Saturday, May 27

gone are the brain cells

It's too bad we didn't have yearbooks in grade (aka elementary) school; I've been trying to resurrect the brain cells which included my teachers names (from first grade onward) and can't remember many of them.

It's only been what .. 42 years since I was in the 1st grade? Odds are that more than a few of my teachers have now died. How many of my teachers can I remember without resorting to the yearbook?

grade school (1963-1969)
(x) principal
(_) school bus driver
(x) 1st grade
(_) 2nd (blank)
(_) 3rd (blank)
(x) 4th - PE
(x) 5th - TV classes (science; geography; etc)
(_) 6th (blank)
We had the same teacher all day for grades 1-4, before we began going to different teachers. About the only thing I remember from the first grade was that the playground was right outside the door, and we had a mandatory nap time. I dimly recall one of those rubberized coin-holders which I used to buy lunch each day at the cafeteria, although I did carry a lunchbox part of the time (mine had Yogi Bear on the outside).
jr high (1969-1971)
(_) principal (blank)
(_) school bus driver
(x) 7- band, art, Latin/Greek
(_) 8- (blank)
Junior high was easily the most traumatic of my educational years. I was bused to a distant school for their advanced studies program, but it was too intense for my 13-year old body. I attended a (much closer) high school, and fit in a bit better.
high school (1971-1975)
(x) principal
(x) 9- English 1; analytic geometry; sociology; Spanish
(x) 10- English 2
(x) 11- calculus
(x) 12- newspaper staff (I was both sports editor and photographer)

college (1975-1978)
(x) president
(x) freshman / sophomore: communications theory; accounting; advanced studies
(_) junior (blank)
(_) senior (blank)

grad school
(_)
a complete blank. Truly, I can't remember the names of any of them. There are a few muddy images of a face or two, but nothing substantive. I can only remember the names of 2 or 3 classmates. Hmm .. truly weird. I suppose this memory lapse would be disturbing, if I began to fixate on it ...
Oftentimes, I've found it useful to "background the process" (a Unix term) and eventually those brain cells will be located, and the result returned. I'll continue that attempt. Then I'll resort to The Yearbooks, assuming they haven't succumbed to parchment fatigue.

3 comments:

Zelda Louise said...

Am I correct in assuming that you went to grade school in Louisville, KY? I say this because I found your blog by googling "Man Hyong Kim" and your list of 5 people you lost touch with came up. Besides Man Hyong Kim, who I went to Zachary Taylor with, I went to high school with Jim Belza.

If it's any consolation, I don't remember the names of any of the teachers either. I remember writing a report on the Battle of Quebec in 5th grade, and I remember taking spelling tests.

Anonymous said...

Do you know what became of Jim Belza? I was a year behind you at Ballard.

Gene said...

No, Cindy .. I lost touch with Jim Belza after elementary school.