Grammar School Memories

1. 1950 – First (Mrs. Atkinson) Grade – In another class initially but moved to her (advanced) class based on test scores

1. Used calling the role to teach phonics, stand when letter of your first name is sounded

2. Returning from Orangeburg or North to Columbia the rocking chair in West Columbia was my marker for the turn to cross the Congaree and enter Columbia
3. Lived in a duplex on Enoree Street

4. Street sellers came by singing like in Porgy and Bess – “Nice fresh butterbeans…”

4. I used to go to sleep leaning against tree waiting for my mother to pick me up after school at McMaster
5. Had a maid, Bernice or Vernice, who tried to steal my silver baby spoon by wrapping it around her finger to look like a ring. I don’t know what happened to the spoon over the years.
6. Recall sitting on couch with Jody using Life or Look magazine teaching him to identify objects in the pictures.
7. Fruit and vegetables sold door to door by sellers who walked through the neighborhood much like a scene from Porgy and Bess where the street vendor sings about strawberries. Can recall in particular the lady singing “Butterbeans, nice fresh butterbeans.”

1. 15 year olds in sixth grade waiting until 16 and could quit school. Billy Hubbard was one of these. He would break into the teacher’s desk and alter grades.

2. We lived on the wrong side of the street that divided two school districts. My father refused an offer to send us to the better school that served the district that literally started across the street from where we lived.

1. I spent a week or two helping decorate the principal’s office
2. This task fell to me after I showed Ms. Moltz how to fold paper and cut out designs that looked like snow flakes when you unfolded the paper.

1. Jeep Russell – Epworth
2. Billy Hubbard – Epworth –15 years old, waiting to reach 16 and quit school. Broke into teacher’s desk and changes grades in grade book.
3. Bubba Stutts – Had a Henry J car. Taunted by some who called him Stubba Butts
4. David Lorrick – Epworth
5. Vernon Atkinson – First grade teacher’s son
6. Billy Booker
7. Billy Cason

1. Wore a Little League World Series jacket but was not on the team as best I can tell.

1. Spent most of the year showing slides of her trip down the Pan American Hiway
2. Lots of info on Aztecs, Incas, and Toltecs
3. Learned how to check multiplication by casting out 9s
4. Reading achievement test score said I was reading at the level of a student in the 11th grade 7th month.

5. Got to spend weeks making snowflakes to decorate the principal’s office – fold paper and cut
6. Remember: Billy Booker, Billy Cason (claimed to be on LL World Series team and in fact had a jacket saying so but I never found him on the internet), Billy Hubbard, Jeep Russell, David Lorick, Leia Dawn Barrett, Robin and Candy Yodgin, Vernon Atkinson, Dorina Hyatt

1. Drove up to find neighbor sitting on front porch in his undershirt (sleeveless). Unacceptable. Forfeited earnest money and moved to Wales Garden Apts.

1. John Phillip <last name> lived behind a nearby playing field adjacent to a water tower
2. Louis Berger lived in apts with us.
3. Cactus Quave, local tv personality, lived in apts with us
4. Nephew of Marty Marion, major league baseball player, lived in apts with us. Used to hit pitched ball on the second time around as he would spin while swinging the bat
5. My father worked in State Dept of Ed as Head of Teacher Certification
6. My mother headed the lunch room/dietitian at Columbia High School

1. She fell down the stone steps inside the high school bashing her head repeatedly as she slid down them

7. We were across the street from the next, far better school District (Hand High), but my father turned down the offer to let us go there.
8. Someone called a black boy a “blackie.”

9. Lightning fireball chased Jody to the apartment, running along iron railing as we returned from getting a 10 cent fountain Coke at drug store.
10. Students from two orphanages, Carolina and Epworth, at McMaster Elementary (now USC School of Music)

1. Several were waiting to be 16 in sixth grade so could quit school
2. One of the 15 yr olds, Billy Hubbard, broke into teacher’s desk to alter grades
3. Walked home from school by a building with a pool inside that is on Cracked Rear View album cover (Hootie and the Blow Fish)

1. Jody hit dragon fly in the air while jumping into ditch to avoid being run over by approaching car

4. Sister and Patsy came by to see us. Patsy had on dress with starched petticoats?? that took up most of the couch
5. Patsy was eventually Miss Fun in the Sun at Myrtle Beach. Her talent was lip synch
6. May have killed blue bird with slingshot. Never found it so hopefully did not. Never expected to hit it.

7. More or less lost one day while walking to the river. Heard car horn being blown and our names called but did not think this related to us since we did not consider ourselves lost.
8. Lots of Spanish moss and some crayfish and salamanders in streams running out of caves

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