ElderChicks

I learned a whole new concept of what it meant to play in the fifth grade when I attended a one-room schoolhouse. Yes, an honest-to-goodness country school called Barrow School where I and my fellow students, comprised of eight boys and four girls, who were in the fifth through eighth grade. That was the year I learned how to play baseball and hunt grasshoppers with the boys. After all, we girls were outnumbered two to one, so I think we didn’t even consider other options. That was also the year I was taught by my first “man teacher.” There was a lot of “maleness” I was exposed to that year, more than ever before. Ironically, I believe not only did I learn new ways to play, my academic achievement that year far exceeded anything I’d learned in any previous year, and, quite possibly, since. It was a wonderful year that stands out vividly in my memory, not the least of which was that all four of us girls liked the same boy even though our pool of potential suitors could have allowed us two boys each to fawn over.