I had a conversation recently with a gal that went to school with my brother. She was 7-8 years behind me, but we were still able to share a few memories about our time at Hopkins Elementary School. I’m somewhat amazed at the odd things I still remember. Granted, I have my share of painful grade school memories, but I also seem to have an archive of slightly amusing events that have stuck with me. These are in no particular order of importance or timeline.
I asked Amy Gaking to marry during recess in second grade. Her response haunted me for years – “No, because I don’t want my tummy cut.” Her mother had apparently had a C-section and she associated this with marriage.
John Filidoro used to wander about singing “We all live in a pink jellybean,” sung to the Beatles Yellow Submarine. Amy Gaking really liked the “Hello Cleveland” commercial jingle for Channel 5. She would sing it constantly, and also wrote a song “Hello Birdie” to the same tune. She made Wendy Ferguson sing it with her in front of the class on day.
In a fit of frustration, Wendy Ferguson once called John Filidoro – Filofat. Sure there were countless awful things we said to each other, but this one just struck me as funny.
Prior to recess one day Mr. Hanlon sat at his desk and would not respond positively to anyone’s request for the coveted playground ball. One by one we went around the room with each kid asking, “Can I have the ball.” The thought was there was obviously some sort of favoritism being enforced. It wasn’t until Kathy Anderson asked nearly 10 minutes later, “May I take out the ball,” that he responded “Yes.”
It was rumored that Mr. Hanlon had a wooden leg. Evidence of this fact has never been presented to me personally.
I always heard “You” class as “U” class – which confused me. You class was our introduction to puberty. Brian Bird painted a much clearer picture for me to understand when he asked, “When do we get to see the naked lady movie.”
Ms. Logan was a huge Charlie Brown Christmas fan. She wanted to show it to us in class one day. She set the school VCR (this was one of those early HUGE top loading tape deck models) to record it the night it was broadcast. The next day, she admitted to us that there was some sort of recording error. What she ended up with was Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, at the time, was the hottest thing running on MTV. She decided to let us watch it, which launched her well into the coolest teacher ever status.
Jenny Krysiak wore pointed steel tipped boots and would threaten to kick us boys in the crotch if we bothered her. I’m not sure if she ever tagged anyone, but I’m going to say Chris Babbitt was possibly closest to being on the receiving end.
Bill Mendelsohn would eat his lunch, and then proceed to eat the brown paper bag.
One side of the playground the cooler boys played football. On the other side the brainier kids played Dungeons and Dragons. I played neither, so I’m not even sure what I did on the playground.
A magician visited one afternoon to give a performance for the entire school. He asked for a volunteer and we all raised our hands in riotous fashion. He brought Doug Truesdail, a very soft-spoken somewhat shy young man, to the stage for his trick. He explained that Doug would essentially be placed in a guillotine. His trick was that he would take one of those huge magician blades and shove it down through this apparatus that had Doug’s head sticking out. It is at this point that a lesser grade school boy –i.e. me - would have turned into a sobbing mess and literally run from the stage. We all sat frozen in silent fear that we may actually witness Doug’s head come rolling down off the stage. Doug did not cry or protest. His face got really red, but he did what the magician asked him to do. Obviously the blade did not cut Doug’s head off, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. To this day, I consider this single act to be one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.
It was decided that Hopkins Elementary needed a mascot, despite the fact of having no organized team sports. We were presented with a series of names and designs to vote on as a school. Now I don’t remember all of them, but one of the selections was... I kid you not... the Hopkins Hooters. It was represented with an image of an Owl… not unlike the logo for Hooters restaurant. Had us dumb kids known better, we may not have selected the Hornets.
Mr. Overbaugh would literally sit there and have us do nothing for long periods of time. In 4th grade, the classes were separated as the smart kids and the dumb kids… and he got the dumb kids… including myself. This was most likely because he was a terrible teacher. Years later he married my third grade teacher Ms. O’Malley.
The only time I was sent to the principal’s office was when I called Jeff Vosen an asshole (what can I say, it was true). I was rumored that kids still were paddled by the “Board of Education,” so naturally I feared the worst. I sobbed through the whole visit, but I was never really in danger of said punishment.
We were taught square dancing specifically for six grade camp, which was very much forced interaction between us boys and girls. I also remember not showering the whole week out of fear of knuckleheads finding some sort of issue with my naked body that would scar me for life. The boys from the band that played trumpet/coronet got to go over to the girl’s camp to play Taps every night. We naturally thought that them girls would be running amok in their underthings. They weren’t.
I always had the crappier teacher, or ay least I felt that way. For example - the other 3rd grade class taught by Ms. Bruno (her first name was Star!), put did their own version of the Nutcracker. Brian Bosley played the title character. We were told not to snicker when the boys had to dance. I remember felling left out of this performance.
We always heralded pizza day – but the little flat flavorless sponge with maybe two pepperoni was just plain gross.
It didn’t matter what kind of event it was – class party, field trip, Cub Scout meeting, etc. - but Matt Love’s Mom was always the volunteer parent. She was at our school so much, she was practically on the payroll. I still wish my Mom had volunteered more.
Scott Morman signed his name with his initials SAM.
We had a high jump contest in gym class. We narrowed the whole class down to just Melanie Skolny and I. I remember it being a moment that I was finally good at something, especially something considered a sport. All the guys were cheering for me to beat the girl. I lost.
We had some sort of class project that dealt with economy. Play money was distributed and we were to team up and run our own businesses. Mike Scott and I did a newspaper – the Hanlonville Weekly. I don’t have any idea what we wrote about but I do remember drawing a pretty good caricature of Mr. Hanlon.
Our school had this big festival, and with it an art contest to design a poster to promote it. Since art was the only thing I was good at, there was no reason I couldn’t win this. I put together a very intricate poster filled with the necessary information and my own characters enjoying their own carnival. I lost to this red headed kid (whose name escapes me) who just drew a big Garfield. This led to a future of runner-up/second place statuses.
At one of our chorus shows, I got to sing the Donald Duck part of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. I remember Brian Arbough being particularly put out by this.
I asked Amy Gaking to marry during recess in second grade. Her response haunted me for years – “No, because I don’t want my tummy cut.” Her mother had apparently had a C-section and she associated this with marriage.
John Filidoro used to wander about singing “We all live in a pink jellybean,” sung to the Beatles Yellow Submarine. Amy Gaking really liked the “Hello Cleveland” commercial jingle for Channel 5. She would sing it constantly, and also wrote a song “Hello Birdie” to the same tune. She made Wendy Ferguson sing it with her in front of the class on day.
In a fit of frustration, Wendy Ferguson once called John Filidoro – Filofat. Sure there were countless awful things we said to each other, but this one just struck me as funny.
Prior to recess one day Mr. Hanlon sat at his desk and would not respond positively to anyone’s request for the coveted playground ball. One by one we went around the room with each kid asking, “Can I have the ball.” The thought was there was obviously some sort of favoritism being enforced. It wasn’t until Kathy Anderson asked nearly 10 minutes later, “May I take out the ball,” that he responded “Yes.”
It was rumored that Mr. Hanlon had a wooden leg. Evidence of this fact has never been presented to me personally.
I always heard “You” class as “U” class – which confused me. You class was our introduction to puberty. Brian Bird painted a much clearer picture for me to understand when he asked, “When do we get to see the naked lady movie.”
Ms. Logan was a huge Charlie Brown Christmas fan. She wanted to show it to us in class one day. She set the school VCR (this was one of those early HUGE top loading tape deck models) to record it the night it was broadcast. The next day, she admitted to us that there was some sort of recording error. What she ended up with was Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, at the time, was the hottest thing running on MTV. She decided to let us watch it, which launched her well into the coolest teacher ever status.
Jenny Krysiak wore pointed steel tipped boots and would threaten to kick us boys in the crotch if we bothered her. I’m not sure if she ever tagged anyone, but I’m going to say Chris Babbitt was possibly closest to being on the receiving end.
Bill Mendelsohn would eat his lunch, and then proceed to eat the brown paper bag.
One side of the playground the cooler boys played football. On the other side the brainier kids played Dungeons and Dragons. I played neither, so I’m not even sure what I did on the playground.
A magician visited one afternoon to give a performance for the entire school. He asked for a volunteer and we all raised our hands in riotous fashion. He brought Doug Truesdail, a very soft-spoken somewhat shy young man, to the stage for his trick. He explained that Doug would essentially be placed in a guillotine. His trick was that he would take one of those huge magician blades and shove it down through this apparatus that had Doug’s head sticking out. It is at this point that a lesser grade school boy –i.e. me - would have turned into a sobbing mess and literally run from the stage. We all sat frozen in silent fear that we may actually witness Doug’s head come rolling down off the stage. Doug did not cry or protest. His face got really red, but he did what the magician asked him to do. Obviously the blade did not cut Doug’s head off, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. To this day, I consider this single act to be one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.
It was decided that Hopkins Elementary needed a mascot, despite the fact of having no organized team sports. We were presented with a series of names and designs to vote on as a school. Now I don’t remember all of them, but one of the selections was... I kid you not... the Hopkins Hooters. It was represented with an image of an Owl… not unlike the logo for Hooters restaurant. Had us dumb kids known better, we may not have selected the Hornets.
Mr. Overbaugh would literally sit there and have us do nothing for long periods of time. In 4th grade, the classes were separated as the smart kids and the dumb kids… and he got the dumb kids… including myself. This was most likely because he was a terrible teacher. Years later he married my third grade teacher Ms. O’Malley.
The only time I was sent to the principal’s office was when I called Jeff Vosen an asshole (what can I say, it was true). I was rumored that kids still were paddled by the “Board of Education,” so naturally I feared the worst. I sobbed through the whole visit, but I was never really in danger of said punishment.
We were taught square dancing specifically for six grade camp, which was very much forced interaction between us boys and girls. I also remember not showering the whole week out of fear of knuckleheads finding some sort of issue with my naked body that would scar me for life. The boys from the band that played trumpet/coronet got to go over to the girl’s camp to play Taps every night. We naturally thought that them girls would be running amok in their underthings. They weren’t.
I always had the crappier teacher, or ay least I felt that way. For example - the other 3rd grade class taught by Ms. Bruno (her first name was Star!), put did their own version of the Nutcracker. Brian Bosley played the title character. We were told not to snicker when the boys had to dance. I remember felling left out of this performance.
We always heralded pizza day – but the little flat flavorless sponge with maybe two pepperoni was just plain gross.
It didn’t matter what kind of event it was – class party, field trip, Cub Scout meeting, etc. - but Matt Love’s Mom was always the volunteer parent. She was at our school so much, she was practically on the payroll. I still wish my Mom had volunteered more.
Scott Morman signed his name with his initials SAM.
We had a high jump contest in gym class. We narrowed the whole class down to just Melanie Skolny and I. I remember it being a moment that I was finally good at something, especially something considered a sport. All the guys were cheering for me to beat the girl. I lost.
We had some sort of class project that dealt with economy. Play money was distributed and we were to team up and run our own businesses. Mike Scott and I did a newspaper – the Hanlonville Weekly. I don’t have any idea what we wrote about but I do remember drawing a pretty good caricature of Mr. Hanlon.
Our school had this big festival, and with it an art contest to design a poster to promote it. Since art was the only thing I was good at, there was no reason I couldn’t win this. I put together a very intricate poster filled with the necessary information and my own characters enjoying their own carnival. I lost to this red headed kid (whose name escapes me) who just drew a big Garfield. This led to a future of runner-up/second place statuses.
At one of our chorus shows, I got to sing the Donald Duck part of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. I remember Brian Arbough being particularly put out by this.
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