Terry and I are expecting Norma and Wayne to get here on Thursday AM maybe. We will then go to a Twins game on Friday and they will leave on Saturday. I think we have things figured out as to what we should do when they are here. As I have said in the past they are a special couple so we are excited for their visit. A short writing about the first stage of my life:
Infant through Wood Lake School
What can a person remember about the first few years of life. I, like most, can not remember much but I know I have a picture some place of my 2nd birthday. I got birthday cakes from Mom, Aunt Bertie and cousin Arlene.
Perhaps I could write a large part of a book about Wood Lake School. Some of the things I think about and remember well are:
- The lunches we had that included government commondies (spell of course). There was cheese, milk and canned peaches. Those supplemented our bring our own lunches.
- I had ONE classmate, Dwayne Baldwin I think it was. We had 12 students in 8 grades so I was lucky to have a classmate.
- I was usually bored in school. I would write my name 100's of times and then out the papers in my desk. When the teacher required me to write my name I would wait for a time and then hand in the paper. To this day I think that is the reason my hand writing is so so bad!
- We had great fun on the swings, the merry go round and the teeter totter. We would play on them every recess
- In the winter we would bundle up and play in the snow
- Walking to and from school was often an adventure
- I KNOW I was not a good student at Wood Lake and I think it was because I was bored. Who would NOT be bored having the same spelling book 1,2 and 3rd grade!
- Soft ball games were the best
- Sometimes I sit and WONDER how the teacher could have been on top of teaching grades 1-8 by herself. Well maybe it was a job that was not possible!
- It was with much regret that we learned in the spring of 1956 that Wood Lake would close after the school year. In the fall we would be getting on the big yellow bus and heading to Cayuga for 4th grade. I actually remember that summer thinking about what it would be like to NOT walk to school but rather be in a HUGE school with many kids. It was a thought that I did not want to happen.
- It took me much of the 1955-56 school year to adjust to town school. I was in a classroom with 24 kids and to my amazement many of them seemed to be not very smart. I mean how could a paper with 100 X facts take a student 25 minutes to finish? It took me maybe less than 5 minutes. AND some of the boys, they were NOT into school in any way. How could that be?
- I came to the end of my 4th grade with an entirely different view of people. Many of the kids in my grade were so different than I. I did have some new friends. I liked Arther who was the banker's son and I got to be friends with Larry who to this day we phone back and forth. I also had classmates like Joe and Marvin who seemed to either be stubborn or just challenged in school ways. I found out later that they were challenged, not stubborn. I think neither of them finished high school and in the long term of life they did not do well.
- It was a time of growing into a new understanding of people. Until that time in 4th grade I thought ALL kids were like me. Of course that was NOT the case.
So ends my first stage of life. It was a time of change, of growth and the beginning of a major physical problem that Mom, Dad and God solved!
It is late in the day and FP is long ago history.
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