Friday Flashback #Giveaway

Howdy y'all! Crystal here, and today we thought it'd be fun to take a trip down memory lane---watch for the crossing guard!---to our school days since a lot of folks are sending their kids off on those big yellow buses this month (some even this week). For those who join the fun of sharing, we're hosting a giveaway (stay tuned for details...).

Catherine, you take the front of the line. What is your most memorable (be it funny, embarrassing, etc) moment from school?

Catherine Castle: Thankfully, I don't have a photo of my most embarrassing moments‎ when I was in school. If I did, you would see me sprawled across the metal stairs of my school's staircase after I'd fallen UP the steps. Yep. You read that right. On a regular basis I tripped going UP the steps. We wore dresses back then. Need I say more?

Jodie

Jodie Wolfe: My favorite school memory took place while I attended college. The Christian Fellowship group was having an ice cream social and also advertised it as a surprise birthday party for me. I figured my roommates were just joking around and it wasn't really a party. Boy was I surprised! :)

Caryl McAdoo: As I mentioned earlier in the first FUN FRIDAY Birthday Celebration, I was an only child for eight years. There was no kindergarten then, so I started school in the first grade at Letot Elementary in Dallas (over five miles from where we lived. Mama, quite the doter, went to school with me and stayed that first day, and the second…she stayed all day every day almost the whole first six weeks until my teacher, Mrs. Walker, convinced her I’d be fine and asked her to please stay home! Notice the teacher AND all the little girls wore dresses - this was only fifty-nine years ago. No other generation has seen such changes as mine!

Deb Garland: Ever have the wind knocked out of you so hard that you couldn’t breathe? I waited until my jr. high gymnastics teacher and classmates entered the locker room before attempting my first handstand. Whoosh, more like bam! I hit the mat hard, flat on my back. I broke the rules. I had no spotter, no breath to call for help, and it’s a miracle I didn’t pass out. Embarrassed by my stupidity, I told no one my secret for days.

Elaine Manders: I've tried to forget embarrassing moments from school, and certainly don't have a picture of anything, but one incidence sticks out in my mind. Winters are normally mild in Georgia, but when I was in seventh grade, a spell of bitter cold weather set in. This was way back when girls wore dresses to school, and we had a strict principal. With the weatherman predicting single digits the next morning, all the girls in my class got together and decided we'd wear pants under our dresses the next day. Technically we weren't breaking the rules. Everyone agreed, but I was the only one to show up wearing wool slacks. None of the teachers said anything, though the principal gave me a sharp look. Still, there's nothing worse for a kid than to look different. I did learn a good lesson. Never trust anyone to take a dare.

Carole Brown: The episode that stands out most vividly to me, happened around the 5th grade when my teacher assigned us the task of creating a week-long journal of a caveman’s family. Not too sure how brilliant it was, but I’m pretty positive it was one of the catalysts that set my feet firmly on the writing path. I imagine my drawings in the journal (an artist I am not!) resembled something like this picture.

Jamin Baldwin: I remember show and tell for my second grade class. My Brother and I had found a snake skin while we were waiting for the school bus. The bus pulled up before we could get it stowed in a backpack. Once seated I decided to put it away and accidentally dropped it. We were going on a downhill grade and the snake skin slid down between the seats across the floor of the bus. Every set of feet it passed had someone hopping up and screaming. Until it finally lay between the bus drivers feet. She nearly wrecked before pulling to a stop. Needless to say I wasn't very popular that day.

Linda Matchett: My most memorable moment from school was when I was in 5th grade. My teacher, Mr. McKay, actually had us put on Macbeth. I played Witch #1, and there was a huge cauldron that sat on a dolly. Whenever the witches went on stage, we would roll that cauldron with us. I can't tell you the number of times I rolled over my cloak or that of my fellow thespians trapping us so we couldn't move. (Unfortunately, that moment did not get memorialized on film!)

Linda Yezak: This summer, I went to my 40th high school reunion--the first one I've ever attended. I don't remember much from high school. When I was a sophomore, I began hanging out with the college group from my church, and I remember them far better than I do anyone from Bryan High. One of my biggest fears when attending the reunion was that someone would start the "remember when?" game, because I truly do not remember much about school. Fortunately, we played "whatever happened to . . . ?" instead. Since I'd known many of the kids I went to high school with since at least first grade, I remembered some of the names mentioned. It was fun discovering who married whom, who was doing what as a career, and who had changed the most in 40 years (frankly, we all look a little worn). But discovering who never made it to our current age because of accident, disease, or whatever, pained me more than I expected. There but for the grace of God . . .

Norma Gail: My most embarrassing memory of school was in the second grade. I talked too much in class and spent most of the year with my desk next to the teacher's. I hadn't told my mother, so when she came to bring something for the class Christmas party and I was next to the teacher's desk, I was so humiliated that I rarely spoke in class again. In fact, in the ninth grade my English teacher told my dad I sat in the back and was very quiet.

Susan Craft saying “goodbye”
to her then fiancé, Rick, 
who was leaving for Vietnam

Susan Craft: I attended college during the late 60’s in the middle of the Vietnam War. I was on the work study program working as the receptionist at the College of Foreign Languages when my then fiancé (now husband) came by the office to tell me he had been drafted into the Army. I’ll never forget the kindness of the dean and professors who were on break and having coffee and overheard the devastating news. They circled around us for a group hug.

Terri Wangard: My senior year of college was the only year I lived in the dorm. One day I went to the home of a friend in the community. That evening, her cousin took me back to campus in his Volkswagen beetle. There was a large green area around the dorm, so to give me door service, he hopped the curb and drove on the sidewalk. Those headlights zooming up to the dorm got everyone's attention. On another evening, I walked back to the dorm from my job at the university library. Normally I went up two flights of stairs as soon as I entered the dorm. This evening I decided to be different: go up one flight, walk around to the other side, and go up the second flight. I went to my room and went inside. Two girls sat at their desks. What were they doing in my room? I excused myself and went back into the hall. I stood there for the longest time, trying to figure out why my room was no longer my room. Then I realized. When I got around to the front of the dorm, I forgot to go up the second flight of stairs.

Heidi Main: Okay, I'm going straight to college here. When I was a freshman, I was tripled (meaning there were three eighteen-year-olds in a tiny dorm room. The college I attended had a 33% drop out rate, so chances were that one of us wouldn't last the year. Well, I guess we surpassed the odds because we all graduated and actually lived together off campus in our second year, but back to the story....) I was the last one to arrive on move-in day, therefore I got the top bunk. Within a few weeks of the start of the year, I was soundly sleeping when my roommates came back from a party. seeing me sound asleep with my arm sprawled over the mattress reminded her of an old wives tale: if you pour warm water into the palm of a sleeping person, it would make the person need to, uhm, use the restroom. So, apparently they got to work. My reaction? I thought someone had lit a fire under my hand! I'm not sure if the water was hot instead of warm or what, but they sure got a reaction ~ I immediately awoke and grabbed my soaking hand. Once everyone calmed down, I fell back asleep. Without using the restroom!

Amber Schamel: I was blessed enough to be homeschooled, but we participated in the homeschool speech and debate league. I had created a speech on Pocahontas with props, and I was performing it for a final round in a competition. The speech began with my going behind the board and emerging on the other side with a mad scientist wig and coat. (Sorry, no picture). There was a young girl who would time the speeches, and she had just finished telling me how much she was looking forward to seeing my speech. Well, when I popped around the board in costume and launched into my speech, it scared her half to death. She screamed. Loud. Not exactly the effect I was hoping for. Anyway, it was difficult, but I managed to hold it together and finish the speech without breaking into laughter.

Crystal Barnes in her
8th-grade gala dress

Jennifer Fromke: Most memorable moment from school: not taking the bus home (the first day I was supposed to try it) and crying and being afraid my mom would never come pick me up. (might have helped if I’d called her . . . .but no cell phones back in 2nd grade).

Josette Downey: I've been thinking on this the last couple days. I really can't think of any. School has been so long ago for me.

Crystal L Barnes: I could regale y'all with lots of memories from pulling teeth to get out of class to putting the leash on the class-pet prairie dog, but I'll settle for the oh-so-lovely experience of being at my 8th grade gala and having my dress break. Let me tell ya, it was no small thing tracking down someone with a safety pin. Needless to say, I was a wall-flower for quite a while. :)

Thanks for hanging out with us today, y'all. We're giving away a copy of Amber Schamel's The Healer's Touch to one of our commenters. (Winner to be announced in Monday's Weekly Windup.)

So, tell us...Do you have any school day memories to share?