Okay, Fortune, I will do as you ask

My fortune today said “Take a moment to remember 4th grade” so I am going to do just that.

My fourth grade homeroom and language arts teacher was Mrs. Allen. It was her first year as a teacher, and it showed. She wore tri-colored eye shadow that went up to her eyebrows – the three colors were way too dark and she looked like one of those jars made out of multiple colors of sand. In other words – she looked stupid. As you might have surmised, I did not like Mrs. Allen much. She never called on me to read aloud and I attribute my paralyzing fear of speaking up in class to be a direct result of this.

The thing I did like about Mrs. Allen was that she had a “writing workshop,” and we got write stories and books. She would bring in wallpaper samples of all different designs (that were slightly larger than a piece of paper) that we could pick from to make covers for our books. She would then bind them together. It was actually totally awesome. I still have two of my books, one of which was about Rugby, the collie that lived in my old neighborhood who I missed terribly at the time.

I also remember, my social studies teacher. We called him Mr. Z because his last name was really long and began with a Z. On the first day of school, this kid raised his hand and asked, “Can I go to the bathroom.” “Yes,” Mr. Z replied. When the kid got up to go, Mr. Z said, “Sit down.” This went on for a while until the kid finally asked “May I go to the bathroom.” Now, while I’m sure Mr. Z was trying to be funny while teaching proper word usage, all he succeeded in doing was making the whole class think he was an ass and probably prompted that kid to put Mr. Z on the top of a hit list of some sort.

My science teacher was Mrs. Bogosian and she was pretty awesome. I remember we all go certified in First Aid that year and that was exciting! I also went into my second year of violin where we progressed from playing Happy Hoedown to reading notes and playing Ode to Joy. We would continue to play Ode to Joy for many, many years.

My best friends were Jeannie and Mary Beth. Jeannie still lived across the street, and her parents were not yet divorced. We watched Days of our Lives, and her favorite movie was North and South. Our favorite thing to do at recess was sit in the “tunnels” because they were cool, while we waited for an opening on the swing-set. I had a birthday party and we served tacos for dinner.

All in all, I liked 4th grade.