I’m due for a trip to the dentist.  The entry on my calendar gives me pause for a flashback to a first grade play and a dentist’s hand that became an endangered species. A highlight of my first year as a student was my starring role as Betty Clean Teeth in our Wiley School Health Day play.  My mother fashioned a large toothbrush from poster board and cloth. It stood about twelve inches taller than my head, and brushed the stage as I walked on. Read More→

I spent ten years treading water as an elementary school teacher before  I was able to swim to the shores of retirement. True confession time, when my late husband, Bill was my tremulous fiancée he said, “Dahlin’, you can keep working or you can quit.”  It took me less than five seconds to say, “I quit!” I was a prime candidate for high stress just driving to school.   Hay trucks weaving and bobbing on a two lane highway at five miles per hour made me forget my Sunday School lessons. Read More→

Dateline: Westminster Elementary, Westminster, SC -  Spring, 1989–It was a four-burner, lipstick meltin,’ sidewalk steamin,’ late spring day at the schoolhouse.  Read More→

Dateline: Westminster, SC: Once upon another life I was a name brand elementary school teacher in the upper regions of this, the greatest state in the union. Just as the crocuses bloom, a rite of spring in any South Carolina third grade is the field trip to Columbia.  Students memorize the pledge to the state flag, the state symbols, and the state dance. Read More→