When I was growing up I loved school. I loved learning, seeing my friends, getting new school clothes and school supplies. Teachers, especially in elementary school where you only had one all year, were important and could either enrich your school experience or make you miserable for nine months. I know there were teachers I didn't care for in high school, but luckily you didn't have to spend all day with them and I learned fairly young that if you just figure out what they are looking for and give them what they ask, the year would go by pretty smoothly. In general though, my feelings were usually lukewarm for my teachers.
My all-time favorite teacher, however, was my second grade teacher Mr. Anderson. I loved him! He was young and handsome and had a beard, so that probably made him cool in our eyes. He also played guitar and he would bring it in and teach us songs like Yellow Submarine and Puff the Magic Dragon. I can remember the giant notepads that teachers used where he had written the words to the songs so that we could memorize them. Looking back, I'm not sure how it all fit into our lesson plan, but at the time we loved it.
One specific memory I have about him as a teacher is just a little snippet, but it's funny that it stuck with me. We must have had an increase in writing exercises in second grade because I developed the callous that you get on your knuckle that comes from writing with a pencil. I remember it hurting and going to him and telling him I had this injury expecting to be sent to the nurse. He just smiled and said that it comes with writing. Then he showed me that he had the same callous on his finger, only his was huge. Then he sent me on my way without a band aid or anything! It makes me laugh now because I remember walking away confused because he hadn't given me a bandage for my wound and what was I going to do now!?
Another memory I have of him is just an image... but a pretty vivid one, I must say! My mom taught an aerobics class at the school and one day I went into the gym where her class was and realized that Mr. Anderson was in the class. He was wearing a full body leotard. I remember being shocked that he was wearing that outfit and a little embarrassed. That image was forever burned in my brain and I can't think of Mr. Anderson without thinking of him in that outfit!
If my memory serves me, Mr. Anderson only taught the one year, however, when I think about it, I don't really know for sure if he taught before our class. I feel like I remember him saying it was his first year teaching although that might have been his first year at our school or teaching second grade. I do know, however, that it was his last year teaching at my elementary school. He was going into the Peace Corps. It made the end of the year all that much more sad because he wasn't coming back. I remember sitting at my desk the last day of school and we were singing Puff the Magic Dragon. I cried through the whole thing. So did many of my classmates. I don't know how he made it through the song with a bunch of second graders crying! I remember I couldn't look at him because it hurt too bad. My other classmates that I've contacted through the years still remember him and his songs and they all loved him too!
When I was pregnant with my son and thinking of names, I was having a hard time coming up with a middle name. I wanted it to be meaningful, but I hadn't started doing genealogy yet so I didn't have a vast resource of family names to choose from. A friend of mine suggested thinking of someone who influenced you in your life in a positive way to come up with a middle name. It's funny because he's the first person I thought of. It seems sad in hindsight that I didn't have more positive male influences in my life, but I knew his first name was James and it fit perfectly with my son's first name. My son today still loves to hear the story about why I picked his names for him. It blows my mind how much impact one person can have on a kid's life... even if just for one year.
Showing posts with label 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History. Show all posts
15 May 2011
52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Fame
My big brush with fame came early on in life. I, of course, don't remember any of it. Apparently, I was the "Youngest Runner in the 1983 Canyon Ranch Fitness Marathon." I was five years old. My mom was always a big jogger and probably convinced me that it would be fun. I really was not an athletic child and I didn't like physical activities, so I either didn't understand what I was getting myself into or someone helped me make my decision. It appears that the whole family participated in it though from the few pictures I have of the event, so maybe I just didn't want to be left out.
There was a segment on the local news about the event that included a bit on the youngest runner and the oldest runner. I was the youngest. I can't remember who won the prize for the oldest. My mom taped the news show, but unfortunately it has gone MIA somewhere along the way. I do remember watching it in my later childhood years because I remember being embarrassed by how stupid I was (I must have been in middle school because who else would think a 5 year old is stupid, but a preteen). My mom also embarrassed me (another sign of a preteen) by saying on television (gasp!) about how I "stopped to look at every bug and rock along the way. Hahahahah!" I think that's pretty funny now too, but not when I was watching it.
I sure do wish we still had the video of that news segment as it would be fun to show the kids now how their mom was a big celebrity at the age of five. The only real proof I have that it ever happened is the two photos of before and after and also because my mommy said so right here in my School Days Memory Book!
© copyright Monica Palmer, 2011
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| #535 about to make some history! |
There was a segment on the local news about the event that included a bit on the youngest runner and the oldest runner. I was the youngest. I can't remember who won the prize for the oldest. My mom taped the news show, but unfortunately it has gone MIA somewhere along the way. I do remember watching it in my later childhood years because I remember being embarrassed by how stupid I was (I must have been in middle school because who else would think a 5 year old is stupid, but a preteen). My mom also embarrassed me (another sign of a preteen) by saying on television (gasp!) about how I "stopped to look at every bug and rock along the way. Hahahahah!" I think that's pretty funny now too, but not when I was watching it.
I sure do wish we still had the video of that news segment as it would be fun to show the kids now how their mom was a big celebrity at the age of five. The only real proof I have that it ever happened is the two photos of before and after and also because my mommy said so right here in my School Days Memory Book!
© copyright Monica Palmer, 2011
13 May 2011
52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Bedroom
Week 19. Bedroom. Describe your childhood bedroom. What furniture did it contain? Were there curtains, wallpaper or paint? Was it messy or clean? Did you share a room with your siblings?
My childhood bedroom was the old master bedroom in the house that I grew up in. My dad built a new master bedroom onto the house and my brother and I drew straws over who got to have the old master bedroom. The room itself wasn't that much bigger, but it had a large bathroom with double sinks, a standing shower, and a separate bathtub. It was pretty nice for a kids' bathroom.
When I was in elementary school, my bed was a white, almost resin-like four poster bed with gold trim. I had the matching dresser. I loved it. My mom made me a comforter and a canopy for the bed. I felt so fancy sleeping in it! I had shelves on the wall full of dolls and stuffed animals. I had the old-school boombox for listening to the radio and tapes. And books. Books were always part of the picture! I don't remember that many of them actually belonging to me. I was that person that checked out the limit of 60 books at a time.
I was such a packrat! I had old letters sent from friends during class. Every. Single. One. Even if it just said "Hi." I kept gifts given to me, even little trinkets that really shouldn't have been saved. I had such a hard time getting rid of anything because I was and am a sentimental person. (Side Note: Luckily I am able to let go of things more easily now, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I finally donated all those stuffed animals. I had them stored in my grandpa's shed the entire time! Yikes! I kept one duck from when I was a baby and let my son pick one out; the rest of them went to Goodwill.)
Every weekend I had to do chores, which included cleaning my room. I was not a clean child. I had many, many, MANY stuffed animals that I couldn't bear to part with that never seemed to stay on the shelf, every My Little Pony there ever was (should have kept that collection!), cassette tapes all over the place, clothes never put away, and miscellaneous odds and ends all shoved into my closet. Most of the time my idea of cleaning was shoving it... into the closet, into drawers, under my bed. I would spend all day in my room "doing my chores." It consisted of me reading until about 30 minutes before I was supposed to have it done and then frantically running around shoving things into places.
My parents like to tell a story about how one year they were cleaning out my closet (each one tells the story as if they were the only person in there slaving away at my awful closet) right before school was about to start and they found an sandwich in my closet... from the previous school year. I would go on to say that they were just exaggerating, but it was probably true! :)
© copyright Monica Palmer, 2011
When I was in elementary school, my bed was a white, almost resin-like four poster bed with gold trim. I had the matching dresser. I loved it. My mom made me a comforter and a canopy for the bed. I felt so fancy sleeping in it! I had shelves on the wall full of dolls and stuffed animals. I had the old-school boombox for listening to the radio and tapes. And books. Books were always part of the picture! I don't remember that many of them actually belonging to me. I was that person that checked out the limit of 60 books at a time.
I was such a packrat! I had old letters sent from friends during class. Every. Single. One. Even if it just said "Hi." I kept gifts given to me, even little trinkets that really shouldn't have been saved. I had such a hard time getting rid of anything because I was and am a sentimental person. (Side Note: Luckily I am able to let go of things more easily now, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I finally donated all those stuffed animals. I had them stored in my grandpa's shed the entire time! Yikes! I kept one duck from when I was a baby and let my son pick one out; the rest of them went to Goodwill.)
Every weekend I had to do chores, which included cleaning my room. I was not a clean child. I had many, many, MANY stuffed animals that I couldn't bear to part with that never seemed to stay on the shelf, every My Little Pony there ever was (should have kept that collection!), cassette tapes all over the place, clothes never put away, and miscellaneous odds and ends all shoved into my closet. Most of the time my idea of cleaning was shoving it... into the closet, into drawers, under my bed. I would spend all day in my room "doing my chores." It consisted of me reading until about 30 minutes before I was supposed to have it done and then frantically running around shoving things into places.
My parents like to tell a story about how one year they were cleaning out my closet (each one tells the story as if they were the only person in there slaving away at my awful closet) right before school was about to start and they found an sandwich in my closet... from the previous school year. I would go on to say that they were just exaggerating, but it was probably true! :)
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