Teacher Appreciation Week

Just read that this week is Teacher Appreciation Week, and here I am in 5th grade. I'm in the middle row, last seat on the right. I have to say I was typically the good girl, teacher's pet and I'd be hardpressed to pick out a favorite teacher -- I really loved them all. This is Mrs. Byrnes who I must say I remember as bigger and heftier than she appears here.  My best friend at the time, Hester, is standing to the right of Mrs. Byrnes. We're still in touch with each other.

Any favorite teachers?

From this year, I remember two things: One was when we were studying the human body and Mrs. Byrnes stood at the front of the class and put her palms under her chest and moved them up and down and asked, "What do we call these two air bags?" Of course, she meant lungs, but the boys became apoplectic thinking that she could be talking about boobies. One kid literally was so beside himself with the thought of boobies that he fell off his chair. And Mrs. Byrnes kept referring to them as "big air bags" -- I don't know if she ever caught on.

The second thing that stands out is that we were in a building that had no cafeteria. The school had burned down and so we were in this manor house on an old estate and we had to eat lunch in our room. In those days, teachers were more supervisory and Mrs. Byrnes would monitor whether you were eating your lunch and urging kids to be members of the clean plate club. Every so often a kid would say that they only eat x food with ketchup or mustard or some spice.

One day Mrs. Byrnes threatened to get a big basket of spices and condiments so when a kid protested that he or she only ate a certain food with a certain condiment that she'd have it available to make the kid eat their lunch. For some reason, that idea appealed to me.

Of course, I was enthralled with teachers. I remember the excitement of seeing cigarettes in a teacher's purse -- such a window into the fact that they actually had private lives. I remember being in second grade, I think, and walking past the teacher's lounge (I was the one the teacher trusted to bring a paper to the office) and the door was opening as I walked by -- the teacher's lounge was the sancto sanctarium (or however that's spelled) -- meaning the inner, mystic secret room -- in any event, as the door was opening just as I walked past, I heard a toilet flush and I literally was stunned that teachers actually went to the toilet.