An exercise in memory

Today I shall take a trip back into long ago. Cuando era nina....When I was a little girl....
I was realizing these last few days that I always call JK-12 Elementary School without fail, but lots of people call it Public School. I had never really heard that before and it sounds American to me. So it made me think about back in my elementary school days. Here is a year by year of my teachers and maybe a memory or two.

Jk-mrs. mersereau- I really liked her at the time. She made us call our bums "boom-zee-ays" (I like to think i'm quite the speller but this one alludes me, any ideas?). We had buckets on a shelf and each was filled with a different toy from those ANTZ to tiddlewinks, we would all sit in a cricle and she would dismiss us for bucket time. Me and Shannon would always run for either the tiny animals, or the buttons or....the ANTZ (i think, could be a fake memory), depending on our mood.

SK- same lady. Mrs. Babcock helped in our room. I remember we all once danced to La Bamba. Our class pet was a crab named sebastian that may or may not have been smuggled out of the dominican by someone who may or may not have looked like my dad.

Gr. 1 - Mrs Tremblay. We played math challenges, two teams, and she would fire math questions at us (what's 1 +2). The winning team always got these teeny tiny suckers...but they were so good. There was a girl who didn't have a great home life, and she wasn't fast at math, everyone secretly (or not so secretly) hoped not to be on her team. Kids are really mean.

Gr. 2 - Mrs. Ward. We leared via 'units' in this class. Mostly i liked colouring. Our units were Dr. Seuss, Apples (we went to the Valu-Mart and got to pick a free apple!), now..my memory fails me...rainforest? I"m grasping at straws. Oh yes, dinosaurs, thus began my obsession with becoming a paleontologist or archeologist.

Gr. 3 and 4 - they all blend together, Mrs. Parisee. Both times it was a split class. Our school was small. Her husband was my bowling coach (yes, you can snicker). Kaitlyn moved from White River this year. We would be on and off arch nemeses until I moved. She had a sweet farm-like place with pheasants, horses, chickens and donkeys. Her parents owned a small hotel, we got to have sleepovers in the hot tub room. I never met her mom, she was always away having chemo.

Gr. 5 ok now i really am having a hard time. There was a mrs. Desjardins in here somewhere. Shoot. She had a baby, she brought it in and its head was warped (i'm sure its fine now, it had just been through the trauma of birth) Mrs. I can't remember her name! took over.
She was nice, someone made her cry because she sang "Mighty Gitchie Manitou" to us and they laughed at her.
One of those ladies read us Island of the Blue Dolphins. I wont' ever forget that book

Gr. 6 - Mr. Kreps. First name 'Jorge' pronounced "Yorg". Favorite Saying "Lord love a duck!". Had a mighty comb over and drove a red sports car.

Gr. 7 -Mrs. Rody by morning, Mr. Kreps by afternoon. Mrs. Rody was the principal's wife. She had a hard time in the class with a few of the kids who had taken to throwing things or smoking things when stuff didn't go their way. She was even more uncomfortable with the topic of puberty as we pretended not to be.

Gr. 8 - Mr. Bumbacco (Stubbs). I moved to the soo. Big school, 4 times the size of my other one. Two grade 8 classes (had i been in Wawa, my presence would have given them 12 grads). He played "Good Riddance (Time of your life) by Green Day on the first day of school.

Well there you have it. That was probably way longer than I should tolerate but it was fun for me! Another little tidbit of information: if you have ever wondered where animosity and cultural insensitivity come from, go to Wawa. Ok that may not be true but my elementary school there was not only St. Joseph's School, it was Ecole St. Joseph. All that means to me is that there was a mysterious hallway that we couldn't go down and these 'alleged' french children who studied there. I bet they studied the same things as us (but in French). I'm not sure who decided this or which side incited the segregation but our recesses were at different times, we couldn't go on the French side of the playground (they had way better play equipment too!). I never saw them in the hallway, or talked to any of them during school hours. Or after I suppose.