I think most children are very self-conscious in their elementary years. I was; I wanted to fit in. In 4th grade, I was “the new girl” in Akron, Colorado. Getting ready for the school year meant the usual: a new tablet, new crayons, some #2 pencils, and a spiral notebook for spelling. Also needed was a pair of tennis shoes so we didn’t mark up the gym floor upstairs in Akron Grade School. Mom and Dad were very thrifty, always saving some money but there was none for the extras needed for their six children. We never went hungry but we ate a lot of homemade soup. There was no money to splurge on the 2nd pair of shoes. However, I had a brother in 2nd grade whose feet were about the same size as mine.
Mom shopped in a neighboring town, Sterling, and got the wrong size spiral notebook. Every day, we’d hand in our spelling notebooks, and every day, there sat mine, right on top, a reminder that my spiral notebook was the wrong size … total embarrassment!
The shoes were another matter. There was no extra money in our household for two additional pairs of shoes. My 2nd-grade brother and I had to share. But here I lucked out. Another girl in my class had to “share a pair” of tennies with her 2nd-grade sister who was in Steve’s class. Twice a week, the P.E. teacher came from the high school to have gym class at the elementary level. Twice a week, Steve and his classmate left their classroom, entered our classroom, went to the cloakroom, picked up the tennies found hanging on the hook, and leave, quietly. At the end of their gym period, they would return, shoes in hand, hang them in the cloakroom, and within a half-hour or so, my 4th-grade classmate and I would slip our feet into the sweaty shoes, line up, and head to the gym. Nobody ever said anything but they all knew. That was 4th grade. Maybe the other girl was as grateful as I was, to not be the only one who had to share my tennies with a sibling.
Dr J’s Comments
A sweet little short story from a former contributor. A great example of all the stories we have to tell.
Jennifer, I always enjoy what you write, post…
Thank you, Lois. This woman is so darn cute and smart. I met her at Cal’s grandson’s wedding in Nebraska. I was visiting with her and found she is the grandmother of the bride, and she went to school in Akron for a while. She is a little like you, she knows more about people and events than the people themselves:) Small world for sure. Anyway, she is one of the few women who wrote their story and posted it on my site. I usually interview them, write the story using their words and sentence structure, and post it. For this story, it worked as designed, and all I had to do was a quick edit and accept.
I want to tell my story but have trouble putting it in print. For now I’ll enjoy all the others. I’ve read them all🥰
Hi, Traci. Sometimes they are hard to write, especially the painful parts. If you would start with just little short stories about small incidences, just like the last post, after a time you will be able to combine all the stories for the complete story. If you do decide to write one, I tried to make my site easy to submit. On the opening page, below the rotating pictures, there is a big yellow box. Click on the small green box “Tell you story,” fill out the form, paste your story, (write your story on your computer and copy and paste). Under “Featured Image, click on “Choose File” and upload a picture. Click I’m not a robot and it should be done. I will edit the piece and post it. Easy, I hope. I have several of my stories on the site along with my sisters. We all need to write our stories…for ourselves and our families. We are the only ones who can get it right. Nice to hear from you. You have yourself a nice Valentine’s Day:)