Dear gramma and pop pop
I am loving 2nd grade! We made seed journels and science journels! Seed journels are when you write about your life. What was your elementary school like? Did you have funny clothes? Was it a big school? What was your favorite grade? Will you write me back so I can take it to school?
love Tommy.
Tommy Zollinger
2nd Grad • Elementary School • September 16, 2010
13791 Heathford
Science in 1960
Our science was on television that year. Alan Shepherd was the first American in space.
I remember watching the launch before I went to school.
The picture is Christmas of 1958 or 1959. I played with my rocket set I received from Santa that morning. My first bike is in the background. It was a bright red Schwinn. There was a button for a horn on the right side of the tank. I loved using it when I rode my bike. My sister's play ironing set is in the picture too.
The rocket set was popular. I loved it. It seemed as if American's astronauts were in the news every day. It was when I was in first grade, or maybe the year before I went to school. First Grade was one of my favorite years in elementary school. My best friend was in my class. We laughed and giggled a lot, when we watched TV together.
My mom asked me about that once.
“Do you two do that in school?”
“Oh, no we said.”
We laughed while watching our favorite cartoon called Heckle and Jeckle. If we both had been like Pinocchio,
our noses would have grown very long. We laughed and giggled in school. That’s why I was in a class without anyone I knew the next year.
We also watched the Disney Mouseketeers every day.
My best friend’s name was J. Verlo Rose, and we both rode our bikes everywhere. It was a sad day for Pop Pop when he moved in the spring of 1960.
I found other friends, but there was never another one like J. Verlo.
But I was quiet in school after his move.
My mom bought me Twinkies every day for a television program that featured a wooden character called Howdy Doody. Buffalo Bob was the main character, but there were others too.
Clarabelle the Clown squirted seltzer water at people and honked horns attached to a belt.
Chief Thunderthud was another character. He always said, “Kowabonga!” It was his greeting.
At a given time, Buffalo Bob asked everyone to take a break. It was time to eat the Twinkies my mom bought for me at the store. The children in the live audience on the show ate their Twinkies too.
My mom also bought me mini-bottles of Welch’s Grape Juice that came in tiny six pack holders. They looked like the soda six packs my parents had. I liked how they looked. I didn’t like the grape juice, but my mom bought them for me every time.
This is what my elementary school looks like now. It opened in the fall of 1953. There was once an iron pipe fence that surrounded the front of the school. The school had the grades from first to sixth. Seventh and eighth grade junior high students were in the same building too. They were at a far end away from the younger students.
Kindergarten didn’t exist then. We had 80 or 90 in our class in the very beginning. The school seemed quite large to me with the five or six hundred students there.
My grandmother was the music teacher. She had Christmas and Easter programs each year. I had a bear costume when I was in first grade for the Christmas program. I was a stuffed animal.
The entire community came to the school for those yearly programs. The elementary school had an auditorium. The Christmas Program happened there each year in December, but the Easter Program was in the high school gymnasium, which was also not far from our elementary school.
Each class presented their part of the program. The Christmas Program had mostly songs. The Easter Program had music and dancing.
The picture at my right was my first day of school in the first grade. I didn’t like the sun in my eyes. I loved the shirt. It was red. I think the stripe on the inside of the neckline was blue. It was September of 1959. I think I remember my friend J. Verlo having one just like it.
A tiny store was also across the street from the school.
The favorite things we bought there during our noon lunch hour were Winner Suckers and other kinds of candies. When you bought a winner sucker, you opened it, and there would sometimes be a sticker on it that said Winner! That meant you could have a free sucker the next day. They were very big.
They came in either cherry or grape flavors. I liked cherry the best.
We also bought baseball cards. Each package had a sheet of bubblegum.
The Yankees played almost every year in the World Series. They were my favorite team. Mickey Mantel and Roger Maris were my favorite players.
During the World Series, our teachers let us bring our transistor radios to class, and we could listen to the afternoon games during class, as long as we were quiet and did our work. They played the games during the daytime in those days.
I don't know why, because there were stadium lights. Maybe it was just a tradition to have them then.
When I was in first grade, The Three Stooges made funny movies. They had made short films for at least 20 years. I remember being young and my dad telling me about his watching them.
Most children in my hometown went to the movies on Friday night, and before each movie, there was a cartoon or short film. Usually, Tom & Jerry or a short film by The Three Stooges came before the movie, but sometimes there were other cartoons too, like The Pink Panther. We liked the Three Stooges best. They made funny sounds and did silly and mean things that made us laugh.
The small store near our school sold candy, but it also had small plastic rings with the pictures of The Three Stooges on them.
There were other traditions in our small town. Every Easter holiday, early in the morning, all children hiked to the top of the “M” mountain. It overlooked the town. Students at the school placed rocks in the form of an "M" on the mountain. They painted the rocks white. Every year during homecoming week, just before the high school football game, students would take old tires and stack them in line on the white symbol before lighting it the night before the big football game. It was fun to see.
In late spring before school ended, high school students would paint the rocks white again. During Easter, our hike was to the "M" Mountain every year. Everyone packed a lunch. Sometimes older children made a small fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows in a safe spot along the trail. There were two other stops on the way to the top of the mountain. Blue Rock had a large cave. It was only a third of the way to the top of the “M.” Kitchen Cave was a longer walk, but students usually went there too.
I began the Second Grade in the fall of 1960. It was a difficult year. My best friend moved away at the beginning of the summer.
I was the only one in my new class. It was a time to make new friends. Grandma was in my class that year. She lived down the street.
The picture at the left is how I remember her when we were in Second Grade together. She had the classic Thomas haircut that she always had. Her younger sister Connie wore it too.
Her dad owned the large store, just a little distance from we lived when I was young.
Gtandma and Pop Pop were not lucky like you. We didn't have a seed or science journal. We didn't do science, and I only remember having math occasionally. Our teacher liked art. We did it most of the day. Sometimes she would trace our profile on a sheet of white paper. We cut it out. Then we glued it on a large, oval black sheet she gave us. Then she hung all of them around the room.
Another project was writing our names in cursive. We drew pictures out of the names and colored them. That pretty much summed up my Second Grade class. In spite of all our Art, no one became an accomplished artist. There were a number of future teachers in that class and a nurse or two. One of my fun and noisy friends became a principal at a Middle School. Grandma and I became teachers too.
Grandma's dad owned a store. He and his brother built it themselves out of cinderblocks. It was one of the early stores with frozen foods.
The coolers were something new, when grandma and I were young. Some cities didn't have anything like it, and we were just a small town. Grandpa Thomas began as a storekeeper in city in Northern California, and he brought his new ideas with him to Malad--the town where he grew up as a boy.
I remember the donuts he sold there the best. My mother would give me 5 cents for a donut and a dime for a soda. My friend J. Verlo and I would ride to the store on our bikes. We bought our things, and we ate everything outside the store. Then we took our soda bottles back. My friend and I were there often. Grandma's dad, your Great grandfather let us finish them and bring back the bottles.
You had to pay a deposit for the glass bottle then. When you took them back into the store, Ann's dad gave some money for them. Sometimes my friend and I would hunt for bottles along the road, and then we'd take them in to get enough money to buy something fun.
Those years so long ago are magical times--times when days were so full of new experiences and new friends. I hope you have an incredible year like that in Florida.
Second Grade was an important year for me. I eventually became somewhat of an artist. I was a very good musician, and I write poetry. I also love taking pictures with my camera. But like the song, "I don't know much about Geometry, don't know much about the Science Book, don't know much about the French I took," none of us in Second Grade did much math or science or even reading.
For me, it wasn't such a bad thing. Unlike you Tommy, I never liked math and science. There was no chance to take French, but I excelled in German, lived there and became a Foreign Language Teacher in Idaho. In the mid 1990's, I was Idaho Foreign Language Teacher of the Year. All that doesn't matter now really.
The big thing was that I was in the same class the first time with grandma. She is my soulmate, my best friend. I guess I really like that Art class I took in Second Grade. It was the first class I took with grandma as a classmate.
And then my Second grade year ended, and I began another one with a new group of potential friends. This was the year I became friends with Jeff Alder. His picture is at the top, just above me and to the right. Jeff's picture is at the right of my teacher.
This was a difficult year for me, because my grandfather died that year in a horrible accident. He was my last grandfather. The other passed away when I was three.
I wish I could remember more about both of my grandpas. That's where you are lucky again Tommy. You've done things with your grandparents that are really fun.
Just as school started, when I was in third grade, my teacher came into the room one morning. We could tell she was upset. She told the class that they were to go outside to recess. She needed to talk to me. I felt that horrible cold feeling when you know you're in trouble.
My friend Jeff Alder turned and looked at me too. We both thought I had done something wrong at school. After the class filed out of the room, my teacher Mrs. Hartley asked me to come to her desk. I knew I was "in for it." I had to be in trouble. She seemed strangely serious. Mrs. Hartley had me sit on her lap. I thought to myself, "What have I done?"
"We had some bad news today," she said. My heart was pounding in my chest. "Mrs Williams, our music teacher, had something horrible happen this morning. Her husband died today." It took me a minute to realize, that she was talking about my grandmother, the school's music teacher. Then it took me another bit of time to realize my grandfather had been killed in an accident.
I remember my eyes stinging, and I put my hand over them momentarily. My teacher hugged me. "You're such a brave little boy." She began crying and she held me close for a minute. Then she set me back on the ground and told me to go outside if I wanted.
The year was my best in elementary. In spite of the tragedy in the beginning of 1962, I had a teacher who cared about all of her students. She loved us, just like her own children. She taught us a great deal. We had a journal that year, a seed journal.
We learned so much that year. But this was a year that my future wife, your grandma, wasn't in my class. That wouldn't happen until the next year.
We learned about a horrible time in our country's history, when I was in Fourth Grade.
An assassin shot President Kennedy that year in Dallas, Texas. Mrs. Simpson cried when she told us. We rode home busses immediately, and for the next few days, we watched everything unfold. I will never forget the funeral procession in Washington D.C.. I watched everything on our old black and white Dumont TV.
My teacher was difficult for me that year. Someone in class did something continually, and they were very sneaky about it. Not only did they not get caught, but they also did it in such a way that my teacher thought, that I had done it.
Later in the year, after staying home with chicken pox and mumps, Mrs. Simpson told my mother that someone else had been mean, and she thought I was responsible for it. Even having said that, she still treated me differently. But your grandma was in my class again, and I had other friends in class too. I was still OK.
Grandma was in my class again in fifth grade, and a lot of my friends were too.
My town only had 1500 people living in it, so I like to think that all of my classmates were friends.
During the third, fourth and fifth grade years, we played different games on the playground, but at times we brought our roller skates.
The skates were very simple. They were metal. You strapped steel flat frames with wheels onto your shoes with a belt strap that wrapped around the front of your ankle. Then two metal grips could be tightened with a key at the front of your foot. We skated every recess and at noon hour as well. Our lunch break was a full hour, because our lunch room not only fed the elementary and junior high students, but it also served food to high school students too.
We had an incredible time trading baseball cards in those times too. Occasionally we received cards we didn't like, and we would secure them to the frame of our bikes with a clothes pin. We attached them so that the cards brushed up against the wire spokes of our bicycle wheels. They made a sound, that we thought was like a motorcycle.
Marbles, however, was not just a game. It was a lifestyle, a way to be cool.
How to play Marbles
In studying these diagrams imagine that two children are going to play a game. To determine who shall play first, each child lags with his or her shooter marble. |
 FIG. 1: To start a game of Ringer the children lag from a line, drawn tangent to the ring, to a parallel line across the ring, which would be 10 feet away. The child whose shooter comes nearest the line has the first shot. Players must lag before each game. Practice lagging, as the first shot may mean the winning of the game before your opponent gets a shot. In lagging, a child may toss his or her shooter to the other line, or he or she may knuckle down and shoot it. |
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 FIG. 2: This shows child No.1 who won the lag, preparing to knuckle down. His knuckle has not quite reached the ground, which is necessary before shooting. he can take any position about the ring he chooses. Notice how the 13 marbles in the ring are arranged at the start of the game. |
 FIG. 3: child No.1 knocks a marble from the ring on his first shot and his shooter stays in the ring. He picks up the marble. As he has knocked one from the ring, he is entitled to another try. Players are not permitted to walk inside the ring unless their shooter comes to a stop inside the ring. Penalty is a fine of one marble. |
 FIG. 4: Here we see child No. 1 continuing play. He "knuckles down" inside the ring where his shooter stopped on the last shot. This gives him the advantage of being nearer to the big group of marbles in the center of the ring for his next shot. Expert marble shots try to hit a marble, knock it out of ring and make their shooter "stick" in the spot. |
 FIG 5: On this play, No.1 hit a marble, but did not knock it from the ring. At the same time his shooter, too, stays inside the ring. he can not pick up the marble, neither is he allowed to pick up his shooter. He must leave the shooter there until the other child has played. |
 FIG. 6: child No. 2 may start by "knuckling down" anywhere at the ring edge. In this case he may shoot at the 11 marbles in the center or if he wishes, he may go to the other side and try for No.1's shooter or the marble that No.1 almost knocked from the ring. |
 FIG. 7: child No.2 chooses to try for No. 1 child's shooter and knocks it out of ring, winning all the marbles No.1 has taken and putting No.1 out of that game. Or he could shoot as shown in Fig. 8. |
 FIG. 8: child No.2 hits a marble but does not knock it out of the ring yet his shooter goes thru the ring and stops outside. The marble remains where it stopped in the ring, and as No.2 did not score, it is now the turn of No.1 to shoot again. |
 FIG. 9: No. 1 "knuckles down" inside the ring where his shooter stopped (Fig. 5). he is going to shoot at the marble nearest his shooter. By hitting it at the proper angle and knocking it from the ring he can get his shooter near the center of the ring for his next shot. |
More Marble GamesBear in mind that rules vary wildly from region to region and making up a game on the spot is not at all unusual. Players should also agree in advance whether they are playing 'for fair' (all marbles returned to owner) or 'for keeps' (winner keeps, loser weeps). RING TAW (aka RINGER, RINGO ) - A one foot ring is drawn inside of a ten foot ring. Each player puts in a number of 5/8" marbles so that there is about a dozen marbles in the smaller ring. At the National Marble Tournament, thirteen marbles supplied by the organizers are arranged in a cross at the center of the ring and there is no one foot ring. Shooting order is determined by 'lagging', shooting to see who can get closest to a designated line. The first player, starting outside the ten foot circle, attempts to thumb his or her 'taw' (a 3/4" shooting marble) to knock a target marble out of the large ring while keeping the taw inside the ring. If he or she succeeds, he or she shoots again from where the taw stopped. 'Sticking' or shooting seven consecutive marbles out of the ring and winning the game without giving an opponent a turn is usually good for two days of playground bragging rights. If the player fails to knock a target marble out of the ring, or his or her taw leaves the ring, his or her turn is over and next player takes his or her turn. At the National Marble Tournament, if your taw is in the ring at the end of your turn, you must remove it. In informal games, if your taw is in the ring, it becomes a legitimate target and any player who hits it out collects a forfeit from you. Players should agree in advance whether to use this rule. Play alternates until one player has knocked a majority of the marbles out of the ring. The process of picking the best possible position for starting is referred to as 'taking rounders'. BOSS OUT (aka LONG TAWL ) - First player shoots one marble. Second player trys to hit the first player's marble. If he or she hits it, he or she collects both marbles. If the two marbles are close enough, he or she can attempt to 'span' them. He places his or her thumb on his or her own marble and his or her index finger on his or her opponent's marble. He then draws his or her hand up while bringing his or her fingers together. If the two marbles hit, he or she collects both marbles. If he or she misses, the first player may shoot at either marble on the field. If a player collects the last marble on the field, he or she must shoot a marble for the next player to shoot at. BRIDGEBOARD - A board with nine cutouts along one edge is propped up on that edge to form nine archways. The numbers 6, 2, 3, 1, 5, 8, 7, 9, 4 are painted over the arches, one number over each arch. Players try to shoot through the holes and win the number of marbles indicated by the number above the hole. Any marbles which miss become the property of the board owner. The board may also be used to play NINE HOLES. BUN-HOLE - A one-foot wide hole is dug in the center of the playing field. Players attempt to get a marble as close as possible to the hole without going in. Whoever's marble comes closest without going in wins a marble from each player. Knocking in your opponent's marble is permitted. CHERRY PIT - This is the reverse of RING TAW. A one-foot wide hole is dug in the center of a ten-foot circle. Each player places a number of marbles around the hole so that there is about a dozen marbles surrounding the hole. Players take turns trying to knock marbles into the hole. Like Ring Taw, as long as marbles are knocked into the hole and the taw remains in the ring, players may continue to shoot. If a taw goes into the hole, the owner must forfeit a number of marbles and place them around the hole to 'buy back' his or her shooter. HUNDREDS - Both players try to shoot their taws into a one-foot hole. If both taws go in, players start over. If one player's marble goes in and the other player's marble doesn't, the player whose marble went in scores ten points. If neither player's marble goes in, the first player now tries to hit the second player's marble. If he or she hits it, he or she earns ten points and another chance to shoot his or her marble into the hole for ten points. If he or she misses either his or her opponent's marble or the hole, the second player tries to hit the first player's marble for ten points and another try at shooting his or her marble into the hole for ten points. Whenever a marble goes into the hole, both players start over from the starting line, otherwise all shots are made from wherever the marble stopped rolling. First player to reach one hundred points wins. NINE HOLES - This name is given to two different marble games. The first game is Miniature Golf played with marbles. Players construct a miniature golf course from materials at hand and take turns shooting their marbles around, through, and over the obstacles they've built. First player to complete nine holes wins. The second version of the game is played with an arch board. Players take turns shooting their marbles through the arches in numerical order. Arches that are shot through out of sequence don't count. A successful shoot through the correct arch entitles the shooter to an additional turn. First player to send his or her marble through all nine holes in the correct order wins. We played a simple version too. You found someone, who wanted to play. They threw out their marble. You aimed your marble, while kneeling on the ground on your knees. With your marble on your index finger, you flipped it with your thumb. The first one to hit the opponent's marble won it. In a second game called "Bombs Away," you held your marble as high as your nose and took aim. You and your opponent took turns aiming and trying to hit the other marble. The first one to get a hit won and took the marble. |
Things changed in sixth grade. Suddenly we began playing baseball and football. Baseball was more popular. I was a Yankees fan. I enjoyed them, and they always won most of their games. Usually they were in the World Series every year.
Mickey Mantel and Roger Maris were my favorite stars on the team, and each year during the Series, I listened for them to hit home runs. They appeared almost every year, especially when Mickey Mantel and Roger Maris played for them.
I desperately wanted to play baseball, but some of my other friends weren't interested in letting me play. I played with some other friends, who used a tennis ball. I could hit it very well, and it would sail a long way. "It's just a tennis ball," one friend said, who played with the group who did Little League each summer. They wouldn't let me play with them. I was on the farm each summer, so Little League was impossible for me.
Play with the tennis ball was like practice. I grew accustomed to keeping my eye on the ball. Working on the farm gave me strong arms, so between the two activities, I could hit very well.
One day, I had a chance to play with the other "Little Leaguers." They picked teams. I was the last one left standing. We played during noon hour, and just before I had a chance to go to the plate that first day, my team captain started to crowd in front of me to bat. The bases were loaded. He thought I would simply strike out.
I reminded him that I was next. It made him angry. There were two out already. Noon hour was almost over, and he wanted to score the points. If the other team knew he batted out of order, it would be an automatic out, and we would lose.
I stepped up to the plate. "You better hit a good one," my team captain said. He was angry. I waited for the right pitch. The fielders came in close. They taunted me.
The perfect pitch came. I hit the ball, and the crack almost made my fingers feel numb. I watched the ball sail up into the air. One fielder, who hadn't moved up with the others, ran forward to catch it, but he misjudged the ball. It flew at least ten feet over his head.
I hit a home run during that noon hour, a "grand slam." After that day, my team captain picked me early, and I was fourth in the batting order after that first game. I batted very well each day. Soon I began fielding the ball too. I played short stop.
The years in elementary were fun. I learned so much. There were difficult times: moments when I had to make new friends, times when I had trouble "fitting in," occasions when I didn't feel accepted. But everything worked out extremely well. I had some outstanding teachers, who helped me overcome and cope with times that were less than spectacular, and I hope you have a fantastic year too.
Grandma and I have been very impressed with your activities at school.
My best teachers were like the ones you've had the past two years. They had me do projects that helped me learn, just like you're doing. We are so proud of you Tommy.
My dad loved Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, and I loved this album. There was something about it that made me realize just how much I loved whipped cream on strawberry shortcake and pie and pudding and some flavors of Jell-o.
