When I was kindergarten age we lived in a small rental house by where Runland’s little store is now. At that time there were no buses to ride to school so I walked.

Our kindergarten was located by the Beyer’s Heating Oil Company, close to the where the Kettle is today. I had a girl friend and neighbor Sally Smoke, she walked with me part of the way to my school, then she walked on to her school at the tall, three story JJ Smith. I remember the wooden sidewalks that I walked on to the school.

Our school was in an old building with a large entry room and a large stove in the middle of the room. I think it must have been a wood burning because it had a bed of sand and a edge of wood around the stove. We had the classroom on the left side of the building. Miss Bloom was our teacher, she was very nice and we all liked her.

When we had a fire drill we would slide out the window on a slide, which we thought was fun. The snacks I remember were either tomato soup with soda crackers or special times we would get grapefruit juice and crackers. I can’t remember if we got cupcakes on birthdays or not, but I remember the juice and crackers.

Most of the kids we were in kindergarten with went through high school, too. We grew up together and a lot of us have remained friends and happy to see each other again.

I went to school with a cute boy in my class. His name was Dave Box and unknown to us, we would date later in our junior and the senior year and in 1961 we were married!

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