1989-1990
I posted this picture as my facebook profile picture the other day and I had no idea how many memories it would evoke. When I first put it up, I just thought it was funny, me with my bangs and perm, but there was a lot going on when I was in fourth grade.
The first thing I can remember about that year was finding out who my teacher was. Every year a few weeks before school started, class lists would be posted on the front doors of the school. I loved the anticipation of the whole event. No one ever knew the exact day, so when it came time, I would walk down to school every chance I got and check the front doors (we only lived a few blocks away). That year I was a little hesitant though because I knew that I could get one of two teachers. Miss Everhard, a new, young teacher with a blonde pixie haircut or Mrs. Ezzie, an older, rather large woman with sleek black hair, giant old-lady glasses and the nickname “Ezzie-bomb” because of her reputation for blowing up at students. Nick had had her and he liked to taunt me with the fact that I could have Mrs. Ezzie this year. So when I walked up to the school that summer, I was half excited, half afraid. I checked for a few days and nothing had been posted. Then, one sunny afternoon, Nick came zipping home on his bike excited, big smile on his face, “The class lists are up! Laurie has Mrs. Ezzie!!!” My heart sank, I started crying (I was nine) and entered deep denial. I wouldn’t believe him until I went to see it for myself. So, I stomped down to school only to confirm that Nick was right and my fourth grade life was over. I imagined a year of walking in a perfectly straight line and sitting up in my desk afraid to breathe or drop a pencil. My mom reassured me that Mrs. Ezzie would be fine, but I didn’t believe her.
I remember nothing about the first day of fourth grade, but I do remember getting along famously with Mrs. Ezzie. She seemed to think I was pretty funny and once even told me that if I was a dog I would be a St. Bernard. I’m not sure exactly what she meant by that, but it sounded like a compliment at the time. Once I forgot my homework (which was out of the ordinary) and I bravely told her as tears welled up in my eyes, expecting my first detention, and she just let me off the hook, just a, “Don’t do it again.” She wasn’t so bad.
I was also pretty cool in fourth grade. It helped that I had a sister in high school to style me. As you can see in the picture, I had a perm, amazingly perfect bangs, double pierced ears and a killer hand me down outfit that included a sweater vest five sizes too big. I even went to the New Kids concert that year, on a school night! And when a new cute boy came to school mid-year (he had a rat tail!), guess who was his girlfriend? That’s right. He dumped me later for a sixth grader, but still, I was his first choice. Fourth grade is also the first year at St. Joe’s that you can get on the honor roll and I was on it all four quarters. Yeah, fourth grade was a pretty good year.
Except, not really at home. At home, it was kind of a disaster. See, my parents split when I was in second grade and my three siblings and I were living with my mom. My mom was a waitress and really struggled to pay the bills. That was the year things started breaking on our mini-van. The mini-van that my dad and mom bought together brand new, the mini-van all the girl scouts fought to ride in, the mini-van we first drove to Florida in. Things started breaking and we couldn’t fix them and eventually someone showed up at the door and took it away. We got an old impala after that. The cloth on the inside of the roof sagged and the girl scouts did not fight to ride in it. At the end of the year we were evicted from our home a few blocks from school and had to move into a not-so-great neighborhood much further away. Far enough away that the next year, I couldn’t walk to see who my teacher would be. I just had to wait.
