My First Chance to Lead

Well, in September of 1955, I finally got to go to school. Because my mother had read to me so much and taught me the numbers and alphabet, I was possibly over-prepared for Mrs. Pritchard's first grade. However, since my small town school had 2 grades in each room, I could listen to the 2nd graders lessons as well as my own; I liked that. Plus, I enjoyed having some new books to read and riding to school each day with my mom in our new red and white 1955 Chevrolet.

My teacher was elderly and quite stocky, but I recall how soft her skin was when she touched me. I remember having a book named Phonics and doing exercises in it each day. I was especially excited when I saw my name in our reader. I think Penny was the friend or sister of the main characters in our book.

Living in the country with one sister, I was thrilled to have all of my classmates to play with at recess; I don't remember ever being afraid of new situations. I remember organizing the other children at recess, at least those who were gullible enough to listen to me. For whatever reason, we liked to play Robin Hood. I assigned the roles of Robin Hood, Maid Marion, Little John, etc. to grateful participants. (My little sister was probably glad to have me gone from home for a few hours because I bossed her around like that, I am sure.)

The only other recollection I have from that time period would be an incident that happened in the summer. We lived on a main farm road to our town's grain elevator, but it was not paved until 1956. Since my mom hated all of the dust that flew into our home's open windows from the gravel road, she was ecstatic when the county decided to pave it. My sister and I loved watching the big machinery in front of our house. That was fine until the day they put down the first tar layer. Evidently, we were watching so intently that we didn't realize how much tar was blowing onto us. My mom wasn't happy about our ruined clothes, and we weren't happy with the scrubbing it took to remove the tar from our bodies.