Daybook

Date:  Wednesday May 8, 2013. 

Time and Weather: It's 66 degrees at 7:52 AM.  It's cloudy today.  The high is expected to be around 86 degrees.

Clothes:  Navy blue capri yoga pants and a turquoise tee shirt.           

Food:  Peach yogurt and buttered toast for breakfast.  

Sounds:  Fox News is talking about the whistleblowers and Benghazi and whether we will finally get answers at the hearing today.  And the three young women who were abducted and have now been found.  My prayers are with them as they deal with what has happened to them.  Thank God they are alive!

Comings and Goings:  I've taken Reece to school already this morning.  I don't think I'll go anywhere other than to take Aubrey to school later, and to Mom's around lunch time.  She was doing better yesterday.  Thank you for your prayers.   
  
Little Favorites:  
Peanut butter cups.  Mmmm.

     










Music:




Memories:  I was 11 years old when I started junior high school.  I went to Jardine Junior High, which was a few blocks from our house.  It was such a big change from elementary school.  I remember being scared at first, afraid I'd get lost and not be able to find my classes, afraid I'd forget the combination for my locker, anxious about the teachers and the other kids.  To this day, I remember my locker combination (13-19-25).  I didn't get lost and the teachers were all very kind.  Grades 7 through 9 went there.

Our school colors were blue and gold.  I remember going to sports events on the bus, and all of us singing:
Hooray for Jardine
Hooray for Jardine
Someone in the crowd yelled
Hooray for Jardine.
One, two, three, four, 
Who you gonna yell for?
Jardine, that's who!

My favorite place in the whole school was the library.  I loved to read, and the library was always cool and quiet.  I felt at home there.  There were big windows with blinds, and the windows were often open, the blinds blowing a bit in the breeze.  The librarian was a sweet little woman who smelled of Five Day Deodorant pads--remember those?  :o)

We wore green gym suits for gym, and we were supposed to take them home and wash them every week.  We would line up in our "squads," and the gym teacher would go down the line with her clipboard in her hand, checking off whether each girl had on a clean gym suit.  They were awful because they had to be ironed.  The shorts had huge leg openings, so Mom put elastic in mine.  They looked like little bloomers.  I learned to square dance, climb the ropes all the way to the top, and do a flying birds nest on the rings in gym class.  (I'm sure I learned lots of other things, too, but those stand out in my memory).  

Oh, and we would do a pepper grinder, where the class would line up in two long lines.  You held hands with the girl across from you, and made a circular motion with your hands and arms.  The teacher would put a girl into the pepper grinder, and as we moved our hands and arms in a circle, she would be moved along down the line.  Because I was so little, I usually got to be the "pepper."  

I knew there was something different about the gym teachers, but only after I went on to high school did I learn that they were lesbians.  I didn't even know what that meant when I first heard the term.  Ah, innocence.

In 8th grade I was in home ec.  The first semester we learned to sew.  First we made hanger covers to learn how to use the machines, then we made gathered skirts and tops.  I still remember going with Mom to choose the fabric for my outfit.  The skirt had big blue roses on a white background, and the top a shade of blue to match a color in the roses.  We had to wear the outfit to school at the end of the semester.  My skirt looked okay.  My top, not so much.

The second semester we learned to cook.  I loved the big kitchen, filled with lots of little kitchens.  Between the kitchen and the sewing room was a pretty dining room where we learned the proper way to set a table and create a centerpiece.  We learned to cook everything from oatmeal to peanut brittle to tuna casserole.  There were 4 girls in each little kitchen, and we each would have certain jobs to do to create our meal.  Our teacher's name was Mrs. George, and she was young and pretty, but stern.  We all wanted to please her, so we worked hard and became pretty good little homemakers.

I learned to type in 9th grade.  Each of us sat at a desk with a big bulky typewriter.  We learned the home keys first, then how to reach all the other keys without looking at our hands or taking our fingers away from the home keys.  Now I guess it would be called keyboarding.  It's a skill that has come in handy all of my life.

The cafeteria was wonderful.  The food was made right there, and most of it was very good.  I especially remember the chocolate cake and the ham and beans with cornbread.  Michelle Obama would not have liked our menus.  ;o)  I was always ready for lunch after smelling the marvelous aromas coming from the kitchen while I was in orchestra.  

I remember concerts, plays and sock hops, and a field trip now and then.

It was a fun time in my life.  

Thank you, God:  For a sweet and innocent childhood.  I pray that for all children, especially my grandchildren and grandnieces and nephews.  Amen