Violette Elementary School (Garden Grove, California)

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  FireBolt (guest)

  I attended Dr. CC Violette Elementary School from 1985 (kindergarten) to the first two weeks of the 2nd grade (Autumn 1987). My family then moved to Sheridan, Oregon. I remember playing Chinese marbles with the Vietnamese children. I also remember how smart they were. After a few weeks, I would see some of my Vietnamese classmates in upper classes, as if they had challenged the course work. The only teacher I can recall by name, is Mrs. Clover, my first grade teacher. Most of my memories, though, are from Kindergarten, in the north side of the kindergarten building, away from the yard fence. I can't recall that teacher's name anymore, but I remember making for her an orange, covered with cloves (pushed in like thumbtacks until completely covered), and wrapped in a fabric netting. One day, we had a visit from McGruff, the crime dog. I remember Dustin was the class 'Karate Kid', and the only classmate that had dropped by my house to visit. Lampson, who had a toy magic kit, was someone I might expect to be class president someday. I remember Louie was a little husky, but had just as big of heart. I remember a braided red-head named Valerie, and a few others, but my memory is getting pretty vague about it now. Mother never bought a class photo. In Kindergarten, we stuffed paper dinosaurs with newspaper to make them thick, and then painted them. I remember we made cream, or butter, by shaking milk in Tupperware containers. There were two really nice metal big-wheels, for which there was a que to play with, and a regular old tricycle that no one wanted to play with, but got stuck with anyway. Mother still has the clay hand print I made in kindergarten, and a painted one on a red paper plate in 1st grade. I remember late in the 1st grade, how much fun the big slide was in the upper graders' play area was, compared to our pee-wee sized slide (I managed to scrape my arm on the big slide). For some reason, I had trouble saying "Rudy," pronouncing it with a 'W', which resulted in my being placed in a speech therapy class for a short time. I remember one day in 1st grade as we were going out to the playground, a cloud of smoke covered the door way. It wasn't until much later that I had learned someone gave a toot of the fire extinguisher. The only memory I have of the 2nd grade (being as I was gone after two weeks), was the teacher taking away our Lego's because we couldn't stop fiddling with them during class (not mine; mother wouldn't let me bring mine to school).

  17 years ago | reply | hide comment