that they simply become what they always were, only more so. I’m not sure I agree with this, especially in light of the aforementioned comments about the forming of new friendships among classmates. I also tend to disagree based on my own experience. In 2006, a classmate and I were charged with all the arrangements for our 50th Quail High School reunion. Well, this classmate and I were not what you could call close friends all during our high school years. But, in taking care of all the plans involved—finding addresses of classmates, communicating with them about the date and time of the reunion, obtaining RSVPs for the dinner and get-together, planning for and obtaining reunion gifts and favors, etc., ad infinitum, this classmate and I became very well acquainted via e-mail and phone calls. I found her to be a delightful lady, extremely smart and full of good humor, and willing to go the extra mile to make the reunion a success.
After we jointly hosted the reunion gathering, and after we had enjoyed our meal and were milling around and getting reacquainted with each other and catching up on what had happened to us all in the intervening half century, this classmate called me aside and she said, “Darryl, you and I didn’t have a lot to do with each other in high school, but I just want you to know that I have really enjoyed getting to know you and working with you on this reunion.” I told her I felt exactly the same way and couldn’t imagine a more pleasurable experience than to have known and worked with her. She wondered why we never had a close friendship in high school, and I think we both concluded that, for some inexplicable reason, we never really felt that each of us “approved” of the other.
Needless to say, we now revel in the warmth of mutual approval. I’m sure a great many of you feel the same way about the friends you have also recently “discovered.”
I want to thank you all for the pleasure I have had in knowing you and in reading this blog; and Sharon and I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a bountiful New Year.
I would love to say hello to Jack Petty, Harold Simmons and wives. Great guys...I hope you are doing well! You will be at the reunion, right? Looking forward to seeing you there.
Darryl, I think I might also disagree with your friend who says that people never change. I also would ask emphatically, "How in the world would we ever know? How well did we get to know our classmates? How could we even get to know our classmates when the barriers were so defined? I must admit that I have known Clara Robinson almost all of my life, literally. We lived next door to each other when we were in diapers, out of diapers and even until we learned to ride our bicycles...she learned to ride before I did in case anyone is wondering, but she is a week older than I am..what can I say!! lol Even with all of that in our laps, Clara and I did not have a chance to become real friends until after each of us moved to San Antonio and started raising our families. Finally, all of the barriers were down and we could be friends without repercussions from peers. For many reasons, she has become one of my nearest and dearest friends. In HS, I think that most of our friendships were defined by our parents and their friends. That was also during the 50's and 60's. I call it "The Time Before The World Changed"
I have lots more to say on this subject, but my "Afterwork Margarita" has kicked in and I feel that I should no longer speak. lol.
We shall talk again.
thanks for listening.
Sheila, your comment posits the question "How in the world would we ever know [if our classmates had changed]?" I can only answer that the blog is one way we can know ... and that is part of the "miracle". I've written before that I would be sad to learn that we (or most of us) hadn't changed at all ... that most of us hadn't grown spiritually and intellectually, and matured and blossomed into better, more thoughtful, more knowledgeable people than we were "then". In adolescence, our values and aspirations were different, more superficial, skewed toward popularity and peer approval ... bounded by parental conventions and strictures, and sometimes inherent generational prejudices. Getting grounded or losing the use of the car for a week or being shunned by our classmates was about the worst we could contemplate happening to us.
Someone mentioned to me in a recent e-mail that she thought the blog should be devoted more to what had happened to us while we were growing up together ... after all, the main title of the blog is "Reflections on the Way We WERE". (emphasis added) I must respectfully disagree. I love the old stories and the old memories, and certainly hope to see more of them ... but a blog devoted entirely to our youthful experiences and peccadillos would be limited ... and limiting. I truly believe that the most fascinating thing about the blog is the opportunity it provides us to know the people we have become since graduation.
1963 was an extraordinary year ... not only marking the commencement of our adult lives, but a seminal year for the people and the nation we are today. The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 was arguably our generation's "Pearl Harbor". But where Pearl Harbor brought unity and a shared sense of purpose, the shock of the assassination, the burgeoning civil rights movements for previously marginalized segments of our society, the fighting in Vietnam which took so many of our contemporaries before they had the chance to become who they might have been, the "youthquake" of the '60s and the backlash it provoked ... all imprinted and molded us, and continue to impact our lives these decades later. I think Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial ... the Wall ... beautiful and deeply complex in its simplicity of design, the strength expressed in its lines, the poignant and eloquent statement of loss and sacrifice and heroism, and its subliminal reminder that we should be mindful and reverent of our past, while moving forward ... is both a metaphor and an inspiration for us ... for all those who "came of age" in that turbulent time.
The author Amy Tan wrote: "You have to be displaced from what's comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes." I hope we all left CHS with "new eyes" ... eager to see what the world was made of, and what it offered. And I am most interested in seeing what those "new eyes" saw, and how the seeing, and the interpretation of what was seen, shaped all of us, in the intervening years.
The good experience Darryl narrated about working with his former classmate on their reunion is illustrative, I think, of some of the pleasant surprises Nicki and I have found as we've worked to expand contacts with former classmates for the blog and the upcoming reunion. Human nature and experience being what they are, and subject to processing through very different experiential and sociological filters, it would be hopelessly naive to think we might find complete rapport with everyone in our class. Nevertheless, our commonalities of community and experience, as Yahn talked about in his recent post, give us at least a rudimentary scaffolding from which we can build ... WHATEVER. The "what" is entirely up to each of us. I only know that here, on the blog, there are gems to be mined and polished and set for the adornment of our lives ... true "Bobcat Treasure" for our souls ....
I am blessed and enlightened by the experience ....
)O(
What I meant by "how in the world would we have ever known" is this. When we were younger and in Childress, we lived almost reclusive lives. We saw each other at school and at church but we had very little time to get to know who we were, or even who the ones we considered to be our friends were. I feel like we just kind of floated around and bounced off of each others energy. We are adults now and hopefully much more open minded and grounded. The people we meet here on the blog and at the reunion will be new people to me. Each of us is people we care about. I do not care which one of you it is, you will have changed. Your life's path will have changed you from a sweet little kid at CHS to an interesting and hopefully, challenging adult.
When I speak of "When the world changed", yes, some of it is history, some of it is our rite of passage into the adult world. You have to admit that 1963-1968 were times that definitely changed our world. No more "Father Knows Best" to warm our hearts and living rooms. We had the NEWS and the war in Vietnam to keep us warm. Elvis was having to make room for the Beatles! OMG! I have to admit that I was listening to the Beatles when the news broke in with the shooting of President Kennedy. He was headed to Austin that evening and since I was a member of the Young Democrats, I was going to be an attendant for the dinner. It never happened. The world changed forever in an afternoon.
IN response to Darryl's comment.
I truly believe that people seek their own lives like water seeks its own level. By nature, we are drawn to our own level of life whether it be in Childress, USA, or Earth. I believe that we are all born with a mission and until that mission is completed, we live, seeking.
Jennifer, in response to your paragraph on "devotions to the blog" Reflections on the Way We Were..it brings to mind someone trying to jump onto a moving carousel. Everyone needs a special spot where they can jump on and share their experiences then...and hopefully, maybe now. Yesterday is what we all have in common. Today is still uncertain. Tomorrow...brings hope. Just my thought on the subject.
Sheila, of course I have NO problem "admitting" that the years 1963 to 1968 truly changed our world and our lives. You will recall that in our long telephone conversation preceding your comment(s), I pointed out to you the significance of those five years, with emphasis on the society-shaking events of 1968 (i.e., the Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinations, the riots in Washington and Baltimore and other cities, the terrible incidents in connection with the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the growth of the anti-war movement, et al) ... and the effects (so many of which are still in play today) these events had on our generation and those who followed us. (As an aside, I mentioned to Sheila that Yahn and I had certainly picked a portentous year in which to marry.)
BTW, for anyone who is interested in revisiting 1968 (or who merely wants to be able to remember it ... snarf!), Tom Brokaw has recently done a very good special, with the year as title, for the History Channel. Brokaw has also just published "Boom: Voices From the Sixties" which attempts to profile our generation much as he did that of our parents in "The Greatest Generation". (One more aside: I think I am the only person in our class who is actually a "Baby Boomer" as that term is defined as applying to those born in the period 1946-1964, although our shared experiences tend to make such arbitrary distinction moot, de facto.)
Of course, the halcyon family lives and dynamics portrayed in "Father Knows Best" and "Leave It to Beaver" were certainly airbrushed, retouched, prettified "studio portraits" of those times, and never dealt with any of the real problems that did exist then, such as domestic violence, segregation and other inequalities.
OLD STORY ALERT!!! I remember very well from sophomore year an assignment given us by World History teacher Coach Joe Warren. We were supposed to do a research project and paper based on some current event or issue ... and could include (if we wished) a survey taken from our classmates concerning their feelings about the topic chosen. My topic was "Should Childress High School Integrate?" (I've always been a bit of a bomb thrower, I guess.) When I received the completed survey responses (anonymous, but I could recognize the handwriting) back from those who had participated, one immediately grabbed my attention (and has stuck in my mind to the present) because the first answer to the question posed by my title began: "First, I think we should declare open season on [those people]...." (euphemism added) To say that I was totally appalled is a complete understatement.
Nicki and Jim W. and I have recently talked about this. Jim says he remembers well (and was likewise taken aback by) the heated class discussion of my survey and paper, and by at least one other awful comment by someone who shall remain nameless here. [End of old story.]
Anyone who has read my posts and comments knows that I am quite mindful of the fact that this blog would not exist, and so many of us would not have come together here, without our shared history and experiences. Our past, our lives after graduation and our hopes for the future are all entwined and bound by vines of memory, with new growth generated year after year, emanating from and tied to the primary source. As we approach the New Year, Nicki and I both I feel that there will be not only old stories and memories to share, but continuing exploration of the catalytic and intervening years we have experienced since 1963.
Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), French philosopher, scientist, author, and literary theorist posits in "A Poetics of Reverie":
"Childhood lasts all through life. It returns to animate broad sections of adult life. .... Poets will help us to find this living childhood within us, this permanent, durable immobile world."
I will presume to add to Bachelard by saying that I believe it is not only poets, but everyone who participates in the blog, who may also guide us in finding our still "living childhood".
In "Fragments of A Poetics of Fire" (published after his death, though not finished), Bachelard also says:
"One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. To remain in touch with the past requires a love of memory. To remain in touch with the past requires a constant imaginative effort."
In celebration of the coming New Year, and the blog, let's raise a glass to history, and imagination, and our ongoing efforts to "connect"....
)O(
It is with much interest that I have read and read again the comments from the past several days especially in regard to friendship and how it ebbs and flows from the past to the the present. In August I was compelled by something beyond myself to create a blog devoted to virtually reuniting our class of 1963. Oh, I had a reason for creating a blog; I wanted to learn what blogging was all about so I could use the skill to provide a venue for providing staff development for teachers, but why a blog about a group of people with whom we had so little contact over the years is something I really did not understand, but as I said I felt compelled to turn in this direction. It was only when I read a comment left by Darryl Morris on December 5 (And Then Scheherazade Totally Lost Her Head: Thursday, November 29)that I knew the driving force behind the "why" I had made my decision for this blog topic. Darryl stated:
*******
"In her novel Middlemarch, George Eliot (nee Mary Ann Evans) asks the question, “Who can quit young lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know what befell them in their after-years?” You all were “long in company” with each other when you were young, and I’m sure all of you would like to gather up the fragments of your lives which have been dispersed over so many years and re-member and re-connect them into the unique story of the Class of 1963."
*********
I know that over the years I had often wondered whatever happened to all of those young people whose faces look out from the pages of the yearbook. We had occasionally heard bits and pieces about various classmates, but rarely did we actually see or hear from anyone. It has never been my desire to return to my childhood as I have always been way to busy to take time out from my life to put much effort in to remembering the way it was. When Jennifer shared the quote from Bachelard "To remain in touch with the past requires a constant imaginative effort." I laughed because I have spent much of my adult life trying to avoid this and now I know why some of our more imaginative classmates are so great at reconstructing past events! I do believe that it is important to remember the past and if remembering the past can serve as a bridge to where we are today then that is where we must go!
Shelia described the blog beautifully when she said, "it brings to mind someone trying to jump onto a moving carousel. Everyone needs a special spot where they can jump on and share their experiences." I love that metaphor!
Once more I am going to return to the writings of Darryl Morris. Consciously or unconsciously, I believe that our English teacher has once more given us an assignment. In giving us this assignment, he has already given us a model to follow. The assignment is this:
"Your stories need to be remembered as well, and they need to be told in order to rescue them from the erosion of passing time. I assure you that everyone wants to hear them."
I can't wait to hear your stories when and where you are ready to share. Jennifer and I and many more of your classmates will ride the carousel until you are ready to join us. Thank God, we don't have to read our stories in front of the class!
Jennifer, I join you in raising my glass to history, to imagination, to ongoing efforts to "connect" and to a wonderful New Year!
Happy New Year, Everyone.
Nicki
Hey Nicki, Speaking of wonderful memories, here is one for you. This was before your time, but maybe Jimmy will remember.
When we were in the 1st or 2nd grade, Wilson Elementary did a Christmas play/concert. Jerry Newberry sang a solo of "O Holy Night" He had the sweetest, purest voices I had ever heard in my whole life. I had no idea that a B-O-Y could make such a wonderful sound. For the rest of my life, every Christmas he has been in my thoughts when I hear that beautiful song.
Kay Ann Etherley played the mom in a Thanksgiving play. One of her jobs in preparing the feast was to peel apples. I have to admit that her apple peeling totally fascinated me to the point that I went home every afternoon and practiced peeling something, anything I could find. She really had a talent for peeling apples and she was only in the 1st grade!
Seeing Nicki's reference to Darryl's comment (from the Scheherazade post) reminded me of this:
"We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it." (George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, 1860)
In the same comment Darryl said that he had recently read a book by Robert Coles (The Call of Stories), wherein Coles "stresses the importance of story-telling as one of the most valuable means by which we might 'view the world and . . . understand the truth of our lives.' Story-telling lifts our understanding of life out of the realm of concepts and abstractions and places it where it actually occurs — in the realm of human experiences, emotions, and hopes and dreams." As always, I cannot improve (and wouldn't even try) on anything Darryl Morris has to say, and am only thankful that he continues to educate and inspire us after so many years.
The blog has once again worked its magic, and the "miracle" is proved once again ... as you will all see in the next topic post, coming VERY VERY soon ....
A very Happy New Year to all, indeed!
)O(
Nicki, Thanks you for liking my metaphor...to be quite honest I didn't realize I was saying anything that would gain attention. I will also raise my glass to the future and to the imagination. Happy New Year.
Oooooh!!!.......Oooooh!!!!......
Sheila!!!!!!!
Your story about Jerry Newberry hit me like a ton of bricks!!!!!!.....
I am positive we were in the 3rd grad when that happened……Now……who the dickens was the Choir teacher?? ....was it Ms. Baileff?... Nickerson?
...Now I will tell you my facet of that diamond of a story……….
Babe….you are so right Jerry could sing with the angels………what an unbelievable talent…………and if you remember……..the teacher had a choral group of 9 or 10 of us to sing the chorus to Jerry’s lead.
So …one day we are rehearsing in that choir room……(where Johnny Wright told me the 2nd dirty joke I had ever heard…..he had told me my first one in the 1st grade…)
So we are singing… in the group… I am on the back row……to Jerry’s right side….
Jerry goes……..and we follow………”Oh Holy Night……tat ta tat a ta……it is the night of our dear savior’s birth……”
So we do that a couple of times and I notice that the choir teacher’s face gets all screwed up like she had just tasted buttermilk for the first time……….She hollers…. ”Stop”….
She come to the end of the choral group to Jerry’s left…… and gets her face real close to that couple of singers…..and says……”Begin!”…..
………”Oh Holy Night……tat ta tat a ta……it is the night of our dear savior’s birth……”
The teacher says “Stop”……and moves down a couple of feet…….and says “begin”
………”Oh Holy Night……tat ta tat a ta……it is the night of our dear savior’s birth……”
This time she moves down in front of the person in front of me……and puts her head right in amongst us…….and says…….”Begin”…..
………”Oh Holy Night……tat ta tat a ta……it is the night of our dear savior’s birth……”
The teacher says “stop”………she reaches in and grabs me by the shoulder………pulls me out of the group…….and says……..Mike, Dear,…….you are gonna be our official timekeeper…………go into the next room and when it says 3:00…..come tell me…..
My only problem…..aside from learning I could not sing a lick…..was…..I did not know how to tell time………..so in a panic………my Mother had to teach me to tell time that night so I would not embarrass myself……as if getting thrown out of the choir was not bad enough…..
I mean…..I thought when she got to listening……she was gonna fire Jerry and hire me for the lead………my shoulder still hurts from where she jerked me outta there….
I know I was in the 3rd grade before I learned to tell time……so that is how I remember that so well……so during that play……I was responsible for keeping that choir teacher informed as to what time it was…………It was only years later that I remembered that she wore a very very very nice watch.
And btw Sheila…….dont think for a second that I have forgotten you…….I always thought you were the Childress answer to Elizabeth Taylor…….seriously….
I have told you this before…..that picture of of you guys in the Yearbook…. on the tennis team……leaning on that tennis fence…….I was there that day….hanging around…..just so I could see you in those white shorts…….
Jerry Newberry…….now that brought back a great memory…….thanks to the blog…..!
Hey Mike, thanks for your memory and kind words. I will bet if you put Liz and me next to each other today, you would swear that we are twins! LOL!!!Of course, she would be the rich twin.
I do remember your hanging around the tennis court and you will never know how much I missed you when you moved away. Do you have any recollection of Blaine Rideout? He is the man who tried to teach us all to play tennis.
Jennifer, I remember Mrs Adams like it was yesterday! That poor lady! You guys(The Infamous 9 and a few others) did cause her to have a nervous breakdown! Did you not know that!!? It happened one day in class because I actually saw it happen.LOL! She was actually rather kind to me. I will never forget how upset she was when she saw that I had received a D in Band because I didn't have enough practice hours! She set aside some class time just for me and showed me how to practice percussion without the drum so that would never happen again. From then on I made A's in music. I thought she was pretty cool. Mr Bryant, our math teacher, thought she was pretty cool too, and that was good enough for me.
Where is Johnny Wright and that big disc of his? I know I wore it at least once, maybe twice.
As always, Mike ... you leave us laughing with your wonderful stories. I never attended Wilson Elementary, but I do remember that when we were in 7th grade at Childress Junior High we had one teacher by the name of Mrs. Adams. Can't remember her first name ... just that we all called her "Picklepuss". She was a terrible, pedantic, authoritarian monster (as I recall), the kind that warps young minds ... and we all uniformly despised her.
With her other classroom duties, she also was in charge of the choir that year. In addition to me, there was Linda Kay, JoAnn, Shirley, Paula, Linda Sally, Pat, Johnny Wright, Jerry Newberry, Sheila (I think) and many others. We were preparing for some school concert when pretty much by mutual agreement we began an insurgency against Picklepuss ... deliberately singing LOUD when it should have been soft, fast when it should have been slow ... one particular thing I remember is that singing "Tammy" (VERY popular at the time!) we all were singing "SSSSSAMMY, SSSSSAMMY...", with an exaggerated emphasis on the "SSSSS".
I'm not sure the woman ever actually had a breakdown, but it wasn't for lack of our trying. And she didn't return to teach there the next year....
BTW, you've said you loved all us Childress girls, but I think Johnny Wright has the distinction of at one time or another having "claimed" and given his disc to each and every one of us....
)O(
Hey Mikey,
For some reason, I keep seeing Mrs Crews. Was she the choir director? I think that at some point, all of our teachers tried to find our hidden musical abilities. That particular year I remember spending a lot of time standing out in the hallway, waiting for rehearsal to end so we could go into the choir room and sing a song. LOL...I must have been a real bad songstress.
One more thing...I can hardly wait for you to expose all and tell us about your love affair with Mrs Nickerson. I know that the feelings were mutual.
Sheila, your comment about Mrs. Adams proves that even the worst people have those who remember them well. I will not share with you ... or the blog ... the colorful and unprintable words Mike used in describing her when we talked today about my comment about her ... just suffice to say that he agrees with me ... and embroidered greatly on what I had to say ... that she was just about the WORST ever.
I guess one of your best qualities is your propensity to see some good in everyone. I try mightily ... but there was just NO GOOD that I could ever see in that woman.
Johnny Wright's disc probably disappeared while it was making its second round through the girls in the class ... somewhere between D and G....
)O(
Shelia,
Jim does indeed remember how wonderfully Jerry Newberry could sing. You might or might not know that Jim and Jerry are distant relatives as their mothers were cousins. He also remembers that Jerry was a really good football player until he began to have problems with his back. It would be wonderful to hear from Jerry and Dian (Veal) wouln't it!
Jim also remember very well Mrs. Adams who was his seventh grade English teacher. His experiences with her were not good. I won't repeat any adjectives. She did find it necessary to send him to the office many times-some deserved and perhaps some were not. It was in her class that Jim found it necessary to trip Pat Harmon when she walked down the aisle. Maybe that helped with the nervous breakdown!
in response to Sheila’s cruel divulgence of my heart throbbing, lovelorn, unrequited love for our 6th grade teacher, Zelda Nickerson.
Now come on…….name a single male within 6 counties that did not have the flaming hots for that lady……….
She had Czewski and I carve out a paddle for her that she kept in her desk…….(that she never had any intention of using)…..then next to her desk….to her right…….she formed these four desks into a square. Those desks were Czewski…..Chicken Mitchell (sorry Charlie)… myself… and one more I cannot remember…… (was it Willie?)……she always said it was so she could always be in reach of us with that club……To me it was like a reward……..cause……..I was rat thar!!!!!!...rat dadblamed, breathlessly next to that absolutely wonderful woman!!!!!! ...my eyes still cross at the very thought of being near her….!
Czewski had a cigar box in his desk that he had us all convinced enclosed a poisonous South American tarantula…)..also…..Jimmy C. would use a pencil till there was nothing left but the eraser with a piece of lead sticking out of it…….one year of school equaled one pencil!!!!!)
(Raenell Wynn looked really good that year too…(6th grade)…. For my 9th birthday…3rd grade……Raenell gave me a package of charms…..which is still in my bank vault to this day)
One night…….and this was all Czewski’s fault………Czewski and I walked down, next to the bus station, where Ms Nickerson (swoon at the thought) lived then.... then…disguising our voices……we started whooping and a’holler’n… like Indians………but so she could not tell who it was……..(we're hiding in those trees between the bus station and the High School……)
Next thing I know ……there is the Golden voice of the Goddess….. emanating out from within the bus station apartment…… THE VOICE resounds with….. ”Jimmy Czewski… Mike Spradley!!!!... .all I gotta say is you two had better be in school on time tomorrow…..and your homework had better be done!!!!!! .....Now git Home!!!!!”……..Jimmy and I are looking at each other like….”how did she know it was us?”…….
But she sure taught us how to diagram sentences……I think to this day….because of her…..I could accurately diagram the preamble to the Constitution.
Now….on the subject of my 4th grade teacher, Ms Crews………Wow…..did I love that woman?????......even tho she fired me from the choir the year before. That year I got nothing but straight “A’s”……..my beloved Mother, Lornadee, showed that report card to people for the next 40 years……..it would be like…….Hey!!!.....would you like to see my son’s report card……..they being impressed already………would say…..”Sure……is he …like in a Masters or PhD program in university?”……..No she would say……its his report card from the 4th grade……………
Now then……as a short note……..God punished me (ALL of us except Sheila)……with that DEVIL WOMAN ADAMS in the 7th grade… however……he rewarded us the next year with that wonderful and great… inspiring…… Ms. Kimbrough…(what a GREAT teacher!!!)… The other great teacher I remember from 8th grade was Pat Harmon’s mother…… substituting a lot…..
Dang……this is too lengthy……….I am gonna break this up…..send it to Jennifer……THEN write the watergun story…..
Mike Spradley! I remember that pencil of Czewski's! LOL!!! You have one unbelieveable memory.
In the 3rd grade, Johnny Wright, Reed Lockhoof and I used to get into pencil poking fights right after sharpening our pencils.
Reed mostly laughed as Johnny poked me. Would you believe that I still have a piece of lead in my hand from getting poked?!
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