We all love these moments.

I was recently reminded of a moment just like this that Clifford and I unknowingly created for our nephews a few years back.

We don’t rake the leaves in our yard; Clifford blows them with a leaf blower. That seems to be the trend in the burbs around here. Far different to when I was growing up in the Hoosier State where a rake and a wheelbarrow were your best fall friends. Anyway, unlike some assholes who blow them into the street (i.e. the neighbors we don’t like), Clifford blows them into the tree line trench between our yard and Lonny’s (the neighbor we do like).  It creates the most massive pile of leaves I’ve ever seen.

My brother and his boys were up from Florida a few Thanksgivings back and were staying at my house for a couple of days.  There are things in Atlanta that aren’t in Florida, apparently, which can make the outdoors inviting and fun.

The boys had been allowed to go outside and play in the yard while we adults did adult things (i.e. drinking, eating, etc.). They sword fought with sticks (maiming each other and destroying our holly shrubs). They ran around playing tag (which became a game of beat and be beaten) among other games eight and ten year old boys play when given a large yard to do with as they would.

I remember watching them fondly from the window and smiling at their youthful exuberance (read: kids on crack). I remembered what it was like to be so full of energy while playing out imagined scenarios with my siblings in our yard back in the day.

I watched as they moved from the yard to the trench. I’m sure it was the next best thing to a fort for boys that age, and it was already built. It screamed “come play with me”. They didn’t have leaf piles in Florida so this was a true treat. They were laughing and running through the foliage so blissfully ignorant of the world around them. It was beautiful.  They were tossing leaves in the air like they’d found pure heaven on Earth. They plunged back making angels and dove head first swimming beneath a sea of brown, gold and red …

Me

“No, no, no, no …” I sputtered as I moved from the window to the front door. My brother gave me a questioning look. Clifford looked out the window.

Clifford

I threw open the front door and raced down the steps horrified while shouting, “Stop!!! Get out of the leaves! Don’t play there! Get out now!!!”

Me

The boys glanced up briefly, then ignored me while continuing to play and dive and plunge and laugh…

I ran to the edge of the leaf strewn gully and begged them to get out.

“That’s where the dogs crap.”

Me

They stopped.

The Boys

Then they understood.

The Boys

And just like the boys a few years back, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I found my old elementary annuals earlier this summer.

New Paris Elementary School. Now some Bible college, I believe.

They were mixed in with some stuff leftover from my parents’ move.  Primary school memories are one thing, but revisiting them through actual imagery is pretty hysterical.

Little Libby in Kindergarten at the start of my public school education. Probably the most innocent I’ve ever looked in my life.

Now I have to preface all of this with the fact that I do understand that elementary is a battleground for a lot of individuals. Not like high school where maybe you weren’t popular or didn’t hang with the crowd you would’ve liked, but you could still maybe find a friend. Flying solo or being the odd duck wasn’t as humiliating as it was in those early formative years on the playground where nothing but fitting in was what was needed to build a healthy self-esteem. There’s no sense of self at that age. There’s no attitude of screw it, I don’t need these people.

And, kids are cruel. I think about the stuff we said and did and it was just plain mean. And I had a fairly good group in my grade. I don’t mean just cruel to each other, either, but cruel to the teachers and staff, too. I remember our art teacher. She was really one of the nicest ladies in a lot of ways. Was she beginning to go bald? Yes. And when you’re 7, 8, 9 and 10 years old (and sadly beyond), you don’t think about how mean it is to make fun of a grown woman who is losing her hair. You don’t understand hormones and menopause and genetics. You see a round older woman with bald patches in her dye job. How is that not funny when you’re that age? I think one of the things I heard was someone put glue in her hair. Rumor or real, I don’t know, but who does that? Kids. Kids do that. And their parents have no clue. We were really no different then to kids today in a lot of ways. It’s the same approach, just a different landing because of the era in which we live. We were bullies. We got bullied. The accessibility may not have been the same, but the intent was identical. Insecurities and influences abounded affecting our behavior as we grew and learned. Just like today.

But for all of that, I have mostly fond memories of elementary school. I didn’t always like my teachers. I didn’t always do what I was told, but I had a lot of fun doing whatever it was I did. One of the cool things about finding the yearbooks was looking back at the people who taught me, helped mold me, and nudged me in some way towards the person I am today.

Mrs. Hopkins! My Kindergarten teacher. Loved this lady. Look at us baby faces saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Do schools still do that today?

Old Mrs. Meyers. The most feared elementary school teacher around. She gave me my first and second detentions ever received … out of two. 

Mrs. Berger! My 2nd grade teacher. She was a total joy and what every elementary school teacher should be. Around The World was my favorite game in her class. Probably the only time I enjoyed math.

Mrs. Sherk was my 3rd grade teacher. I stayed in more recesses writing apologies for stupid things I said or did than I care to admit because of this lady. Her husband was a pilot, though, so that was pretty cool.

Mr. Hornberger … he was the perfect fodder for rotten children’s ignorant sensibilities. From his crazy haircuts, to his feminine mannerisms, he was the butt of many many jokes. But he was actually a wonderful teacher. He taught my mom, so he was kind of an institution.

Mrs. McFarland was my 6th grade teacher. Never met a teacher that played favorites like this one. I remember she tried to convince us one day we were getting a new student with AIDS just to guage our reactions and teach us about prejudices and ignorance. Like what color do we think the student is (to her all white class) and would we share the water fountain with them or if they were cut and bleeding all over the playground would we help them or just let them bleed? In hindsight, her mastertful trickery playing into children’s fears was probably borderline inapporpriate…

One of the funniest things was looking at the labels and practices used back in the day. Most of which you can’t say today without a lawsuit directed your way. For example, my folks used to tell me my kindergarten teacher  said my class had a lot of Chiefs but no Indians. You can’t say things like that anymore.

So here’s a little throw-back to the way things were…

Our principal and also my 5th grade teacher. He chose my year to go back to the classroom before retirement.

Of all the candids they could have used …

And then we have poor Cindy Packer – professional door holder. They couldn’t at least invent some sort of title for her?

Case in point:

I was at my folks’ house helping my mother with the grandkids. I was about to leave and she asks if I can take the dog out before I go. Sure thing. I grab the leash and as I am attaching it to my mom’s tiny dog, Duchess, we hear, “I need to potty, too.” My niece, who is in the middle of potty training, quietly declared it was her time to go.

I looked at my mom, to the dog, to the kid, and back to my mom. “Which one is more important?”

“That one probably,” my mom said as she nodded toward my niece.

I dropped the leash, grabbed the little girl, and headed to the bathroom. She had this big princessy poofy dress on.

Princessy poofy dress. You know the kind.

As I struggled to lift it up, I noticed she didn’t need to go potty. She went potty already – like explosively so. I didn’t think an adult could have that much in them.

The horror … it was bad. It was really really bad.

Of course as I tried to remove the dirty diaper while fighting the princess dress; I just made a bigger mess of things — literally. Poo was all over her backside and all over the dress. So I had to take it off and let me tell you, that was no cake walk either. The damn dress had buttons! Buttons!? Who fastens kids’ clothes with buttons? Zippers – I get, snaps – no problem, but freaking buttons? And they were these totally miniscule buttons that I could barely grasp while trying to maneuver through their ridiculously tiny holes. Seriously?

Finally, I freed my niece from the confines of the loaded diaper and dirty dress, wiped her from head to toe with twenty baby wipes, then lifted her up to put her onto the stool. That’s when I realized her petite little bum was tinier than the toilet seat – as in she could easily fall right through the hole.

I can do math and this was not adding up.

So as I am holding her above the seat, moving her forward and back seeing where exactly a toddler was supposed to sit on an adult toilet seat, I yelled to my mom, “Where am I supposed to put her? She’s too small! She’ll fall right in!”

Apparently those were not the choice words to use in front of a child in training as my niece began squirming and crying, “No fall in! I don’t want to fall in! Don’t fall in!” Hmmm … that was sort of an issue. Her wriggling was not helping. I promised her she wouldn’t fall in. I told her that her baby brother could fall in, but not her because she was a big girl. The “big girl” thing always seems to work. She finally calmed enough to sit by herself at the front of the stool.

Next, she just looked at me and said she couldn’t go. I told her she just needed to shake it out. “Shake shake shake. Shake shake shake. Shake that booty,” I sang as I shimmied for her. So she began to shimmy, too, on the toilet while repeating, “shake, shake, shake”. This of course began moving her little heinie further back on the seat, wherein she could possibly fall in, so I had to step in and stop her.

I finally deemed the ordeal done. I took her off the toilet and declared she’d done a great job. Of course I totally forgot to wipe her down and have her wash her hands, which my mother informed me is sort of a thing that’s necessary every time. Took me a while to convince her to put new clothes on as well because she longed to wear her poopy princess dress.

I realized I am much more the “give them a fish” than “teach them to fish sort.” Or was this where I led a horse to water but I couldn’t make her drink? Whatever the analogy, it was a complete fail.