The Eight Year - 1987

First grade. For the life of me I can't remember my first grade teacher's name. I can see her in my mind, even my old classroom, but her name escapes me. We would have snacks in her class before recess - usually graham crackers, except for Joey, he was a round kid on a special diet, he usually got cheese sticks, carrots or celery. Like most first graders, I loved recess. Sometimes we'd have to count to 50 to the teacher on our way out the door - it wasn't an everyday thing - and I'm thinking it was a test of development or something; at least that's how I saw it, so I would count as fast as I could like it was a race or something.

Probably the best thing about first grade was the last day of school, it landed on my birthday so I thought the end of school year party was for me... however, now I realize it wasn't.

Whenever I'd go to work with my dad, he always packed a lunch which consisted of an entire loaf of sliced bread, removed from the plastic, made into refried bean and mayo sandwiches then put back in the original bread bag. There was usually apples... I didn't know there was any other kind of apple than Red Delicious until I was in high school - I think. We'd break for lunch at noon and eat while listening to Paul Harvey on the radio... never fail.

"And now you know, the rest of the story."

There were a few times my parents had people living in our house when I was younger. My aunt Marie lived with us for a while... that wasn't too strange since she's only a few years older than Tevia (it was like having another sibling in the house). But this one time, there was this strange guy who had huge scars around his neck. He stayed with us for quite a while. Who knows how my parents knew him, or if they did at all. He was a rough looking individual, but he was nice, and as far as I was concerned then, he was part of the family. I don't remember his name or know what ever became of him - but I can still see his face and the way he strained to turn his head; he never did tell me honestly what the scars were from, I know now they weren't because his head fell off.

My mom's sister Valerie had several random people stay with her too in my life - I think it's the Mexican hospitality gene or something. These two particular house guests were actually foster children; Apache indian boys, Joel and Daryl. They were older than Tevia, but not by much, so they seemed like cool older siblings to me - er, uh, cousins I guess. I remember they had a tape of this song that went "shut up, you talk too much, I mean you never shut up." It was the coolest song (when you're like five years old... or just a guy, then that never gets old. They queued it up and then played it really loud when Nephi came up the stairs one time - it was hilarious, but i guess you had to be there to really appreciate it, especially because Nephi never shut up.