After our return from the Hollywood ’80 convention, I was forced to return to my suburban Ohio lifestyle. I spent out the rest of the lazy days of Summer watching TV and playing outside, being babysat by Kelly Nye on the days that Mom worked. To fill my hours, I began compliling a list of all of the performers from the Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang films – as listed in the books Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang: The Life and Times of The Little Rascals. I would write each name down and then put the corresponding number of each film that they appeared in. It was a very early and rudimentary version of the Internet Move Database.
Denise celebrates our return from the convention by donning my derby and lei
Denise wasn’t ready for school yet, so she spent a leisurely life on the swingset
On a completely random note, here were our cars at the end of the 1980 Summer:
1980 Buick Regal
1980 Volkswagon Rabbit
Soon it was time to head back to school at Fairbrook Elementary. There was always excitement in driving up to the school in the days before it began to see who your teacher would be and who would be in your class. The lists were always posted on the outside of the locked entrance doors. My teacher for third grade would be…(drumroll)…Mrs. Corn. Okay. And here were my co-students as seen in our 1980-81 yearbook:
Top: Mrs. Corn, Nicole Schaefer, Melissa Hous, Allison Arnold. Angela Goldshot, Matt Swisher, Second row: Simone Walls, Aimee Chopin, Kevin Rose, Jennifer Richmond, Brad Funderburg, Andrea Feltz, Third row: Lisa Baker, Tracy Kennedy, Theresa Hurley, Jacque Harrah, Rob Bradford, Sami Shtayyeh, Fourth row: Michael Davis, Autumn Mantia, me, Kim Nagle, Sunil Doshi, Doug Baker, Bottom: Bryan Rice
I have great memoires of this class. After just a couple of weeks into the year Mrs. Corn broke her leg and had to go on sick leave, so we were given the substitute teacher Mrs. Rhea. I had had her as a sub in the past and liked her very much. Mrs. Rhea stayed with us until well into 1981. At one point Mrs. Corn came in for a visit, but we hardly knew her by that time.
My best friend at the time was Sunil Doshi and it was great to have him in my class again. Although we had stiff competitions in the math bee (it would really irritate me when he would win), he remained my best friend until his family moved and he defected to Valley Elementary School during the school year. My new best friend at school would become Matt Swisher.
Of course I had my childhood crushes, and the prettiest girl in school at that time was Autumn Mania (the name still glides off the tongue). In contrast the girl that everyone was mean to was Tracy Kennedy. It still amazes me at how cruel kids can be. One other girl who I remember well was Simone Walls. She was from Australia and spoke in a very thick accent.
Most of the other kids were ones who had been in classes with me during my previous years at Fairbrook. Two new students, Adam Tullis and Stephanie Perone, were not pictured in the yearbook. Theresa Hurley and Rob Bradford both lived in my neighborhood so I would sometimes see them outside of school. One kid named Sami Shtayyeh once drank a pint of spoiled chocolate milk in the lunchroom, so from then I always associated him with the sour smell of rotten milk. I am always curious as to what happened to so many of these kids. If any of you happen to google your name and find this posting, please leave a comment!
Third grade was the first year where we began to switch classes on a regular basis. I had Mrs. McCoy as my math teacher. Our weekly classes were gym, art, and music taught respectively by Mr. Rice, Ms. Cooper, and Mrs. Owens. Mr. Rice made the comment once that that he and the new kid Bryan Rice could be known as the “Rice-Heads.” It’s funny the things that you remember.
1980 will continue with some Fall activities…
Oddly enough, I happened to be looking-up pictures of a 1980 VW Rabbit and found this site showing a Yellow 1980 Rabbit. My father had purchased one in 1980, he passed away this past summer, so I was remanicing.
Reading further into you your post, I noticed you were from Ohio – me too. Fremont to be exact, and I too was in 3rd grade in 1980.
Cool post – thanks for sharing.
Jason
Jason
April 3rd, 2011