Flashback Friday

Can you believe it is Friday already? I'm anxious for Monday as I'm looking forward to having the kiddos come back to school. It's always so much fun to see how tall each student has gotten and how much they've grown up over the summer.


In honor of back to school, I searched high and low for the the goofiest picture of myself that I can remember from my elementary school years. But do you think I could find it? Of course not. I had it on display at my 40th birthday bash and I can't find any of those pictures. I know I have them ..... but it's anybody's guess where they might be. But trust me, I was a goofy looking kid and you would have had a good chuckle when you saw it. Instead, you get the picture that ran in the Alliance Times-Herald on March 11, 1975 and I'll just have to describe the other one.

The previous week-end I had just won third place in the city spelling bee. Mrs. Christensen, whom I thought was wonderful, took my picture and made up an entire bulletin board in the hallway just for me. Obviously I hadn't bothered to brush my hair when I went to school, but that didn't matter to her. She took two Polaroids, gave me one and put the other one up for everyone to see. I was a mighty proud kid.

I'll have you know that I beat Brenda Applegate (names have not been changed in order to protect the innocent) in order to compete. That alone was worth everything because she was sure she was going to represent Grandview, but then to have Mrs. Christensen make such a big deal out of it was just icing on the cake.

That was over thirty years ago and I still know what word knocked me out: sombrero. I spelled it s-o-m-b-r-e-b-r-o. I got to go on to districts in Arthur. Grandma Lou and Mom took me down. I was so nervous. Either Grandma or Mom gave me something to "calm" me down, but all it did was make me really sick ... puking sick. We took a written test and the top spellers went on .... can you believe I missed beret? What is it with hats? Needless to say, I didn't go on to state but I had a heck of a good time. I even got new Snoopy socks to wear for the occasion. I also got a new skirt, but let me tell you, I wasn't the least bit excited about that. It was pretty ugly, but my socks weren't. They were nifty. Just like my hair style.

1975 must have been the year of the nifty socks. Check out those skinny legs and wild socks!

This was taken in South Dakota when Grandma Lou and Great-Aunt Ann took Cousin Lori and myself on a vacation. At one point we ended up in Wyoming because Grandma and Aunt Ann were talking and missed a turn. They took us to Ardmore where they grew up and bored us to death, so we retaliated with Flintstone Park.




But let's end on a good picture: my first day of kindergarten and of course I had to wear a dress with pretty plain socks. It seems that I used up my quota of dress wearing by the time I was 10. Sad, really. I seemed to have used up my cute quotient by the age of 10 as well. Must have something to do with the socks. Hmmmm ........