FourFifSixTH Grades All Blend

	From the symbol of Mars (U+2642 ♂). The symbol for a male organism or man.
	From the symbol of Venus (U+2640 ♀). The symbol for a female organism or woman.

Who could be expected to be able to separate the preteen years, especially after 50 years?

I believe that with  the  arrival of  hormones nothing would be clear, ever again.

Time to learn about being a woman, so  “the movie” is shown to the girls. The teachers and nurse blacked out the windows to the gym, so the boys couldn’t peak in. We were given a book, probably called “Your Body”. The book was in a plain brown wrapper. We were given specific instructions to take it home and read it. I put mine in my underwear drawer( underneath naturally) and would occasionally take it out( discreetly of course) so that I might understand my body better. I’m 60, have had 4 children and my body continues to be a mystery to me.

Marlene O. was the first of us to get their “friend” . She would bring her pads, wrapped in wax paper.We would  all gather in the bathroom when she had to change her pad. She showed the belt( gross) ,and explained to us how she was feeling. She really knew about life..we all wanted to be like her. I am pretty sure she was the first to wear a bra too.

My first slumber party was at Sharon Contro( Leighton). They had the coolest basement ever.She even had her bedroom in the basement. Sharon was so “neat”.We listened to The Four Seasons, Dawn and Big Girls Don’t Cry for hours. Prior to the party my Mom decided I needed a bra. Most of the girls were already wearing them, and I am sure Mom didn’t want me to be left out. The size was 28 AAA, almost indented it was so flat! I was mortified, I did not want to wear that thing. So that  night after I got my PJs my enemies friends took my bra and hung it from the rafters .My Mom’s good intentions kind of backfired… I didn’t wear that thing for a long time after that.

Cheryl C. seemed to know about sex. She told us, that her Mom told her you go the doctor , he has a machine with a middle finger and that’s how you get pregnant. As if I needed another reason to be freaked out to go to the doctor.

Raging hormones were all around us. Two girls( Linda W and Beverly C)  were madly in love with Dr. Kildare and Dr. Ben Casey. They had so many magazines and pictures. They brought them to school everyday. Recess was a Lovefest for them with drooling over the stories and photos. One of the boys( Gerald N)decided to play a trick on them and stole their treasures. He held them for Ransom! A Playboy magazine would have to be handed over before he would return the valuable property. I don’t know why someone who was allegedly an adult would sell the contraband material to 11 year old girls but they did. The desks we had were a perfect place to have a peep show for the class. He opened to the centerfold, placed it discreetly( when you’re in fifth grade you still haven’t figured out what is discreet). Soon most of the kids were congregating around his desk and giggling. Mrs. Johnson caught on and the magazine was taken to the principal. Our class was across from her office, and the girls bathroom was next to her office. Right about then I had to go to the bathroom and I remember our teacher, the secretary and the principal were all in the office laughing. Our teacher came back to the class looking very stern. Then we got the talk. She told us the body is beautiful but private. She also told us if we wanted to see naked bodies, we should go home and ask our parents to show us theirs. Wow..How out there was that? I  was certain I would never do that, and I am almost certain that no one in that class took her advice either.

I left elementary school thinking I never needed to know anything else about sex. But, guess what… I was wrong..LOL

Girl Scout Camp or How I Learned to Clean Latrines, Take Cold Showers and Various Other Things That I Would Never Do Again

Camp Amahami,( near Deposit NY) the summer after 5th grade, man I hated those 2 weeks. I hated the food..I was a picky selective eater. I really hated swimming, my fear was overwhelming. My bitchy counselor , Float, was not sympathetic. One time when we were walking by the docks I heard her make fun of me. That would really help me get over my fear. Wonder where she went to college, University of  Mean. I bet she’s never done a Triathlon..HA!

Arts and Crafts was great. I made a wooden pin..and I still have it..surprising, right? Our counselor whose name was Miss Roberts( although it wasn’t her counselor name) was a counselor there in the 40’s when my sisters went to camp there. She was my art teacher in 7th grade too.

The girls in my tent were all a year older than me. There were 4 of us. We had orange crates to hold our personal stuff. And we had to use a latrine, that felt like miles from our bunk. One night I had to go in the middle of the night and no one would go with me. I had had a bladder infection prior to camp, and when I had to go I had to go then. I ended up peeing behind my tent..the worst.

I wrote home everyday begging my Mom to come and get me. I cried ever night. My Mom called the camp director who said I was fine..are you kidding me?!

So one good thing, I had my first chocolate candy bar filled with orange. To this day it is one of my favorite flavors.

We had a sleep out to The Outpost. There were huge red ant mounds that we were told to avoid at all costs..that was one time I would not cross the line.

At The Outpost we had to cook our own meals. We cooked some meat wrapped around a stick, that was wrapped with a Bisquik mixture, then cooked over the fire. I am pretty sure that Rachael Ray has never made this a 30 minute meal. We had to pitch our own tent, really rough it..like a tent on a platform  and using a latrine wasn’t.

I did make one good friend whose picture is in the collage of camp pictures. She lived in Sidney, NY. After camp was over we took turns taking the bus to each other’s houses on weekends.

Honestly, would you think I would go back? I did..and honestly it wasn’t so bad, but then I was a seasoned camper. Some of my Nimmonsburg friends went too. Cathy Romancuk was in my tent. My friends Diane Foulkrod and Sharon Contro( Leighton) were in a bunk( a real bunk, not a tent) together. OOOH I was so jealous, I wanted to be with them.

One great activity was a hike to The Fire Tower. We got to climb to the top, where the view was amazing. On the way back we stopped at a hay barn. We were able to jump for a really long time. I’m thinking this was the counselors’ way to be sure we all turned in early that night.

This proves I was having a good time.

I finally was able to put my face in the water with the help of nose plugs. I think I even learned to float..not bad.

In our unit was a girl name Suzy Siver…her family owned the local photography developing company. Years later there was a drug rep here from Binghamton, who asked me if I knew a Suzy Siver, since it was his mother in law. Really, we were just campers yesterday, right?

Ther’s a Camp on Lake Waletka

Where my heart will always be

And it’s name is Amahami

and it’s nestled in the trees

To it come young and old folks

It’s beauty to behold

And those who share its treasures

And memories of gold.

Amahami Outdoor Center. I am pretty sure I was in Lorelai..this website jogged my memory

Aaaah camp memories..

Brownies and Girl Scouts

May 1960. I think this was the night of some kind of ceremony.

I don’t remember what year I was a Brownie. I remember where we had meetings and our troup leader,Mrs. Barron  The meetings were at her house which also had a shoe store attached and was the family business.Not really sure how I ended up in that troup, because the girls were mostly from one of the other district schools( Chenango Bridge). They were also a year older then me.
Girl Scouts..that was the best. Troup leaders were Mrs. Foulkrod( whose daughter was the ultimate BFF) and Mrs. Roamancuk. The meetings were in the basement at the Foulkrod’s house. We earned badges, sold cookies and camped out together.I love those memories.Those are clear as glass. I still have my sash with badges on it.
Badges..sewing, roller skating, horseback riding were at the top of the list. I remember making a green plaid jumper ( with Mom’s help of course) and a poinsettia apron( another item probably hoarded here in my house). Horseback riding..so fun…Saturdays at a Whitney Point horse farm. We would go out on trails, I felt like Dale Evans. I remember Sharon Contro’s (Leighton) running away with her, which the rest of us were all very amused by.
Roller skating at Randall’s, also Saturday afternoons. Even after our badges were finished we spent Saturday afternoons there. Loved the last skate with the disco(wasn’t called that then)ball. My BFF Diane and I had a huge fight there over Donald Palmer. Why do I remember this stuff?
Camping…we went to a couple of GS Jamborees. The one thing I remember is Sharon Contro bringing bagels..first time I had a bagel.I think they were Lenders.
Cookie sales..we could go to houses without our parents and without fear. The Fifties and Sixties were really a kind time.
I also remember making bees wax candles and visiting Howe Caverns( which much  later would also be  an early first date for my husband and me).
I really LOVED Girl Scouts!
I will Blog about Girl Scout camp later.

35 Years Ago Yesterday

The Bride and Lucky Groom

35 years of marriage( half of what my parents were..not sure this body has another 35 years, although I hope so). Guess I will reminisce  about the wedding..not our life( equally memorable joyful). My dress..my friend Tina Macko Ciotoli made it. I saw it in a magazine for a few hundred dollars that I didn’t have, so she copied it and made it. Cost about $80.oo. More recently it was taken apart and pieces used at both my daughters’ weddings. My coat..Mom knitted it on very small needles,  full length coat with a hood. She broke her arm the autumn before and even knitted with a cast..Thanks Mom!! The ceremony…what I most remember is the feeling of shear panic when Bruce was repeating his vows in Hebrew that the Rabbi was saying. Yikes, did I have to do that? I was only Jewish for less than 6 months and was certain I would make a complete fool of myself. Luckily the Rabbi had me repeat my vows in English.

And the party…my parents got lost on the way to the reception. They must have been an hour late. My Dad, the highway engineer, assured us he knew the way.

Got to love life and the age of SmartPhones with GPS 35 years later.

35 years later

Winters Past

Ron Whitham..long time friend

So we are having this gorgeous almost spring day and I want to tell you about winter..you know this taste of spring is just a tease.

So my winter memories kind of fuse from one year to another.

But one momentous event was when Billy Assfelt Affelt took his beebee or air gun , filled it with snow and held it to my neck and shot it. This may have been around 3rd grade. I swear this was the beginning of my  nagging neck pain. I had a huge lump and couldn’t move my neck for days.

Good memories..sledding and skating. First sledding. My elementary ( you need to say it the Upstate NY way..el-e mean tar ee) school playground was on a great hill. I had a sled..but the rails were always rusty..not good. Lou Rappaport’s had great leftover boxes that really were awesome for sledding(sliding).  We spent lots of time on that hill. Not far was  Broome Community College( Broome Tech back then). They also had a great hill for sledding..and later years did some tobaganing there.

So skating…skates were bought at least 3 sizes too big..not enough money to buy skates every year. More room for lots of warm socks. We skated a lot on Cutler Pond. This was the place where the The Cutler Ice Company cut ice in the winter( pre refrigerator) . Urban legend was that one winter the ice gave way and the horses and ice truck were never recovered from the pond..but hey we were kids and this story didn’t scare us away.  The family we rented our house from was The Bolands. They lived up the hill from the pond..and they would let us warm up after hours of  skating. Another skating place was my back yard. We had a small area that my Mom would flood so that it could freeze . It was small..but still so fun. My friend Ron(in the above picture) couldn’t skate, so Mom would bring a chair out for him for balance. Ron developed Juvenile Diabetes when we were in elementary  and passed away a few years ago. The memory of him having to take insulin at such a young age is very profound.

So winter..glad it’s behind us again..

Tonette

This really is my original Tonette. If you could enlarge it you would see the label Tonette

Our generation had 2 kinds of Tonette. This Blog is about both.

Mrs Rood..doesn't she look like the teacher in A Christmas Story?

In third grade my teacher was Mrs. Rood. This was the year that( I think ) we were invited to learn how to play a musical instrument. We were given one choice..the Tonette. Our teacher was Mr. Fleming from the high school band. Wow third graders and high schoolers..which took more energy?

We learned the basics..how to read music, some songs..probably Farmer in the Dell..even I don’t remember that. The Tonette was the lead in to the real world of musical instruments..more later.

The other Tonette was a Perm for children. All those chemicals on little heads..yikes! I despised them! Smells. tight curlers..hours of boredom..and the results were so unpredictable. Mine looked like a white Afro. The purpose was to save my Mom work.  I am sure she got tired of my whining about  fixing my hair. Plus I was not a morning person so this may have been a time saver. I needed time to watch Captain Kangaroo before school  , my hair was not a priority.

My poor Mom..50 years old and a third grader…

Peeps

I do so love Peeps, but this is a different kind of Peep Tale.

In the Fifties many stores gave out Baby Chicks at Easter.There were long lines, kind of a precursor to buying Cabbage Patch Dolls. On Front Street, about a quarter of a mile from our house was Lou Rappaport’s House of a Thousand Items. (Forerunner to The Home Depot that is there now) Rappaport’s gave out free chicks, the Saturday before Easter for many years. They at least didn’t give out the dyed ones( at least that’s how I remember it) but there were plenty of places did that. The various places would advertise the week before and you would chose by how many you could get or if you wanted colored ones. I remember coming home with about 6 chicks each time. I would say I got chicks 4 or 5 times. The most memorable time though(and was probably the last time) was the day we learned they were too big for the box they were in. The box was kept over a heating vent( the wrought iron kind that was ornate). As we often did on Sundays we went to one of my sisters’ for family dinner. The chicks,who were several weeks old by this time, were left safely in their box.While we were gone we believed they could not get out of that box. While we were gone they seemed to moult their young feathers, grow new ones and wings to match. While we were gone the chicks escaped..and let me tell you chicks on the run, poop a lot. We came home to an indescribable mess. The chicks were sent packing to my sister Joan’s barn. The Hollidays always had a lot of free chickens..3 kids, you could really make a haul at the Easter give aways!

Now I am a part of Chix on Stix. We eat chicken 3 or 4 times a week. I like eggs. But I have never gotten any of my kids free chickens, dyed or plain. PETA would probably hunt me down . They probably stopped the carnage tradition of free Easter chicks. Eggselent!

Do Not Go Near The Creek( Crick in Binghamtonese)

Next to our house in Nimmonsburg was a creek. That creek gave me many happy hours. Our garage was next to the creek and part of the garage was a building that might have been a store at one time. The building had a ledge that called my name to walk on without falling into the creek.I wish we had a picture bit I do not, bummer. So the ledge wasn’t more than 6 inches wide and got narrower as you went from the front of the building to the back. At the end you had to jump off to a small piece of land, and depending on how much water was in the creek, would get you a wet or dry landing. It could also land you in trouble with Mom. Not just mine, bit my sisters. Remember they have children my age..and the creek called all of our names. We very often had Sunday dinner together, and playtime equaled creek time. We would throw rocks, build bridges and eventually end up in the water. I had a pair of shoes I hated that my Dad bought me..I was glad to get them wet and hopefully ruin them. So we were told do not go near the creek and we know that children are very literal in their interpretation of our parents words. We never did hear them tell us not to go INTO the creek, so why not?

A Star is Born…or not

So on to Second Grade. My teacher was Mrs. Shaw. I can’t remember her ever raising her voice, but how could that be with a group of 7 and 8 year olds. She had no aide. No one got “pulled out” for specials. I think we had 2 recesses a day.Those were the days.

Our class did the Christmas play that year. I was Millie Minks. (Why didn’t I name one of my girls Millie?) My character was a cranky Santa’s helper.I said.”The elves braided my hair and put pepper in my tea” My Mom did my hair, made that green satin dress and apron( which I have saved , for what I don’t know)

After my big debut..with my friend Kathy Barnes.

For my birthday, we took a train trip to Syracuse to see The Ice Follies.What do remember about trip? Not the ice skating, I remember Mom made me where my rubber boots over my patent leather shoes . They had a princess heel( of course), but no one could see them, BECAUSE I HAD THOSE STUPID BOOTS ON!!! It was really cold..but when you are 8, who cares? Also I left my wallet in a bag on the train while we were at the show. Who knew they would clean the train while were at the show? Come on!

Later that spring my parents took me to my sister Mary’s in New London, CT on a train.It took all day.When went through New York City we changed stations by taking the subway.My Mom and I got separated from my Dad . It seemed like an eternity that we were apart and my Mom got a little upset since she wasn’t familiar with the subway. There was a man nearby who was doing a Bugs Bunny voice, and I was sure it was Mel Blanc since I had seen him on TV.
On the return trip we took The Staten Island Ferry. No idea why. I sure was dressed up. I think it was Easter .

This is in the day when you dressed up for travel.

It would seem from this Report Card progress note that I was a good student. I know I got straight E’s…E, S, F, U were the letter grades one could get. Excellent, Satisfactory, Fair and Unsatisfactory. What a great grading system.

New history

So need to move to the present for this post.

I am in Baltimore with Bill. We went to dinner at Cheesecake Factory. I had to push Bill to eat some of his favorite foods. He has lost almost 20 pounds. We are seeing an ENT doc tomorrow at Johns Hopkins. Will she have the answers? One can only hope. I will persevere until this is figured out. I will leave no stone unturned. Learned a lesson with Bill’ s bladder problems. We will not get burned again.

Bill does not deserve this. Bruce and I can handle it, but it is so unfair that Bill should suffer. It makes you question everything you believe. Bill cannot begin to understand this, who can? He can’t even really tell us the pain he feels. Ranting right now. I just hate this happening to him. It is breaking my heart. Any time your child is in pain it’s grueling,but a special child who suffers, there is no explanation.

Now that Sarah and Deborah are mothers I think they are beginning to understand what Bruce and I have gone through . AJ sees it every day now that he lives home . He is much more of an adult because of Bill which is not necessarily a bad thing. I would like to think that growing up with Bill has made them better people( and I think it has), of course I would like to think it has made me a better person but not for me to judge.

Bill, please know Dad and I do everything to give you a good life..Love, Mom