Describe a typical day in your elementary school.

I went to three different Elementary schools. Boulder City Elementary. Miller School and Richland Elementary. My favorite year was my third grade year. I loved my teacher. I remember that we had lots of really fun art projects. We also got to do ceramics. I still have some of the projects I made. I don't know what happen to the chess set I made - it really was cool! It is also the year I had my first crush on a boy. My classroom was upstairs in the building and we had to enter by a set of stairs on the outside of the building. I remember getting to walk home from school for lunch. We lived in a really small town. I think everyone walked to school - at least that is how I remember. My "boyfriend" and I used to play tag everyday on the way home from school. I think he walked the long way home so he could follow me longer. We did not talk much at school but on the way home it was "you're it" back and forth all the way home. I am pictured in the first row of chairs second from the left. (Do you love my boots? I thought Iwas the cutest thing ever!) My "boyfriend" is standing in the back row third from the right. I was sad when we had to move. I have since gone back to visit this place and I was so surprised that when I saw the school again it had been condemned. I think I was only 20 or so and I remember feeling very old at that time because only grandmas had their schools condemned.

My second school was round. I thought that was neat. It was similar to the way my little kids have their school set up with pods and the classes opened up to make one large classroom for special events. It was also fun because I got to ride a school bus. I had never done that before and it was interesting to me that people lived so far away from the school. Especially after having lived in such a small town.

Richland Elementary was my last grade school and I attended there because we moved again. I walked to this school and remember that the walk home seemed like the longest walk of my life. It was all up hill. Even when we took the shortcut it was still uphill. The weather was warm most of the time so I think that is why it bothered me so much. I really liked Fridays because my mom would let us buy lunch. I called it "Taco Friday". I also got to have hot lunch on the days I had cafeteria duty.

I think I was an average student. My grades were pretty good and the things that the teachers wrote were nice. I have most of my report cards and the one that cracks me up the most was my Kindergarten one. It was more like the things kids learn in pre-school now a days. My favorite books were the Dick and Jane books. I still love them today. I have an original copy of one I found at an antique store once. I also loved the SRA reading program. You got to move up levels by color. I wish I could find those again. I used to copy Cat in the Hat books to practice my handwriting. Math was easy at this time . It was hard for me to remember the Social Studies stuff and Geography. But I did love to do reports. I especially loved the beginning of every school year and the smell of new crayons and glue. I still love a new box of crayons!

Side note to old "boyfriend": Years later when I was attending college I ran into him. We were at a freshman dance and he came up to me and said "Are you Candice Mccall?" Not recognizing him at all and having a different last name at the time because my mom had remarried I said "Depends on who wants to know?" (such an original comeback) He then said, "I am Lee Swindlehurst do you remember me? You look exactly like you did in grade school" Boy was I surprised (he looked ten times cuter than in grade school!) I wanted to say "Tag, your it!" but instead said something stupid like "You look the same too" - I immediately had the daydream that he was going to sweep me off my feet and we hook up and get married and what a fun story we would have for our children - Well, as it turned out he dated my roommate and we just studied together a few times for psych 101.