I have a slew of fond memories of my time in second grade class taught by Mrs. Deets at Fairbrook Elementary, like…
…bringing my word searches that I made for our L&H tent’s newsletter and Mrs. Deets making copies of them and passing them out to the class.
…Kenny and me fighting on the bus. He told his teacher Mrs. Hampton that I was being mean to him, so she sent him to bring me back to her class before school started. After I told her that Kenny had started the fight, she said that we both had to write sentences – to which Kenny burst into tears and she bawled him out even more. I had to go into her class during recess and write 15 sentences of my choice. I wrote “I will not bug Kenny.” Mrs. Hampton was very nice to me during the whole ordeal; she even allowed me to eat my Fritos during the sentence-writing. I remember ashamedly telling my Dad that I had gotten in trouble that day in school.
…this program that we did called something akin to “Up, Up, and Away with Books.” We wrote our names, addresses, and favorite book and author on a card and attached it to a helium balloon and we all let them go. One girl in our school got a letter from a man who had found her balloon and he enclosed a dollar in her letter; our principal Mr. Huff told the school about it during the afternoon announcements. I remember thinking how lucky she was. A few weeks later I got a letter from the same man…and I got a dollar, too. I beamed with pride when Mr. Huff made virtually the same announcent and wrapped it up with…”and Brad got a dollar, too.” Classmate Beth Wolfe remarked “look at Brad…smiling!”
…Mrs. Deets yanking me up off the floor during a moment of silliness when I was down on all fours, laughing and slapping the floor with one hand – as if obnoxiously ‘yukking it up.’
…bringing in my “Mr. Ghost” stories that I had created in kindergarten or thereabouts to show Mrs. Deets. She enjoyed them so much that she had me choose one of my liking to take and have laminated for me. Ten years later, Christi lost all of my “Mr. Ghost” stories.
…going to skating parties at Skateworld every month. Kenny and I would carpool, usually with my Mom taking and his parents picking us up.
…standing on the playground among about ten kids and forming a circle. Every one of us had each of our hands atop the head of each person next to us, tapping away with our index fingers. Why? you might ask…Lee and I had watched Psycho, you see, and there is a scene in there where Norman is being interrogated by Arbogast, nervously tapping his index finger on the front desk of the motel. Lee and I thought that that was uproariously funny, and somehow convinced our classmates that it was hilarious.
Below is my report card and my Iowa basic skills results, indicating that I was nothing short of a genius. At least I was in grade school. Do you remember how smart I used to be? Well, I’m dumber now. I got along swell with Mrs. Deets. She liked me and naturally, thought me a bit unique. However, you may note the notation that I need to “improve self-discipline” and “control talking” in the third quarter. Doubtless this is after I became friends with Lee! I think it is interesting to read what Mrs. Deets wrote at the end of the year – how she hoped I got “a chance to visit in California.” I did indeed, which I will write about soon. She also said “perhaps you’ll write and publish books.” Maybe, one day…
1980 will continue…
I can’t imagine that second graders are allowed to send their names and addresses out into the world anymore. Sounds a bit dangerous. We did something like that too at Ascension, but I think we just put the school address. That way we wouldn’t be abducted by pirates or ninjas.
Chris Tangeman
March 14th, 2007