the ponds are running over and the poor baby fish are being swept away with the water.
This river is running down our south damn.
These rapids are running over our back damn..........................................
and these rapids are running over our drive.
This lake has covered our pond.
After the bad weather passes we will need to hire a backhoe to come and dig our yard off the bottom of the pond and spread it back over the area surrounding our house.
School was canceled today and even ABAC has canceled classes tonight for the first time since I started teaching there. ( I just received an email stating that school is also canceled tomorrow.)
I am always rather cautious when told that school has been canceled. I want to check out that information and make sure it is a fact and that I really should not make my way to school. I have a learned fear of being tricked, especially on April 1st.
It was a rainy April first when I was in first grade with Mrs. Lester at Morven Elementary School. We had a cloak room, which was a room the same width as the classroom with doors on each end where we each had an open locker with hooks where we hung our coats and placed our rain boots. We all had to use those cubbies that rainy morning after we removed our rain coats and sat on the little bench to remove our rain boots. (I also recall that the side opposite our lockers with the bench was lined with book cases where the extra readers were stored while we read our way through various books that year.)
Mrs. Lester called the class to attention just as we had finally settled into our chairs around our little tables that morning after storing all of our rain gear. She announced that, surprise!, it was a holiday and we would be returning home. She told us to get ready and line up at the door. Girls on the right. Boys on the left.
We were so excited! I remember very clearly going into the cloak room to put on my rain boots and little rain slicker while thinking, "Mama is going to be so excited when the bus pulls up in front of our house and David and I come home."
After thirty first graders were dressed and ready, we lined up at the door as always with girls on the right and boys on the left, waiting with great anticipation for Mrs. Lester to march us down the hall to the front door where the buses would be ready to return us to our thrilled mothers.
After a few minutes Mrs. Lester threw her hands up, threw her head back and exclaimed "April Fools!!!" I thought, " Okay, any holiday is fine with me. Let's go to the bus so I can go home and surprise Mama." We all just stood and looked at Mrs. Lester, suddenly very confused as she continued to laugh. Not one child seemed to understand as we stood in line, girls on the right, boys on the left. Everyone dressed for the rain that poured outside.
I can still remember feeling confused and really dismayed as Mrs. Lester tried to explain that it was all a joke and that we were not going home after all. She had to tell us to return to the cloak room, take off our boots, place them in our cubby, remove our raincoats, hang them on the hooks and return to our seat.
Maybe Mrs. Lester had taught just a couple of years too long.
I may sign up for Facebook just to see if anyone from my first grade is on and will be my friend. I could see if they remember that April Fool's day or if they blocked out that memory but have always had a really hard time trusting anyone in authority and never knew why. There could be a lot of healing for my first grade classmates.
1 comment:
Too funny! I was thinking this must have been that teacher's first year! How crazy to do that to first graders!?!
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