Sensory-Imprinted Memories of School...

Remember making paper decorations and things leading up to those special times of the year, times such as Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving?

I specifically remember doing tissue paper decorations just like this, where you'd use the eraser end of a pencil to form the little tissue paper cup, before gluing the tiny cup to a large craft paper sheet to make your picture.

Also making paper Chinese lanterns.

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Still in my desk at home is this beauty, the stuff of a semi-nerd. I got it out just now to take an iPhone pic of it.

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It began in 6th grade when Mrs. Forbes was teaching arithmetic - squares and square roots. I remember her telling us 2 times 2 was 4 and that the square root of 4 was 2. I asked her what the square root of 5 was and she had no answer. What she did next was set me on a lifetime path. She called the superintendent of schools, who told her to send me up to his office in the courthouse. I left class and rode my bicycle up town where he explained a method for calculating the square root of any number. That led to an introduction to logarithms, which are the inverse of exponents, which led to the slide rule that I got shortly thereafter. It was a cool tool with a ton of associated memories, including my being laughed at until I wasn't.
 
I have a couple that spring to mind. On the first day of kindergarten all the kids were sitting on the floor facing the teacher. I don't recall the activity at the time, singing a song, or being read a story, but a kid off to my left started to ball and saying he didn't want to do that, he wanted to learn to read and write. He broke down into nearly a full tantrum and the teacher literally was dragging him along the floor out the door. My perception of the event wasn't that she was being mean to him, just removing him as he couldn't compose himself enough to walk out on his own.

When I was in first grade and we were learning to print we were working on the letter P. As the teacher came by she said I was doing it wrong and to try again. So I did next time she came around same thing. I still had no idea what she was talking about, because I was forming a P properly, it looked just like the one on top of the bulletin board. Then she stood there while I did it again, again I had no idea what I was doing wrong and she got furious and yanked my paper away. Years later I finally figured out what the problem was. We were told to use lines and circles to for the letters. One line for the staff part, and then form the circle at the top to make the letter. I was doing it by drawing the line from top to bottom, then retracing it back up to form the loop, thus retracing the first line -- just like I learned to do later when learning to write cursive.

I have a lot of even earlier ones before I was in proper school from my experiences in day care.
 

Vintage Drinking Fountain - YouTube

We had drinking fountains that looked somewhat like this, called "bubblers". The water didn't bubble up so high, so you had to put your mouth closer to the outlet. You had to watch out for the school bullies, who would come by and slap the back of your head, knocking your front teeth into the porcelain bubbler. Many a tooth was chipped or lost that way. I must have had a guardian bubbler angel, because somehow I avoided this.
 
The absolute best memory for me related to my school years, was the last day of school marking the start of summer holidays!

Couldn't get my butt out of school and home fast enough!

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Sassycakes said:
Going to a Catholic school from Kindergarten through High school this memory always sticks out in my mind whether I was on the receiving end or a friend was.
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I was always against school punishment.

I can't remember when it faded in my day... I'm thinking sometime in and around the mid 70's.

From everything I have read and been told by others who lived it, it was abused in a really big way.
 
Another thing I remember was when we had fire drills. We always ran out of the school and then my line had to stand in front of a laundromat, I can still smell the odor coming out of it. And of course, seeking protection from an atomic bomb by getting under your desk.
 
Sassycakes said:
Another thing I remember was when we had fire drills. We always ran out of the school and then my line had to stand in front of a laundromat, I can still smell the odor coming out of it. And of course, seeking protection from an atomic bomb by getting under your desk.
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I remember emergency and fire drills, too. We'd assemble in the front of the school yard.
 
Aunt Marg said:
I was always against school punishment.

I can't remember when it faded in my day... I'm thinking sometime in and around the mid 70's.

From everything I have read and been told by others who lived it, it was abused in a really big way.
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Luckily I never was hit by the ruler, but I was pulled out of my chair by mistake. All the Nun said was oops I meant to pull out Ms. Lyons. Of course, she didn't even help me get up off the floor.
 
Sassycakes said:
Luckily I never was hit by the ruler, but I was pulled out of my chair by mistake. All the Nun said was oops I meant to pull out Ms. Lyons. Of course, she didn't even help me get up off the floor.
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I never got the strap or paddle either, but do remember how free a few teachers were in grabbing kids by the ears or by the arms.

Bet they wouldn't of dreamed of doing such had the kids parents been in attendance.
 
There is a memory of me being picked by the teacher to place a paper napkin at each kids desk. I think it was for a treat (cookie) due to one of our statutory holidays. I was about 7 yrs old so Grade 2. The best was singing in the choir for our Christmas pageant - Grade 6 - 12 yrs old. I am still amazed today that I was selected as I had a hearing problem back then and am also tone deaf.
 
Anyone else love playing dodge-ball in school?

Remember the sound the balls made when they hit the wall behind you?

Remember the good slap they gave you when they connected?

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Aunt Marg said:
LOVE this thread!!!

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The Elmer's Glue, we used to rub a little on our hands, let it dry, then peel it off like a layer of skin, and it looked like a layer of skin being peeled off, too!
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Isn't that a Slide Rule? Herman's Hermits sang about that.
♫♫ Don't know much about geography
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for
But I know that one and one is two
And if this one could be with you
What a wonderful world this would be ♫♫
 
I remember the smell of cinnamon rolls coming from the basement cafeteria mingling with the odors of whatever disgusting food they were cooking that day. To this day, I can't stand the smell of cinnamon rolls. I remember the first time I ate in the cafeteria in first grade. They had some horrible potato thing that I absolutely could not stand. I asked if I had to eat it and was told yes. I forced it down but when I went to throw out the trash, there was a big barrel to put whatever you didn't eat in. It was full of food, so I was lied to by the cafeteria worker. Also still can't drink milk because it reminds me of those nasty warm little cartons.
 
Jeweltea said:
I remember the smell of cinnamon rolls coming from the basement cafeteria mingling with the odors of whatever disgusting food they were cooking that day. To this day, I can't stand the smell of cinnamon rolls. I remember the first time I ate in the cafeteria in first grade. They had some horrible potato thing that I absolutely could not stand. I asked if I had to eat it and was told yes. I forced it down but when I went to throw out the trash, there was a big barrel to put whatever you didn't eat in. It was full of food, so I was lied to by the cafeteria worker. Also still can't drink milk because it reminds me of those nasty warm little cartons.
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Jewel, I do remember the little milk cartons being semi-cool at times... was always nice when it was ice cold.

Two smells that still take me back to my school years, is the the smell of pizza and hot dogs wafting from the school cafeterias. Always smelled so yummy!
 
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This is kind of silly now that I am an oldman, but when I was in seventh grade, I received a note from a girl telling me that she liked me and had a crush on me. Well, I kind of dismissed it and didn't give it much thought. Seventh grade went by, eighth grade came and went, but then in ninth grade, I took notice to her and thought she was the most beautiful girl in the school and wondered to myself just what I had been thinking the past two years.

Late in tenth grade, I got my driver's license and a few weeks later asked her out for a date, but she seemed kind of disinterested and said that she had to ask her parents. The next day she agreed to the date. That night was the first time in my life that I fell in love. I couldn't stop thinking about her. My dad, of course, said it was puppy love.

After a few more dates, we were "going steady." Her parents never approved of me because I was considered a "bad boy" at that time. I actually ended up being sent to military school by my dad, who was an Army First Sgt. When I came home for my senior year, she had another boyfriend, but we would sneak out and be together without telling anyone. After high school, I enlisted in the Marines and went to Vietnam, then came home and went to college. We had lost track of one another.

But, even today, almost sixty years later, I can still envision her, smell her and think about all the teased hair she wore. I feel guilty sometimes thinking about her and that we should have been together, but then I also think, this is why we have memories, good memories.
 
I also wanted to add that I have been told by our airline psychologists that I have a photographic memory, which for a pilot is a great asset. I kind of think there is something to that because my wife first noticed it when we would travel. She asked me one time when we visited
San Francisco if I knew that I had a photographic memory. I told her no and wasn't sure why she would say that.

She then told me that she had noticed that I can drive somewhere that I had never been before (using a map or GPS) and a few years later do it again, but without using a map or a GPS. That's when I started noticing it also. It's just not doing directions, but a lot of things that I have only seen once, I am able to describe it almost to a "T".
 
A number of my sensory-imprinted memories from childhood center about holiday observances. For example, remember those cheap Ben Cooper or Collegeville Halloween costumes sold commercially? That's what you usually wore if your parents weren't crafty enough to make a costume for you, or didn't want to bother with one. The masks were thin brittle plastic, and if you wore them over glasses, steamed them up, much like COVID masks can do today. So I can remember roaming around my neighborhood on Halloween in the dark with diminished vision, ringing doorbells and asking for candy. It felt vaguely criminal but seductively delicious at the same time. My favorite commercially-made costume was a leopard. I was on the path to the furry fandom even then... 🐺

And isn't this dated Halloween costume of I think Ringo Starr vaguely creepy, especially the teeth? No wonder kids develop "issues..." *shudders* 👻

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