Remembering class clowns and school lunches

My new friend Texas T-bone revisits his grade school chums over on his blog this morning. His blurb about stuffing food in milk cartons brought back such memories. To date myself, when I was in elementary school, we had "white" milk or chocolate milk in those cute tiny cartons with paper straws. About halfway through the milk, the darned old straw would collapse. I can still remember the smell and taste of those old straws. It was a big no-no to stuff unwanted food into your milk carton. One day we were having the famous spinach, and I thought it was worth a try to make use of the empty carton. Now mind you, I was a little mousey kid with nose to the books. Big brown-noser. So, I was mortified when the lunchroom monitor lady made me open up my milk carton before tossing into the garbage. I was caught. First time I ever did something "bad" and I got caught. Seems to hold true for me all my life. Must have started with that traumatic day. Later that day, I got stuck behind the little Sylvester girl while waiting on my turn to slide. She always wet her pants, and just as I was poised to shoot my legs out in front and hit the slide, I noticed two wet streaks. No way to climb back down, there was an impatient, mean crowd at my back. Oh, yuck. And my butt hit those wet skidmarks and just stuck, then I screeched and schooched my way down the slide. Do you know what the "butt walk" is?

And the topper for that day: after lunch on the playground, all the girls would play underneath a huge live oak tree. No grass would grow under the humongous thing, and we would use sticks to draw "houses" in the dirt. We were such architects. Would draw a full floor plan in the dirt, bedroom, kitchen, etc. Used rocks to mark out the rooms sometimes if we had lots of time. If we were lucky, our houses from the day before were still visible with only small repairs needed. Every other girls' house was fine, but not mine... mine had a big dog turd right on the wall between my living room and my bedroom. The little snoots all acted like I had laid the thing and not the canine in the night. Made such fun of me, that I think I didn't play sand house again for ages. Bad day at Springtown Elementary. Go Porcupines! And Oh, do I have the worst second grade school photo of all! Might post if I get the nerve.

PS: One other wonderful memory: I was a skinny, anemic kid and my Dad got the idea to make me drink goat's milk with Ovaltine every morning before school. Some old codger must have told him it was a home remedy for wormy kids or something. Probably Old Man Bradshaw, owned goats and who was so skinny, he was called "Stick" Bradshaw. But that is another story for another time Kiddie Troupers.