Back in the day (no, I didn’t walk five miles to school in the snow or have cereal for dinner), there were no public school kindergarten classes.
I, like the rest of my classmates, went to one of two private kindergartens in my hometown – Mrs. Cowden or Mrs. Murfee. There weren’t church preschools either.
I attended Mrs. Cowden’s kindergarten, which met in the Legion Hut. There was a morning and an afternoon class. I was in the morning class, along with Patti, Suzanne, Kathy and Leslie. We were part of a neighborhood carpool our moms took turns driving
We met in a single room in the back corner of the building. We took towels for nap time and art shirts for painting. (Yes, I still have my art shirt). We had show-and-tell once a week, had juice and crackers (no dietetic requirements then) for a treat and played on a minimal amount of playground equipment outside. The tree swing was the most popular, but as there was only one, we had to take very abbreviated turns.
We had a graduation ceremony in the Legion Hut’s big open room. I wore a pink and white dress and sang a song about friends with Sharon Pierce and somebody. My diploma was handed to me rolled like a scroll and tied with a red ribbon.
Fast forward to first grade – public school, big old three-story building, lots more people and from 8am-3pm, not just half a day. I was not happy. In fact, I was in tears and wouldn’t leave my mother’s car, despite the fact that there was a lot more playground equipment, just for the first graders.
As my mother pushed me out of the car, I stood beside it and cried big tears. I guess I was going to stand in the street and cry all day as she pulled away. And then my hero, in the form of Tim Barnett, came to my rescue.
I went to church with Tim, attended birthday parties and had been in kindergarten with him.
He gently coaxed me away from my mother’s car and walked me to the sidewalk in front of the school where we were to line up by homeroom teacher. He put me in line and waited with me as long as possible before he had to get in his own line.
That probably lasted a week or so until I became comfortable with first grade. Tim and I were probably in some of the same classes and saw each other at recess. My homeroom teacher was Mrs. Butterfield, the wife of a Church of Christ preacher, who had the pulpit in Bean’s Ferry. Don’t ask me why I remember that.
Mrs. Alice Moore and Mrs. Boggs were my other teachers. Mrs. Moore thought I was a wonderful math student and wrote so on my report card. Boy, did I have her fooled!
I learned to read about Dick and Jane and the family dog, whose name eludes me, with Mrs. Boggs.
It was also the first-year African-American students were bussed across town to attend school with the general population. I’ll never forget sitting in Mrs. Moore’s room at a table for six with little cubbies underneath for our supplies. There was one particular girl who had ridden in on the bus that morning.
Her name was Margaret.
Much later on, Margaret was somebody you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of. But I still remember her as the little girl who lay her head on the table and cried big tears those first few weeks of school.
I guess Margaret and I had the same sort of feelings about first grade, but for different reasons.
Thinking back, I hope Margaret had some type of hero who came to her rescue as well.
Beth Bunch is managing editor of The PineBelt NEWS. She has recently reconnected with her hero, Tim, on Facebook. Having retired from teaching, he’s coming out of retirement and heading back into the classroom.
