Gradeschool memories...

Once upon a time when I was in grade school I had a nickname. I'm not really sure where this nickname came from but it seemed to catch on with the boys and soon most of them were calling me Chipmunk. I never really took it as an insult, though perhaps it was meant to be... I just thought it was because I was cute and small had chubby cheeks... I still kinda think of it as a term of endearment... I mean I had a friend who they called Medusa, so I figure Chipmunk isn't so bad. It fell out of vogue and was almost gone by the 4th grade, but every once in a while I remember my nickname and smile fondly and wonder where in the heck it came from.

Once in the third grade I was gone for a week to bring my Aunt Dawn back from college/ on vacation. And when I came back a boy loudly proclaimed, "Oh good! Renee is back- Let the fun begin!" Yes, I can tell you the boy's name, but since it's the internet he might not want it bandied about out here.

I'm remembering a lot about the third grade, apparently. That was also the year that I wore braid pigtails that I tucked the ends up so that I looked like Kirsten, who was an American Girl. I stopped doing it when I got called Leia on the playground. Morons! Couldn't they tell the difference between an American Girl doll and a Jedi Princess?!?

These are not the braids you're looking for.

Third grade was also the last grade that I was in the low reading group... That year they had a reading program and tracked what I read and I blew the whole school out of the water by reading something like 14,500 pages. The next year I was assigned the same "low" reading group and the teacher took one look at me and said, "What are you doing here?" and then took me to the other classroom. I mean for heaven's sake, I was styling my hair like a Swedish immigrant from the 1850's that I read about. I feel this only supports my whole "slightly dyslexic" theory...

Oh, have you not heard about my theory? Well, here it is-- I think I'm slightly dyslexic. The end.

In addition, I'm also slightly hypochondriac-tic, but only in the ridiculous... So I will fear I've got the plague, or the black lung (like Zoolander), or scarlet fever, or tuberculosis, or cholera, or one of tons of other diseases that are pretty well wiped out and you only hear about when you play Oregon Trail for old times sake. So perhaps the "slight dyslexia" should be taken with a grain of salt. Not that they've managed to wipe out dyslexia.... I wish it was that easy!

Did I ever tell you that in kindergarten I had a crush on a boy in my class named Jason English... who was the grandson of my first grade teacher, Mrs. Dunn. Ya, I know, quite the co-winky-dink, eh?

Did I ever tell you that in the first grade I invented this weird form of dancing which basically consisted of me moving my feet up and down as fast as I humanly could... and somehow the rest of my classmates thought this was the coolest thing ever?

That same year someone came into talk to us about drugs and a classmate asked what being on drugs was like and the teacher pointed at a picture of a horse and said, "For example, someone on drugs might think that horse just moved." Then I saw the horse wink at me and for the rest of the year I couldn't look at that horse without imagining it moving.

The only conclusion that I can draw from these memories is that I was just as quirky in grade school as I am now.... If only I could have skipped that horrible awkward phase people like to call Jr. High/ High School...

Letting the quirky lantern shine on, since 1983,
Chipmunk