Me in First Grade

In honor of school starting this week and all the adorable “first day of school” pictures on Facebook, I thought it would be fun to reminisce about my first day of school.

What I learned from this is that I really, really need to work on organizing my pictures better. In other words, I couldn’t find the picture I was looking for, probably because I was looking for it.

This, however, will do. This is my first ever school picture when I started first grade (we didn’t have kindergarten in Elmer when I was a kid.)

I remember my first day of school. My dad took me to school in my brother’s Impala convertible. (It was cream, with red interior.) I might have been scared to death and painfully shy (yes, really), but at least I had a cool ride. 😉

I wore a dark green dress with a white collar and black patent leather shoes with gray plastic buckles. With socks.

My teacher, Mrs. Eitel, remembers it too. We reminisce about it every once in a while at the Moose (Lodge).

“I saw an old man bring you to class, and I thought ‘What’s this old man doing bringing his granddaughter to school?” she says. And we laugh.

It’s very simple: I was an accident. Yes, a bona-fide accident. My mother was convinced she had cancer, and swore she would jump off the bridge if it was anything but.

She was mortified to discover it was me.  They were 40 years old! Their kids were grown! And everyone in town wondered what on earth they were doing having a baby at their age. The slogan for Pepsi at that time was “For People Who Think Young” or something to that effect. I quickly earned the nickname of “The Pepsi-Cola Kid”.

Now, if you knew my parents, you would know that I was anything but unwanted. My parents really enjoyed me, and I like to think I kept them young. I know I enjoyed them. Well, mostly. Except for a brief period during my teen years.  😉

And Mrs. Eitel? We laugh particularly because some years later, she was in the exact same spot: nearly 40 years old and having a baby girl.

And as for my short hair? I would tell my mom I wanted to grow it out. My mom kept telling me, “But you love short hair!”

This always makes me think of the Far Side cartoon where the guy is stuck in quicksand. He shouts to the collie in front of him, “Lassie! Go get help, Lassie! Go get help!”

So ‘Lassie” runs through the forest, swims through the pond, rides the jet plane on her way to get help. Suddenly, about four frames later, she stops.

“Wait a minute!” she says. “My name’s not Lassie!” 😀