The Year I Didn't Attend 2nd Grade

 Hello Dear Readers,

Did you miss me? I'm being glib, of course. Sometimes life gets in the way. That's exactly why I haven't had any new posts in a quite a while. Life reared it's ugly head and smacked me really hard. But, I'm back.

On Facebook there is a feature called "Throwback Thursday." Well, today isn't Thursday, so I'm going to refer to this article as Fallback Friday. We're going waaaay back...all the way to 1951.

I belong to a fabulous writers group called Pen Dames. If you haven't visited the Pen Dames blog, I highly recommend it. At a recent meeting, we had a writing exercise titled "I remember." I wrote about the year that I didn't attend school. Remembering the past was a little bitter sweet. I hope you enjoy it.

I Remember...

I remember September 3, 1951; my 7^th birthday. There was no cake and no birthday presents. We had moved to Lakeland, Florida. Daddy had taken a job with the Atlantic Coastline Railroad.

I remember being exited to start second grade except that I didn’t. Mama was seven months pregnant and living far from Tampa, she had no one to help take care of her, my three-year-old brother, and me.

I remember daddy telling me that I had to be a big girl and take care of mama and Lynn. He got in the car and drove away. I remember being disappointed that I didn’t get to go to school.

I remember mama writing out a grocery list and giving me money. My little brother and I would walk to the general store, approximately a mile or so from our rental house. I remember how heavy the sacks were and wishing I had a little red wagon to carry the load.

December 5^th, I remember when my little sister was born. Both grandmothers worked. My mothers’ sisters were married. One was in Japan with her Army husband, and the other lived in Alabama. There was only me to take care of mama and my newborn sister.

I remember that winter being cold and rainy. It rained so much that water rose over our front porch. Mama had to have a wisdom tooth pulled. For whatever reason, she decided to go wading in all that dirty water. She got lock jaw and was bedridden for a long time.

I remember heating soup, scrambling eggs, making toast and bologna sandwiches. I remember washing diapers and wringing them out by hand. I remember doctoring my little brother’s jaybird with purple iodine because he got ringworm from wading in the dirty water, too.

When the house was quiet, I remember sitting at the dining table, sounding out the words on the Kellog Corn Flakes cereal box, reading the labels on the Campbells soup cans, and the Sunbeam bread wrappers. I remember being excited when I found an old newspaper underneath the kitchen sink and how careful I was not to tear it when I labored to sound out the big words.

I remember saving the note paper that mama used to write the grocery list. I used the back of it to practice writing words.

It seemed like mama was sick that entire year. I never did attend second grade.

I remember my eighth birthday. There still wasn’t a cake or presents but daddy drove me to school to enroll me in the 3^rd grade. The people there said that I’d have to go to 2^nd grade. Daddy told them no; to give me a spelling test and if I passed to put me in 3^rd grade.

I remember standing in front of three frowning people. They said I had to orally spell 20 words correctly. I remember being really scared. Besides, I didn’t know what “orally” meant.

I think those three frowning people were disappointed when I spelled all twenty words correctly. Don’t ask me what those words were because I don’t remember. I attended 3^rd grade at Lakeland’s City School.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope all of you have special remembrances. 

Until we meet again...HAPPY READING!