Yeah, I Stole this Idea

Mama Tulip did a great post on her memories of elementary school, and upon reading it, I was amazed at how many things stood out in my own memory from those early school years of my own:

• Bologna and mustard on white bread
• Really rough toilette paper that was dispensed in single sheets, much like the paper towels.
• Girls daring each other to run into the boy's washroom
• Standing outside at the corner of the building with my best friend at recess, so I could watch Mike play foot hockey along one wall, while she watched Greg play murder ball along the other wall. (can you even say, "murder ball" at school nowadays without being suspended?).
• Being mooned by the above mentioned Greg, for reasons that I never really understood
• Hiding in the washroom when it was too cold to go out for recess, then being kicked out by a prefect
• Becoming a prefect myself, and holding all the "power" to kick kids out into the cold
• Being selected as one of the two students who left for recess 15 minutes early to make the coffee and tea for the teachers to enjoy on their break. Also, helping ourselves to coffee, adding about 10 sugar cubes into each of our cups.

(are you detecting the whole brown-nosing, goody-two-shoes theme yet)

• Chick-a-dee magazines in the library
• Hearing students get into trouble by their teachers, easily heard within our open area classrooms
• Riding my bike to school while towing my friend on roller skates
• Other kids having great recess snacks, such as Jello powder
• Red utility balls in gym class
• In grade one, being told by two older girls that I was the ugliest little kid they had ever seen. I didn't even know who they were or why the picked on me. I cried at the time, and will probably always hate them just a little. I still remember their names.
• Our lunch room monitor, who I think was a bag lady. You could hear her name being called out all over the gym, as students summoned her over to collect the food that was going to be thrown out. She didn't have pigs like Mama Tulip's lunch room monitor, so presumably the food was for herself.
• Friendship pins
• Being yelled at for talking too much at least once a year by my teacher, and being completely mortified whenever it happened
• Speech arts, aka the nerve-wrecking public speaking assignment we had each year.
• Being in the choir, just because that't what the cool kids were doing
• I think there was some school work somewhere in there, but memories of such are a little foggy.

There are a lot of other tidbits that I haven't mentioned here, but I think they may only be interesting to me. It's hard to believe how long it has been since I actually set foot in my elementary school, yet some of the things on this list seem like they just happened last week. Very cliche, I know, but it's true!