hawaii re-visits

After seeing Deb's post, and remembering several conversations with Satoshi about our elementary schools, I went back to check mine out on one of my morning walks.

There was more fencing around the school than I remembered...lots more grass and trees too.

The jungle gyms and monkey bars were gone and replaced by these huge plastic castle looking things.

I remember in kindergarten climbing on the jungle gym at recess only to be pushed off by an older boy...a 6th grade boy came to my rescue.

The steps weren't as high as I remembered...the cafeteria was all lit up, brought back memories of the delicious school lunches we used to eat for only a quarter (is that dating myself? maybe)...shoyu chicken, meatloaf, cole slaw and those addicting shortbread cookies.

I remember once an obnoxious guy put his hand on the shortbread cookie on my tray and said, "you gonna eat that?" figuring that I would hand the cookie over to him because he was already touching it, but I told him, "yeah, I am!" (though I think I threw it out after because...he touched it...)

With the cost of things these days, they are talking about raising the price of the school lunch from $1-something to $2-something...way more than what I remember paying in school, but still pretty reasonable....I wonder if the quality of the lunch is still as good too? hope so.

Seeing the field brought back memories of running barefoot for track practice...playing kick ball....May Day performances. Growing up having grass under my feet during recess, I was really shocked when I saw the kids in Japan running on hardened sand...not one blade of grass.

Down the hill from my elementary school was the recreation center, run by the City Parks and Recreation. It was here that my dad taught after school classes...stitchery, ukulele, archery, tumbling, seed craft. I think most of these classes were free of charge. My mom used to sign me up for these classes (cheap baby sitting, yeah? maybe). It was a good way for me to spend time with my dad and not have to go home to an empty house.

When my brother started school, my dad was moved to another park, so we used to walk home together with some of the other neighborhood kids and were "latch-key" kids then.

After finishing our homework, we were allowed to go outside to play. My brother usually dilly-dallied with his homework, so it was rare if he got outside (which is why he got really good grades). Me, I rushed to do my homework so I could get out of the house (I got so-so grades).

To this day, I still remember my first day of kindergarten, maybe because it was so traumatizing. I remember somehow spilling my milk into my pork and beans and the lunch mother (a volunteer mother who came to watch us while the teachers ate) Mrs. Fermin, told me to "fish out" the wieners and eat them for lunch...it was traumatizing then but now a good memory.

I don't remember what was taught in the classes, and have forgotten some of the other student's names (sorry!) but what I do remember about elementary was that it was mostly stressless times...good times.