Tales of Some Fourth Grade Bloggers

Because my priorities are in good order, even when sickly, I still must check NiT. It's just what I do.

I noticed on the ol' aggregator, a link from Volunteer Voters with the name "Bo Heyward". That's a name from the way back past I haven't heard in a long time. I figured it had to be the same Bo Heyward I was in the same 4th AND 5th grade class with and sho nuff, it is. Bo is a blogger and he's running for Senate.

I actually thought of Bo Heyward this week, no joke.

#2 is in a portable classroom this year and I was reminded of my 4th grade class, which was also in a portable at Lipscomb Elementary School in Brentwood in the 1978-79 school year. #2's portable is much nicer than ours was. His is landscaped on the outside, carpeted on the inside. Even so, walking inside it took me back instantly to 4th grade.

Bo was a rather humorous, witty kid and quite intelligent. Besides Bo, we had Murrey Gropp (a total, in a class by himself, character) and between the two of those guys, I remember that being the first school year I laughed a lot. That was the year I became known for laughing a lot. That was the year I got in trouble for laughing a lot.

4th grade was the first time I ever had a male teacher. I remember being all pumped up thinking it was quite cool to have a man teacher and he up and died on us just a couple months into the school year. That was quite a weird experience. The teacher is there on Friday and then Sunday we find out he died in the sauna. What wasn't explained to us at the time was that the teacher died of heart failure brought on by anorexia. We still didn't know what the term meant then and even weirder now, thinking about it, that a man had it. This was a number of years before Karen Carpenter died from it.

I don't know that Bo will remember me, however, I know he will remember all of the above mentioned circumstances, as well as the looney teacher they replaced the one that died. Poor thing. I don't think she ever taught school after that. I think we made her crazy.

5th grade brought us to Miss Hawkins class. Not only did we have me, Bo, Murrey, we also had Phillip Leverette AND Sam Huffman. Phillip was one of those kids who could've benefitted from some Ritalin way back when. Sam was just hilarious. He had one of those lisps like Sid the Sloth in Ice Age. He would cuss and generally try to shock some of us kids, but, he was not a bad kid and he never failed to get a laugh out of me. I believe Sam may have had the record for most paddlings at Lipscomb. Totally unofficial guess...he was a regular in Mr. Frank's office.

Sam saw my butt crack one time in 3rd grade and thinking about it to this day, makes me embarrassed all over again. We had to sit down in "group" time and I had these britches on that were a little too small and they kept sliding down. I was very aware of this and made a point to keep them pulled up. Well, ol' Sam saw it, raised his hand and said "Mrs. Johnson...I see Sista's butt!"

Fortunately for Bo Heyward, I don't think he ever saw my butt.