# Sensory-Imprinted Memories of School...



## Fyrefox (Feb 25, 2021)

Memories can be imprinted powerfully by scent and sound as well as by sight. What are some persistent memories that you have of things or events from your earlier school days?

For me, I remember these vintage pencil sharpeners, one of which was at the front of every elementary/primary classroom.  Used by every student, these sturdy devices emanated a heady smell of wood shavings and pencil lead, and the unmistakable sound of their grinding in operation could be heard from anywhere in the room...


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## fuzzybuddy (Feb 25, 2021)

Yeah, now that you mention it, I can recall exactly where the pencil sharpener was in every one of my class rooms.


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## Pinky (Feb 25, 2021)

The sound of chalk on the blackboard, and chalk dust from clapping chalk erasers together.
Fountain-pen ink.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

LOVE this thread!!!













The Elmer's Glue, we used to rub a little on our hands, let it dry, then peel it off like a layer of skin, and it looked like a layer of skin being peeled off, too!


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

These pencils were the standard when I attended school.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

And how about this one?

Don't even remember popping the lid open on mine!


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

During my junior secondary years, school was many miles away, and for kids like myself who walked to and from school most days, a sports bag was a must for carrying ones brown paper bagged lunch, books, whatever, and these are the bags that EVERYONE had.


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## asp3 (Feb 25, 2021)

I have several vivid memories from school.  One was from back in the 2nd or 3rd grade playing hopscotch with other kids.  What I recall from that is the key holders we coveted for using as our markers.  They were the ones that are chains of little balls one could put the ends into a clasp so that they stayed together as a closed chain that kept the keys on.  They were great for hopscotch because one could throw it just in front of a square and it would roll into the square.

The second sense memory I have is the sight and feel of a 7th grade art project that turned me off to art for many years.  We had a ceramics lesson and I made a chick with from an artistic vision of two almost spheres and a cone.  The bottom almost sphere would be the the body of the chick and would have a flat bottom so it stood on a flat surface.  The second sphere would be near the top of the bottom sphere but to one side of center representing the head and the small cone would be the beak.

My "spheres" were far from perfect and had flat spots and indentations because I hadn't been able to figure out how to make smooth spheres.  The cone was OK.  The color of glaze I chose was perfect.  When it came out of the kiln after being fired I was so disappointed and disgusted with the lumpy, bumpy spheres that I just gave up on art for the most part (except for photography and cinemaphotography.)

Years later when I was separated from my first wife I took a class called Art Without Fear which re-opened me to non photographic art and I started to enjoy painting and drawing again.  By that time I also had learned that if someone wants to be good at something one needs to keep at it and learn from one's mistakes and disappointments in order to achieve one's vision.


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## jujube (Feb 25, 2021)

The ever-present odor of vomit.  Somebody ralphed about every day or so and the janitor will sprinkle the spot with some kind of ground-up stuff before cleaning it up.

Wax.  We had three stories of wooden floor and wooden stairs and they were constantly being waxed.

Marches played on the piano that was on the ground floor. When we marched outside or down to the basement lunchroom, the music teacher always played marches to keep us going.

The "emergency bell".  There was a gong-style bell on the ground floor with a cable going up to the 2nd floor and down to the basement so it could be rung from any floor.  It was loud and ominous and made my stomach feel funny.  I will remember the CLANG-CLANG-CLANG of that bell to my dying day.  

The white paste that was dispensed from a gallon-sized glass jar, scooped out with a ruler and given to you on a little scrap of paper towel.  It had a faint kind of sour-milk smell and there was always someone in the class who liked to eat it.

The "burning dust" smell when the steam radiators were turned on each fall.

The morning announcements over the speakers that were in each room.  A student was chosen each day to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and we chanted along.  Then the Principal said the Lord's Prayer while we recited along.

The absolute terror I felt when I saw our Principal.  She was scary as hell.  I got put out in the hall (remember that?) one day in the third grade for some minor misdeed and she came by.  She "invited" me down to the office for "a talk" and I cried so hard I made myself sick. My mother had to come get me.  

Grim food in the basement lunch room.  Things that kids wouldn't eat, like fried okra and stewed tomatoes.  Why things like that?  They made us eat everything and, of course, somebody threw up on a regular basis.   Every Friday, we had salmon patties and creamed corn.  To this day, I won't eat salmon patties and creamed corn.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

This one never fails to bring on a little melancholy for me.

I remember my baby brother packing his to and from kindergarten each day, mom would pack milk and cookies in it for him, and he always looked so happy and proud carrying it.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

I don't recall a kid in school who's sandwiches weren't wrapped in wax paper, mine included, and to this day I cannot look at or think about mock chicken, because I'm certain mom had shares in the mock chicken sandwich meat plant!

You remember the stuff, it looked similar to baloney but had a bright orange edge on it?


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

If you were well-to-do, small lunch-sized cartons of milk were available (for purchase) in the school cafeteria to go along with your mock chicken sandwich lunch.


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## Pappy (Feb 25, 2021)

Jujube...I was one of the kids that use to eat that white glue out of a gallon jar. Yummy..  
Then one time the teacher asked the class, who thinks they are stupid, stand up.
Nobody moved, so I finally stood up. 
So Pappy, you think your stupid? I said no, but I couldn’t leave you standing there all alone teacher..


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## Ruth n Jersey (Feb 25, 2021)

I remember the white school paste. The boys would show off and eat the stuff. 
I had a metal lunch box and always had trouble getting the top off the thermos bottle.
Wintertime I remember the smell of the cloak room as it was called. All damp and humid from our wet jackets.
I had a horrible time getting my leggings and rubbers on. The ones that went over the shoes. Most times I'd shove them in my bookbag and take them out just before I got home and put them on the steps by the back door where we kept our boots praying that my mom wouldn't notice.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Related to gym class or PE class, I remember the rope climb (elementary school years). I never climbed high.

Time on the trampoline was the best, and just as the picture shows, spotters were situated around the trampoline for safety.  

And then there was this contraption.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Remember this?

Leaping over it?

And how about the pegboard climb, where you hung suspended by your arms from steel pegs that were inserted into the holes in the pegboard, and holding on by the strength of one arm, you pulled a peg out and repositioned it in the board, moving yourself around the board?


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

I was always selected to go to the office and perform copy work, paper cutting, etc.

Remember this dangerous thingamajig?

I can't help but think a few kids became injured statistics using one of these!


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

When we were thirsty, we drank water, and we drank it from a drinking fountain like this!


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## Lewkat (Feb 25, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> Related to gym class or PE class, I remember the rope climb (elementary school years). I never climbed high.
> 
> Time on the trampoline was the best, and just as the picture shows, spotters were situated around the trampoline for safety.
> 
> And then there was this contraption.


Oh, how I love climbing those ropes up to the ceiling.


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## Lewkat (Feb 25, 2021)

Soap erasers.  How I loved chewing on them.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Exciting times they were, lights were turned off, and we'd watch a film about something or another, or close our eyes for a few.

Greatest school year memories of all!

Seeing a film projector setup in class meant an easy day!

Those were the days...


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## Murrmurr (Feb 25, 2021)

Speaking of soap (@Lewkat), I will never forget the taste of Lux. Or the feel of it in my dirty little mouth.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Does everyone remember cloak rooms?

I remember cloak rooms (just like this) in elementary school, and lockers in junior and senior high.

If you were lucky, your mom sewed and you had a nifty homemade cloth drawstring bag (like me) to put your shoes in and hang them from a hook in the cloak room!


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## Sassycakes (Feb 25, 2021)

Going to a Catholic school from Kindergarten through High school this memory always sticks out in my mind whether  I was on the receiving end or a friend was.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

For all those who loved school as much as I did (NOT), need I say more? LOL!


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Remember making paper decorations and things leading up to those special times of the year, times such as Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving?

I specifically remember doing tissue paper decorations just like this, where you'd use the eraser end of a pencil to form the little tissue paper cup, before gluing the tiny cup to a large craft paper sheet to make your picture.

Also making paper Chinese lanterns.


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## JonDouglas (Feb 25, 2021)

Still in my desk at home is this beauty, the stuff of a semi-nerd.  I got it out  just now to take an iPhone pic of it.






It began in 6th grade when Mrs. Forbes was teaching arithmetic - squares and square roots.  I remember her telling us 2 times 2 was 4 and that the square root of 4 was 2.  I asked her what the square root of 5 was and she had no answer.  What she did next was set me on a lifetime path.  She called the superintendent of schools, who told her to send me up to his office in the courthouse.  I left class and rode my bicycle up town where he explained a method for calculating the square root of any number.  That led to an introduction to logarithms, which are the inverse of exponents, which led to the slide rule that I got shortly thereafter.  It was a cool tool with a ton of associated memories, including my being laughed at until I wasn't.


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## Oris Borloff (Feb 25, 2021)

I have a couple that spring to mind.  On the first day of kindergarten all the kids were sitting on the floor  facing the teacher.  I don't recall the activity at the time, singing a song, or being read a story, but a kid off to my left started to ball and saying he didn't want to do that, he wanted to learn to read and write.  He broke down into nearly a full tantrum and the teacher literally was dragging him along the floor out the door.  My perception of the event wasn't that she was being mean to him, just removing him as he couldn't compose himself enough to walk out on his own.

When I was in first grade and we were learning to print we were working on the letter P.  As the teacher came by she said I was doing it wrong and to try again.  So I did next time she came around same thing.  I still had no idea what she was talking about, because I was forming a P properly, it looked just like the one on top of the bulletin board.  Then she stood there while I did it again, again I had no idea what I was doing wrong and she got furious and yanked my paper away.   Years later I finally figured out what the problem was.  We were told to use lines and circles to for the letters.  One line for the staff part, and then form the circle at the top to make the letter.  I was doing it by drawing the line from top to bottom, then retracing it back up to form the loop, thus retracing the first line -- just like I learned to do later when learning to write cursive.

I have a lot of even earlier ones before I was in proper school from my experiences in day care.


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## jujube (Feb 25, 2021)

We had drinking fountains that looked somewhat like this, called "bubblers".  The water didn't bubble up so high, so you had to put your mouth closer to the outlet.  You had to watch out for the school bullies, who would come by and slap the back of your head, knocking your front teeth into the porcelain bubbler.  Many a tooth was chipped or lost that way.  I must have had a guardian bubbler angel, because somehow I avoided this.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

The absolute best memory for me related to my school years, was the last day of school marking the start of summer holidays!

Couldn't get my butt out of school and home fast enough!


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## debodun (Feb 25, 2021)

Those usually sour half-pint cartons of milk and the "Learn to Read" books with Dick, Jane and Sally.


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## Pappy (Feb 25, 2021)

Remember driving behind a school bus?


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Lewkat said:


> Oh, how I love climbing those ropes up to the ceiling.


I was too chicken, Lew! LOL!


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

As for daily school needs, these take me back as well.

Remember sharpening your pencil and poking the eraser with it?


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Does anyone else remember these nifty pencil and school supply cases from back in the day?


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Sassycakes said:


> Going to a Catholic school from Kindergarten through High school this memory always sticks out in my mind whether  I was on the receiving end or a friend was.
> View attachment 151928


I was always against school punishment.

I can't remember when it faded in my day... I'm thinking sometime in and around the mid 70's.

From everything I have read and been told by others who lived it, it was abused in a really big way.


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## Sassycakes (Feb 25, 2021)

Another thing I remember was when we had fire drills. We always ran out of the school and then my line had to stand in front of a laundromat, I can still smell the odor coming out of it. And of course, seeking protection from an atomic bomb by getting under your desk.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Anyone else lucky enough to get a wedge of homemade pie slipped into their brown-bagged lunch back in the day?

I was, and this is what my mom packed it in!


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Sassycakes said:


> Another thing I remember was when we had fire drills. We always ran out of the school and then my line had to stand in front of a laundromat, I can still smell the odor coming out of it. And of course, seeking protection from an atomic bomb by getting under your desk.


I remember emergency and fire drills, too. We'd assemble in the front of the school yard.


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## Sassycakes (Feb 25, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> I was always against school punishment.
> 
> I can't remember when it faded in my day... I'm thinking sometime in and around the mid 70's.
> 
> From everything I have read and been told by others who lived it, it was abused in a really big way.


Luckily I never was hit by the ruler, but I was pulled out of my chair by mistake. All the Nun said was oops I meant to pull out Ms. Lyons. Of course, she didn't even help me get up off the floor.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Sassycakes said:


> Luckily I never was hit by the ruler, but I was pulled out of my chair by mistake. All the Nun said was oops I meant to pull out Ms. Lyons. Of course, she didn't even help me get up off the floor.


I never got the strap or paddle either, but do remember how free a few teachers were in grabbing kids by the ears or by the arms.

Bet they wouldn't of dreamed of doing such had the kids parents been in attendance.


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## IrisSenior (Feb 25, 2021)

There is a memory of me being picked by the teacher to place a paper napkin at each kids desk. I think it was for a treat (cookie) due to one of our statutory holidays. I was about 7 yrs old so Grade 2. The best was singing in the choir for our Christmas pageant - Grade 6 - 12 yrs old. I am still amazed today that I was selected as I had a hearing problem back then and am also tone deaf.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 25, 2021)

Anyone else love playing dodge-ball in school?

Remember the sound the balls made when they hit the wall behind you?

Remember the good slap they gave you when they connected?


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## win231 (Feb 25, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> LOVE this thread!!!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Isn't that a Slide Rule?  Herman's Hermits sang about that.
♫♫  Don't know much about geography
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for
But I know that one and one is two
And if this one could be with you
What a wonderful world this would be  ♫♫


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## Jeweltea (Feb 26, 2021)

I remember the smell of cinnamon rolls coming from the basement cafeteria mingling with the odors of whatever disgusting food they were cooking that day. To this day, I can't stand the smell of cinnamon rolls. I remember the first time I ate in the cafeteria in first grade. They had some horrible potato thing that I absolutely could not stand. I asked if I had to eat it and was told yes. I forced it down but when I went to throw out the trash, there was a big barrel to put whatever you didn't eat in. It was full of food, so I was lied to by the cafeteria worker. Also still can't drink milk because it reminds me of those nasty warm little cartons.


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 26, 2021)

Jeweltea said:


> I remember the smell of cinnamon rolls coming from the basement cafeteria mingling with the odors of whatever disgusting food they were cooking that day. To this day, I can't stand the smell of cinnamon rolls. I remember the first time I ate in the cafeteria in first grade. They had some horrible potato thing that I absolutely could not stand. I asked if I had to eat it and was told yes. I forced it down but when I went to throw out the trash, there was a big barrel to put whatever you didn't eat in. It was full of food, so I was lied to by the cafeteria worker. Also still can't drink milk because it reminds me of those nasty warm little cartons.


Jewel, I do remember the little milk cartons being semi-cool at times... was always nice when it was ice cold.

Two smells that still take me back to my school years, is the the smell of pizza and hot dogs wafting from the school cafeterias. Always smelled so yummy!


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## peramangkelder (Feb 26, 2021)

Our primary school milk originally came in bottles like in this photo


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## oldman (Feb 27, 2021)

This is kind of silly now that I am an oldman, but when I was in seventh grade, I received a note from a girl telling me that she liked me and had a crush on me. Well, I kind of dismissed it and didn't give it much thought. Seventh grade went by, eighth grade came and went, but then in ninth grade, I took notice to her and thought she was the most beautiful girl in the school and wondered to myself just what I had been thinking the past two years.

Late in tenth grade, I got my driver's license and a few weeks later asked her out for a date, but she seemed kind of disinterested and said that she had to ask her parents. The next day she agreed to the date. That night was the first time in my life that I fell in love. I couldn't stop thinking about her. My dad, of course, said it was puppy love. 

After a few more dates, we were "going steady." Her parents never approved of me because I was considered a "bad boy" at that time. I actually ended up being sent to military school by my dad, who was an Army First Sgt. When I came home for my senior year, she had another boyfriend, but we would sneak out and be together without telling anyone. After high school, I enlisted in the Marines and went to Vietnam, then came home and went to college. We had lost track of one another.

But, even today, almost sixty years later, I can still envision her, smell her and think about all the teased hair she wore. I feel guilty sometimes thinking about her and that we should have been together, but then I also think, this is why we have memories, good memories.


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## oldman (Feb 27, 2021)

I also wanted to add that I have been told by our airline psychologists that I have a photographic memory, which for a pilot is a great asset. I kind of think there is something to that because my wife first noticed it when we would travel. She asked me one time when we visited 
San Francisco if I knew that I had a photographic memory. I told her no and wasn't sure why she would say that. 

She then told me that she had noticed that I can drive somewhere that I had never been before (using a map or GPS) and a few years later do it again, but without using a map or a GPS. That's when I started noticing it also. It's just not doing directions, but a lot of things that I have only seen once, I am able to describe it almost to a "T".


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## Fyrefox (Feb 27, 2021)

A number of my sensory-imprinted memories from childhood center about holiday observances.  For example, remember those cheap Ben Cooper or Collegeville Halloween costumes sold commercially?  That's what you usually wore if your parents  weren't crafty enough to make a costume for you, or didn't want to bother with one.  The masks were thin brittle plastic, and if you wore them over glasses, steamed them up, much like COVID masks can do today.  So I can remember roaming around my neighborhood on Halloween in the dark with diminished vision, ringing doorbells and asking for candy.  It felt vaguely criminal but seductively delicious at the same time.  My favorite commercially-made costume was a leopard.  I was on the path to the furry fandom even then... 

And isn't this dated Halloween costume of I think Ringo Starr vaguely creepy, especially the teeth?  No wonder kids develop "issues..."   *shudders*


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## Aunt Marg (Feb 27, 2021)

Anyone else remember twisting the stem of an apple to remove it while reciting the alphabet?

When the stem broke free, the letter you last spoke was the initial of your true love. 

Silly things we did in our school years, particularly our elementary school years.


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## Furryanimal (Mar 1, 2021)

I remember those pencil sharpeners...but i can’t forget the smell of those freshly printed worksheets from the Banda machine.And i printed a few off myself when i started teaching.


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## Fyrefox (Mar 2, 2021)

Ah yes...stateside, they were called mimeographed sheets.  They'd be passed out, and immediately every student would smell theirs, inhaling deeply!  The copies would grow fainter and be less fragrant towards the end of the copy run.  Markers smelled pretty good, too...


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## Sassycakes (Mar 11, 2021)

I remember our yearly school play and one year a boy in my grade asked me if I would be his partner. We danced to the song "Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde and the band played on." I really enjoyed it.


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## fuzzybuddy (Mar 15, 2021)

I went to a Catholic school with nuns. Talk about "sensory imprinted". The jingling of their huge rosaries still makes me cringe.


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## wcwbf (Mar 16, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> During my junior secondary years, school was many miles away, and for kids like myself who walked to and from school most days, a sports bag was a must for carrying ones brown paper bagged lunch, books, whatever, and these are the bags that EVERYONE had.


a tad OT, but was in a conversation about something (can't remember when/where) and someone pronounced that... AH dee dahs... like la di da!


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## wcwbf (Mar 16, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> Does everyone remember cloak rooms?
> 
> I remember cloak rooms (just like this) in elementary school, and lockers in junior and senior high.
> 
> If you were lucky, your mom sewed and you had a nifty homemade cloth drawstring bag (like me) to put your shoes in and hang them from a hook in the cloak room!


i remember cloakrooms where all the rooms swung open from one knob.  invariably seomeon got "accidentally" shut inside.


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## SetWave (Mar 16, 2021)

JonDouglas said:


> Still in my desk at home is this beauty, the stuff of a semi-nerd.  I got it out  just now to take an iPhone pic of it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I went back to school (one of many times . . . ) to study electronics and even though calculators were all the rage (mid seventies) I always brought along a trusty slide rule as a back-up.  I'll always remember the younger students asking me what it was.


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## SetWave (Mar 16, 2021)




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## Aunt Marg (Mar 16, 2021)

wcwbf said:


> i remember cloakrooms where all the rooms swung open from one knob.  invariably seomeon got "accidentally" shut inside.


I don't remember that, but wow, you've got a great memory!


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## Aunt Marg (Mar 16, 2021)

wcwbf said:


> a tad OT, but was in a conversation about something (can't remember when/where) and someone pronounced that... AH dee dahs... like la di da!


I remember the whole, Ah-Dee-Dhas, thing (mid to late 70's).

Adidas, sure was big back in the day. If it wasn't sports bags, it was running shoes, shorts and shirts. Adidas, was everywhere.


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## wcwbf (Mar 16, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> Exciting times they were, lights were turned off, and we'd watch a film about something or another, or close our eyes for a few.
> 
> Greatest school year memories of all!
> 
> ...


AV earned a few college credits for teachers-to-be.  don't forget film-strips!  the teacher would pick someone to man the knob to turn when it was time for the next slide.


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## wcwbf (Mar 16, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> I was always selected to go to the office and perform copy work, paper cutting, etc.
> 
> Remember this dangerous thingamajig?
> 
> I can't help but think a few kids became injured statistics using one of these!


whenever i used this, i always heard THIS!


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## wcwbf (Mar 16, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> Related to gym class or PE class, I remember the rope climb (elementary school years). I never climbed high.
> 
> Time on the trampoline was the best, and just as the picture shows, spotters were situated around the trampoline for safety.
> 
> And then there was this contraption.


if i had a gun to my head, could never get more than 1-2 feet off the ground on that rope.  i think EVERY elementary girl had a serious crush on our gym teacher... Mr. Furlow.  he ended up only being about 10 years older than any of us when we were in 6th grade.


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## wcwbf (Mar 16, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> If you were well-to-do, small lunch-sized cartons of milk were available (for purchase) in the school cafeteria to go along with your mock chicken sandwich lunch.


we had GLASS half pint bottle of milk or orange juice at snack time in kindergarten.


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## Fyrefox (Mar 17, 2021)

I remember individual waxed cartons of milk, dispensed with something like a cookie for "snack" time in kindergarten.  The trouble was, occasionally there would be a floating piece of the wax lining in with the milk that you couldn't discern until it was in your mouth or throat.  Having your gag reflex engaged really helps you to remember just what that experience was like!  Waxed milk cartons became like an early version of Russian roulette to me.  Would I get a good carton of milk...or one with a "surprise?"  Drink up, kiddies...


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## wcwbf (Mar 17, 2021)

https://creativepro.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/story_images/20100409SAWG_fg33a.jpg

this is even a bit too modern for what i'm picturing.  these were for teacher ONLY.  permanent & "smelly".  way before sharpies became a teacher fave.  probably expensive, especially for poor teachers.  as someone who has either been a student or a teacher pretty much my entire life... seeing any kind of marker with its cap left off... a MORTAL SIN!


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## OneEyedDiva (Mar 17, 2021)

Do you remember having to sit at your desk with your hands folded? I do. That's not me but a photo I got from the internet.


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## Pappy (Mar 18, 2021)

I remember Mrs. Wheeler, my grade school music teacher, made us point our finger on the top of our heads while doing 
 the do-rey -me thing. Why, I’ll never know. Seemed stupid at the time and even now too.


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## hollydolly (Mar 18, 2021)

the smell of the chalk from  blackboard duster as it was launched and   hit our heads...






 Water fountain


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## charry (Mar 18, 2021)

Pinky said:


> The sound of chalk on the blackboard, and chalk dust from clapping chalk erasers together.
> Fountain-pen ink.


The sound of blackboard rubbers being thrown at you ...


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## charry (Mar 18, 2021)

Aunt Marg said:


> For all those who loved school as much as I did (NOT), need I say more? LOL!


We were sent under THE CLOCK  when we had detention ...


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## charry (Mar 18, 2021)

Warm Milk at playtime , Yuk.......
I havnt drunk it since .......


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## Gary O' (Mar 18, 2021)

Sensory-Imprinted Memories of School...​


Well crap

Told myself not to post this, as it's in my vivid memories thread

But

Guess there's room on this thread

I have many vivid memories of school.....


*SCHOOL*

*Year One*

We didn’t have kindergarten. Hell, we didn’t even have all eight grades in that one room school 
tucked deep in the Chapman hills. And we didn’t have a bus, or lunchroom, or gym, or indoor plumbing.
What we did have was Mr McDunn.
Looking back, he was the best grade school teacher I’d ever have.
Field trips were field trips, thru the woods behind the school house, down to the creek, buildin’ mud dams, and makin’ wood sail boats, or we’d head upstream to the beaver dam, and when the steelhead were runnin’, before I even knew of a sea run rainbow fish that would grow to enormous proportion, he’d stand straddle legged in the stream and bail out those monsters with his hands. 
Then we’d watch him cut one open, displaying the biggest fish eggs I’d ever seen.
One time, when it was snowin’ like a banshee, we took an old mop wringer and made igloos.
Yeah, we went every day, snow, ice, whatever. 
And yeah, no bus, so kids appeared at school early, and while we were waiting for teacher to arrive (from his attached living quarters) we played with these little plastic red bricks that would snap onto each other….they fascinated me. We made planes, and built forts, and skyscrapers. It was like goin’ to the beach, I could never get enough.

But school, it was work books, my own pencil, my own desk.
Desks were the old wooden ones you see in old movies, the kind that hook up in a row, had the ink well, and groove to put your very own pencil, and you had a place underneath, housed in black wrought iron, to put your work books, and the seat flipped up, and so did the person’s in front of you.
That person was Francis Keller. 
She was a tad messy, as her workbook place was eternally jammed with wadded up papers, and leaky pens, and broken things. 
And Francis herself was a bit unkempt. But she did have a fetching look about her, and she was tough as nails. 
She could beat the crap outta most kids there even though she was only in third grade. 
One rather disenchanting thing I recall about her was her habit of snorting whatever was in her throat and nose and swallowing. First I’d ever heard such a noise. Kinda like a reverse gargle…..and she ate paste.
Thinking about it years later, those unseemly habits may very well have become attributes………

One time during recess, nature called, and I headed to the outhouse. It was a three holer, and it had a trough.
I grabbed the middle hole so I could peek thru the crack in the door for female invaders.
But Francis got the jump on me.
There she was. But she wasn’t there for business. 
Next thing I know she’s flippin’ her dress up and her underwear down. Standin’ there starin’ at me.
Whoa, I immediately had a flash back of me and Connie in grampa’s tool shed, and made the brilliant deduction that Connie was not deformed, as most or all girls were missing some very vital things.
Then I took care of my back side and jumped off my perch to button up and head the hell outta there, but not quick enough to skirt Mr McDunn’s shadow.
So there we all were, Mr McDunn in his aura of teacher/god like omnipotence, 
Francis of who magically had put herself back in the altogether, lookin’ at me like I was satan, 
and me, 
standin’ there with my bib overalls huggin’ my ankles.

I learned a couple things that day.
1) Wimin are way ahead of any mind game you may ever venture to get conned into playing.
2) It’s because they are not distracted by all the apparatus us guys have.

So, yeah, we didn’t have all the facilities of the schools in town, but my first classes in psych and anatomy were right there in the three holer. 

Over all, I learned more about social life that first year, than all the other seven grades put together. 

And now, every time I go fishin’, wading a small stream, and catch the faint scent of roiled mud and creek water wafting thru my nostrils, my mind flashes back to those first golden autumn days of school.



*School, The following years*

The local craftsmen had united and built us a real school.
Closer to town.
Two rooms.
Indoor plumbing, one for boys and one for girls.
Newer desks.
Swings.
…and a huge field.
Mr McDunn took us out to the field to explore. 
Now I’d been runnin’ thru fields all my life, so I was a tad unimpressed….until he had us kneel down and move slowly thru the weeds and thistles, identifying everything that grew or crawled.
It got so I couldn’t wait for the next discoveries.

OK, we were all a bit rowdy, but he had a presence about him that got your attention. It sorta made the teachers that followed pale in comparison….and we took advantage.
Seems every one after him ended up having some sorta nervous breakdown right in the middle of the year.

Not sure what happened to Mr McDunn, but I got drift that our folks were not impressed with his philosophy, cause he was quite direct and they were a bit protective of their little darlings.



*The Year of Taboli


*
Mr Taboli arrived my third year, straight from the Philippines….or as he said, the ‘pillippeens’.
He wore a suit.
Reminded me of Desi Arnaz, hair all slicked into a pompadour with half a can of pomade.

And that accent. 
He didn’t have a chance.
‘OK turd grade, turn to page turdy eight.’
We slowly sacrificed that poor soul.

An event that I recall was pretty much the end of Mr Taboli. 

Francis had a little brother, Dicky. 
Remember, this was in the ‘50s. 
The term ‘dick’ had yet to have a negative connotation. Fun with dick and Jane was just that.
We called him ‘Dicky’.
The kid was just one happy little guy.
Always grinnin’ that huge grin, buck teeth spaced wide apart, gigantic mouth….but had some intellect issues.
However, happy…just glad to be included in anything we did.
Unfortunately what we did was mostly to his detriment.
Andy had this oversized gravenstein apple.
‘Hey Dicky, I bet you can’t put this whole apple in your mouth.’
Turns out he could.
It’s just that he couldn’t get it back out.
So, we’re all laughin’ our asses off, and Dicky is laughin’ and droolin’ and chokin’ some, 
when Mr Taboli blows the recess whistle.
We all file back inside to our desks.


Dicky’s sittin’ there with his gigantic mouth stretched to the max, buck teeth clamped on that apple, 
just starin’ down at page turdy eight, droolin’ all over his work book.
We’re all lookin’ straight ahead.
Then Dicky begins to get a little red and choke. 
I gotta say, he held it together pretty good, not bein’ able to swallow and all, 
but once he commenced gagging, it was pretty much all over.
Remarkably, Mr Taboli was pretty good with a knife. He leaped over Bart’s oversized legs hangin’ in the aisle, and proceeded to perform an applectomy right there in class.
So, he was a hero…….for a few minutes.


It was only a matter of weeks that his rosy outlook of teaching the children of the trees would take a turn.
The event that became the clincher to his destiny was our zip guns.
Little simply made ‘guns’ from clothes pins, springs and pebbles. Just enough zip to cause a welt. 
A well placed shot destined for a girl’s hind end…unless it was Francis….she’d take it from you and feed it to our own hind end.
Well, after all the lunchtime screaming and running, Mr Taboli rounded us up and just sat at his desk for several minutes. Then calmly gathered up our zip guns and placed them on the floor in a little pile and commenced to jump up and down on them, screaming something in a language other than English.
Then he strolled over to his desk, sat, put his head down, and started beating the surface of it with both fists.
Fascinating.
We didn’t have school for a couple days after that. 
The Wadsworth years would follow.




I bumped in to Dicky a decade or so later.
‘It’s Richard now’

The poor chap had been working in the woods.
If you are short on brains, the woods are not the place to work. 
It’s bad enough if yer quick and sharp.
Seems Dicky had run a chain saw up his hand, right between his fingers, up to his wrist.
They didn’t do much for him in the patchwork dept.
At first, seein’ him at a distance, I’d thought, geez, Dicky is a Trekie, showin’ me his Vulcan wave.

Wonder how they're all doin' now..............



*The Wadsworth Years*

Mrs Wadsworth was our teacher for a couple years…..actually 2 ½ years, as she stepped in when Mr Taboli made his infamous exit.
The white coats didn’t come to get him, but after the zip gun affair we never saw Mr Taboli again…our first conquest.

Mrs Wadsworth was different. 
She was old, and done with it all, but folks gathered around her and conned her out of retirement.
Turns out she’d run a concentration camp of grades six thru eight back in Milton-Freewater for centuries.
Quite the disciplinarian, as she could still wield a bamboo rod with the deftness of a samurai.
And those high top orthopedic oxfords that housed her rheumatoid ankles were nothin’ to mess with either.
She stood about five six, and weighed in at oh say 97 lbs, but still had a presence about her.
I got her to smile a couple times, but usually she wore this sour look, like she just got fed some horse shit, of which we tried.
She had what was sometimes referred to as denture face, some real jowls, kinda looked like Deputy Dawg’s gramma….and she used it to her advantage, lookin’ down on you thru her bifocals.
Eddy P, the terror of turd grade, was putty in her gnarly hands, and even his little brother, satan of second grade, was no match.


So things were as quiet as they could be in those two years.


We all respected her, and I even admired her, and I’d like to think she got a charge outta me, as she would single me out as an example for others not to follow.
When she gave me her special attention, I’d notice her neck would commence to sorta blossom into a rather deep crimson beginning at the start of her collar and creeping up to her chin. This aurora was gradual, and mesmerizing.

Grammar was her specialty, and diagramming sentences on the black board was what we all did, 
over and over…past participles and me became friends, as we both found our little special place in the parse tree of life.

But the second room in that school held my fond attention.
Miss Dickerson taught kindergarten thru second grade.
She had a dimpled smile that would melt me into deep daydreams of her and I.
I’d sit thru history class, fanaticizing about us goin’ campin’. 
Her lookin’ on with admiration of me building a camp fire with nothin’ but my woodsman’s prowess, 
and then skinny dippin’ and then, 
well things got sorta grey from there, so I’d be stuck on replay, filling in more details with each re-run of my boyish manliness and her absolute womanliness, then fog, then back to camping, swimming, fog….sometimes we’d just lay on the bank after skinny dippin’, all naked, basking in the sun, fixated on each other’s genitals…but there was always that darn fog…….










*The Mrs Nelson half year….aka The Half Nelson*





She tried to be nice.


‘You can attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.’


Killer bees





The white coats did come for her




*High School (I’m still trying to forget some pretty unforgettable things)*


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## Meanderer (Mar 18, 2021)

Search


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## Sassycakes (Mar 18, 2021)

*This thread brought back another memory of mine. I went to a Catholic grade school and if you got good marks you could miss class for a few days a month to clean the convent. One of the times I was scrubbing the floor in a Nun's bedroom the Nun walked in. She didn't have her habit on and I could see her hair. She had a braid and her hair reached all the way down her back. I was shocked. Right after that, I had to set the table for their lunch. Their dishes looked like they must have cost a fortune. They were made of beautiful china .*


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## OneEyedDiva (Mar 19, 2021)

Remember giving cute Valentines to your young grade school classmates?


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