The older I get the more I remember when I was young and foolish, but mostly young and taken care of by some one other than myself. I remember my classmates so clearly. Now let me go on record right here as saying, I have my memories and thiers may be entirely different. Like Martha Knobloch. She played the piano and I recall her piano recital. She lived near us, but up on the highway closer to the sand pit. Her mother set up a recital in her home and several of us kids were there. It seems like maybe only 4 or 5. We set on a couch, all us little girls in a row with our feet straight out in front of us. I am sure her mom made some sort of refreshments, probably to entice us into setting still! I recall being very proud that I knew someone who could play the piano. I bragged about that for years, and look here, I still am!
Irene Reinke, Beth McGonigle and Nancy Cuthbertson grew up to be cheerleaders. They were the cool kids. David Sjoberg, Owen Lentz and Gary Battey were the smart ones. Kenny Fenton, Jim Redford, and Larry Collee were the jocks. Oh, and David Sjoberg was also a jock. A smart jock, if you can imagine that. Earl Kelley, Loren McQueen, Jay Moore, Joyce Pedersen, Barbara Hawk, Sherry Stires, Joan Moore, Eleanor Kirkpatrick, Eveline Piper, Barbara Massey, and Martha Knobloch. I am drawing a blank on the rest of them. I am sure when I hang up the blog, I will remember the rest of them. But this was the core group. Others came and went, but these were the ones I went to school with for 8 years and then into high school.
I was not a very good girl in high school, so I lost track of them. The bus brought in kids from Hutch and the outlying areas and I just went to hell in a handcart mostly. All through grade school Barbara had been my very best friend. Mother cleaned house for them and I spent lots of nights at her house. Remember the sleeping arrangements at my house made it impossible to squeeze in another kid. She had her own room! It had a bed in an alcove and a settee, a fireplace, a chair with a lamp to see by, a desk and everything I could ever dream of for comfort. And her mother kept ice cream in the freezer and her day would make us a sundae with a cherry on top! Her dad was the local dentist, so they had lots of money. She had a brother named Bert who always called me "mudpie" because making mudpies was always a pastime in my world. One thing we always had was dirt and water. Had I made bricks instead of pies I could have built a house.
I remember 3rd grade when hygiene became important. The teacher's name was Miss Holmes. The first thing every morning she would ask, "Did you brush your teeth this morning?" We had to hold up our hand as a yes answer. "Did you comb your hair?" Another yes was expected. "Did you wash your face?" Yes. Then she would walk around and physically inspect our hands to be sure they were clean. I rarely passed. I had answered yes to all the above questions, but only because everyone else did. I am not sure I even owned a toothbrush back in those days. I never had a cavity in my life until I married my first husband. He gave me the cavity germ along with the nest full of babies!
One of the really nice things about school was the bathrooms. I never knew why they were called that because there was no where to take a bath, but they were nice. All that tile and running water was more then I could ever dream for at home. And hot water came out of the faucet! In the 4th grade I went into the bathroom one time at the same time as Beth McGonigle. She had a popcorn ball tired up in a scarf. It was uneventful until a few minutes later when Mrs. Howe grabbed me by the ear and took me to the office. There the story was told by Beth that I had grabbed her popcorn ball and thrown it in the toilet! I had not even touched her damn popcorn ball, but that was the story. Mother had to come to school and hear what an evil child I was. On the report card every nine weeks there was an area for teacher comments. "Louella is mean to her classmates". "Louella teases the other kids." "Louella does not play well with others". That continued until the last 9 weeks when there was no comment written because Mrs. Howe had been taken to hospital because she had a thorn in her lower intestine and needed surgery. It was iffy whether she would make it or not. Talk about Karma!
In 5th grade I had Miss Swenson. I loved that woman. She found potential in me and entered one of my poems to a magazine and it was accepted. Had I stayed in 5th grade forever, my life would have been so different. But life went on and I am here today to tell you that Karma is good. Well, Karma is good unless it is bad. I like to stay on the good side of that bitch!
I wonder where all the kids have gone. I wonder if they had good lives. One of the kids that wandered through my world in the 4th grade was a girl named Mavis Reed. She had a brother named Jerry. They lived outside of town and sometimes I would ride the bus to her house and then her brother would take me home on the handlebars of his bike. Wonder what ever became of them? Wonder why I thought of that?
Well, the world of church, geese, dog food, and all that calls to me, so I am out of here. Just in case someone whose name of have mentioned above reads this, I would like to know. Or if you know what became of the kids in the class of 1959 in Nickerson, Kansas, give me a shout out. email is loumercer3@aol.com Just copy and paste in your browser. I try every day to be a better person just to make up for whatever I did back then. I keep searching because if we do not learn from our history, we tend to repeat out mistakes and it is the same in the growing up world of skinny little girls!
Irene Reinke, Beth McGonigle and Nancy Cuthbertson grew up to be cheerleaders. They were the cool kids. David Sjoberg, Owen Lentz and Gary Battey were the smart ones. Kenny Fenton, Jim Redford, and Larry Collee were the jocks. Oh, and David Sjoberg was also a jock. A smart jock, if you can imagine that. Earl Kelley, Loren McQueen, Jay Moore, Joyce Pedersen, Barbara Hawk, Sherry Stires, Joan Moore, Eleanor Kirkpatrick, Eveline Piper, Barbara Massey, and Martha Knobloch. I am drawing a blank on the rest of them. I am sure when I hang up the blog, I will remember the rest of them. But this was the core group. Others came and went, but these were the ones I went to school with for 8 years and then into high school.
I was not a very good girl in high school, so I lost track of them. The bus brought in kids from Hutch and the outlying areas and I just went to hell in a handcart mostly. All through grade school Barbara had been my very best friend. Mother cleaned house for them and I spent lots of nights at her house. Remember the sleeping arrangements at my house made it impossible to squeeze in another kid. She had her own room! It had a bed in an alcove and a settee, a fireplace, a chair with a lamp to see by, a desk and everything I could ever dream of for comfort. And her mother kept ice cream in the freezer and her day would make us a sundae with a cherry on top! Her dad was the local dentist, so they had lots of money. She had a brother named Bert who always called me "mudpie" because making mudpies was always a pastime in my world. One thing we always had was dirt and water. Had I made bricks instead of pies I could have built a house.
I remember 3rd grade when hygiene became important. The teacher's name was Miss Holmes. The first thing every morning she would ask, "Did you brush your teeth this morning?" We had to hold up our hand as a yes answer. "Did you comb your hair?" Another yes was expected. "Did you wash your face?" Yes. Then she would walk around and physically inspect our hands to be sure they were clean. I rarely passed. I had answered yes to all the above questions, but only because everyone else did. I am not sure I even owned a toothbrush back in those days. I never had a cavity in my life until I married my first husband. He gave me the cavity germ along with the nest full of babies!
One of the really nice things about school was the bathrooms. I never knew why they were called that because there was no where to take a bath, but they were nice. All that tile and running water was more then I could ever dream for at home. And hot water came out of the faucet! In the 4th grade I went into the bathroom one time at the same time as Beth McGonigle. She had a popcorn ball tired up in a scarf. It was uneventful until a few minutes later when Mrs. Howe grabbed me by the ear and took me to the office. There the story was told by Beth that I had grabbed her popcorn ball and thrown it in the toilet! I had not even touched her damn popcorn ball, but that was the story. Mother had to come to school and hear what an evil child I was. On the report card every nine weeks there was an area for teacher comments. "Louella is mean to her classmates". "Louella teases the other kids." "Louella does not play well with others". That continued until the last 9 weeks when there was no comment written because Mrs. Howe had been taken to hospital because she had a thorn in her lower intestine and needed surgery. It was iffy whether she would make it or not. Talk about Karma!
In 5th grade I had Miss Swenson. I loved that woman. She found potential in me and entered one of my poems to a magazine and it was accepted. Had I stayed in 5th grade forever, my life would have been so different. But life went on and I am here today to tell you that Karma is good. Well, Karma is good unless it is bad. I like to stay on the good side of that bitch!
I wonder where all the kids have gone. I wonder if they had good lives. One of the kids that wandered through my world in the 4th grade was a girl named Mavis Reed. She had a brother named Jerry. They lived outside of town and sometimes I would ride the bus to her house and then her brother would take me home on the handlebars of his bike. Wonder what ever became of them? Wonder why I thought of that?
Well, the world of church, geese, dog food, and all that calls to me, so I am out of here. Just in case someone whose name of have mentioned above reads this, I would like to know. Or if you know what became of the kids in the class of 1959 in Nickerson, Kansas, give me a shout out. email is loumercer3@aol.com Just copy and paste in your browser. I try every day to be a better person just to make up for whatever I did back then. I keep searching because if we do not learn from our history, we tend to repeat out mistakes and it is the same in the growing up world of skinny little girls!
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