Making As in 2nd grade in Castle Shannon Elementary School in early 1950.

by James K. Sayre

My family moved from Ridgewood, New Jersey to Castle Shannon, a suburb of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania around Christmas, 1949. I was about seven and a half years old at the time and in the middle of second grade in school.

To get to this elementary school, I was picked up outside of the apartment building each weekday morning in a sort of large taxicab and driven a couple of miles to the school. I had a packed lunch in a little metal lunch box, which contained a couple of honey-soaked peanut butter sandwiches wrapped in wax paper and a couple of pieces of fruit. At noon, we each paid three cents for a half pint of milk in a heavy waxed paper container. I remember that our school notebooks all had an outline of Pennsylvania on the front cover, with each County labeled. The Counties were mostly very irregular in shape, which later I found out was due to the state's mountainous terrain.

The school was situated on the edge of a small river valley and was built on stilts in the back part of the structure. We studied arithmetic, spelling and some other subjects I'm sure. I was there only for two six-week report cards, but it was the only school that I made mostly As in. The other kids were mostly from poor families, I guess. When we moved into a house in Mount Lebanon, I was back among the mostly smart kids, so my grades became about average again. Glory for twelve weeks...

 

 

End.

Bottlebrush Press has maintained its presence on the Internet since 1996.

Return to the home page of Bottlebrush Press: The homepage of Bottlebrush Press

This web page was recently created by James K. Sayre.

Contact author James K. Sayre at sayresayre@yahoo.com. Author's Email: sayresayre@yahoo.com

Copyright 2007 by Bottlebrush Press. All Rights Reserved.

Web page last updated on 3 September 2007.