Since I wasn't six prior to September 1st I couldn't go to public school first grade. If I wanted to start first grade I had to go to private school and I did. First Baptist had a private school first grade. Gary had gone there the previous year. The teacher was Miss Gill.
Miss Gill was a nice lady, but very stern and very big. She was probably 5' 10" abd 275 pounds. That may be an exxageration, but, remember, I was only in the first grade. Everyone looked bigger than they probably were.
Miss Gill carried around a wooden yardstick. If you talked in class without permission or commited some other infraction, Whap!, she swatted you on the hand with that yardstick. She could reach anywhere in the room with that yardstick with one step and a swing, or so it seemed.
Our room was the first room in the children's wing that runs along Border Street. In all of the remodeling over the years I think they've made an office out of part of the room and maybe made it where it connects with other nursery rooms. It didn't connect to any other room back then.
I sat on the second row in the second seat from the middle aisle. As Miss Gill was facing the class I was on her right, in easy swatting distance for her right handed swing.
One day our assignment was to color a sheep. The outline of the sheep was already provided for us on the paper. I colored mine and turned it in. After eveyone had turned their pictures in, she graded them and handed them back out. I got a check plus! The guy next to me got an X. I looked at his paper and at his grade and at his sheep and laughed. I pointed at it and said "Sheep aren't blue."
WHAP! My outstretched pointing right hand was swatted hard. "Don't make fun of people. It's not nice," Miss Gill said, and I've remember that to this day.
And that's what I learned in first grade.
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2 comments:
I dont know if I ever learned that lesson
I can remember you telling us this story when we were kids at bedtime. It really made an impression on me. What I remember most though is the fact that you always told us stories. I try to do that with the kids as much as possible at bedtime. It's the calmest time of the evenings--when they are quizzing me about the stories of my childhood. Thanks for setting that example, Dad!
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