First Grade

In First Grade I had Mrs. Ramsbottom as my teacher. She was one ornery woman! I remember only getting in trouble once in her class, and I was put in time out under her desk. She wasn't sitting at it when I was under it, but it was still a weird place to send students. I remember peaking my head out over the top of the desk a few times and seeing the teacher's answer book sitting on her desk. It was open to the math page we were working on that day and was hoping I could remember some answers to the problems I had seen.

School was only a quarter of a mile away, so I walked to school with Karen, her sister Elise, and Justin Brown (the browns lived on the corner of the street and had two brothers and a sister). We had fun walking and chatting as we went. Because we messed around so much it usually took us at least a half hour to get to school. Most of the time we would walk all the way around the block, but when we were feeling very brave we would sneak through two yards and cut through to our houses. It made the trip so much faster. When it would rain or snow our Moms would take turns picking us up or dropping us off at school.

At Hill Elementary School first graders had recess on the little kid playground (1-3 graders). We loved playing on the swings, digging in the sand box, playing 4 square on the black top, and messing around on the baseball diamond. We had morning and afternoon recess which was always fun! It was at recess in first grade recess that I encountered my first bully.

My friends and I were playing in the sand box when Sarah Moag came over and demanded we play with her. She was huge, at least as big as a fourth grader (even though she was in second). We were so terrified of this burly girl that we played with her. If she asked if she could play with us we probably would have let her, and maybe we would have become friends. But by threatening us we ran every time we saw her.

Karen and I became close friends at this time. We spent all our extra time together, and loved to make up games. We would imagine we were horses or unicorns and that the bushes behind our house were dragons or monsters out to get us. Sometimes we would play with Barbies; Karen had a fabulous collection of special addition ones with the most beautiful dresses. We also pulled out the My Little Ponies from time to time and made up stories of how the Pegasus mom had lost her babies and the other ponies had to help find them.