I received a check for a survey in the mail today. That in itself is not anything special except, this check was signed by my kindergarten teacher. Did the work for her husband which was my high school math teacher. My kindergarten year was 1957-58. They must be in their 80's.
Sounds like a Holy Cow story...except he would be married into one or the other's family.
No kindergarten for me. The nearest private kindergarten (none available through the public schools) was over ten miles from our house. My mother wasn't about to haul my butt to town for a few hours and then come get me again. She might have enjoyed the break, but that was far too much effort and expense. Heck, I was in the top four in my First Grade class as it turned out with no kindergarten. In fact, all four of us were in the top four.
I did do a survey for the son of the only girl in our First Grade class a couple of years ago. Does that count?
In fact, all four of us were in the top four.:-D:-D:-D:-D
I've GOT to meet up with you some day. I swear we were raised on the same farm in two different states a thousand miles apart.
Andy
No kindergarten, there was a summer long bible school with a one week trip to church camp. I am positive that I am related to most of the members of that church, so it was a probably the family's answer to child care.
A Harris, post: 347913, member: 81 wrote: ...so it was a probably the family's answer to child care.
You're probably right. I can remember numerous church functions in the summer time that required only one or two adults to supervise a sea of elementary school-aged tanned cheeks...and all the other parents "split" for the day...lucky them.
There was a program one summer at the church called "hire-a-teen" (or something like that). You had to be fourteen and I fit the bill. If you needed some work done around your place you could "hire" one of us involuntary volunteers for day work and cash...and I got sucked into it.
I rode with Pops to the church early one weekday and he dropped me off on his way to work. This older member of the church was there, knew my name and we rode back to his place in his old Buick. He had a chain-link fence that had years of vines grown into it...and needed them removed. I was placed out in the now full June sunlight and given a worn out pair of old clippers and some lousy gloves. The fence was probably 250' long and FULL of vines...
It was the most miserable day of life...even to this day. My fingers were bleeding and the sun kept beating down.
Long about lunch this old gent's wife called me in for a midday meal, and I was famished. Interestingly she was from Germany. Her husband and she had met in WWII and her English sounded like a Nazi officer in a John Wayne WWII flick. Uninterestingly, she had made this toxic concoction known as beet borscht for lunch....I HATE BEETS. And the only time we had cold soup at home was if you were late to the table..luckily she had white bread and butter. I stuffed myself full with the bread, butter and 3 1/2 gallons of water.
As the afternoon grew long (and hotter) I got all the vines out and piled them up as per instructions. I was burnt to a crisp.
The plan was for Pops to pick me up after he left work...I didn't think he'd ever get there.
That was the only day I did that. I think that was the last time I had anything to do with church-sanctioned summer "fun".....
Being raised on a true family farm (all our income came from the farm) I never really did much outside work growing up. Dad always had more than enough for us do do. One day I'll always remember, I think I was about 13. We had a 70 acre dry land alfalfa patch about 8 miles up the highway from the main place. I was time to cut the hay and that was what became my major job (I have cut thousands of acres of hay). Dad loaded me up with some extra fuel cans (and jug of water) and took me out to the field. When he left he told me he'd send someone with my lunch. So I started cutting hay, lunch time came and no lunch showed up. I kept cutting hay and then needed the extra fuel. Put that in and kept cutting hay. No one ever showed with any lunch. About 6 pm I had the whole field cut and still nobody showed up. What to do, so I decided to hitch hike home. Got about a å? down the highway and the guy that run the telephone company stopped and picked me up and dropped me off at the house on his way home from his day. Dad was glad I got the whole field of hay cut. After that I made sure I took a lunch if I thought I might need it.
That sounds waaaaaaay too familiar. When you start to wonder what a bird would taste like raw if you could knock it out of the air with a dirt clod, it has been tooooooooooooo long...........
I'm sure we could find plenty of similarities despite the miles of separation.
The closest I have ever been to any corner of Georgia would have been on July 3, 1977 somewhere in North Carolina west of Asheville. We drove from Wilmington to Charlotte to Asheville to Knoxville, TN and beyond that day. So, somewhere west of Asheville would have been the closest point to the northeast corner of Georgia. Have never been in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida or Alabama.
I lived in five different school districts without moving. Initially, there was the two-room school for the elementary as a separate district. The nearby high school was a separate district taking in kids from quite a number of elementary schools. In Fourth Grade a merger occurred involving three little schools becoming a new 'joint' district. Then in Eighth Grade the state decided to make major changes statewide and suddenly we were part of a 'unified' school encompassing five communities with five elementaries and five high schools. That was insane! One year later, the 'unified' became a 'consolidated' by merging with another community and its elementary and high school, temporarily placing five high schools and their elementaries under a single school board. That was even crazier. My class size varied from two in Second Grade up to about 83 sometime during my sophomore year of high school.
Have to leave now to go attend the December meeting of the School Board of the 'consolidated' district that now has only one high school, one middle school and one elementary school. That didn't happen peacefully. Two communities and their schools finally tore themselves away and joined other districts about eight years ago after 40 years of fighting. I'm the official 'old geezer' on the Board as five of the other six members were attending school during the same periods as my daughters, with one being in the same class as my middle daughter. The one that is a bit older than the others is still over 15 years younger than me.
School Board Member, Eh? Nothing like asking for abuse. It's good there are folks willing to do it.
