Hanging out in the Eighth Grade Letters to my Grandchildren

May 15, 2020
Dear Grands,

In the summer of 1950 I became a teenager, although I don't believe teenagers were the dreaded lot that they have become in the eyes of some.   Upon entering the eighth grade I was pleased to learn that Miss Sarah Blanton who was my sixth-grade teacher had become Mrs. Sarah Dedmon and she was now teaching the eighth grade.  And our room was in the basement of the high school just as it had been in the sixth grade.

As I recall she continued to take our class to the old tin can gym to play basketball whenever we had recess in rainy or cold weather.  Remember I told you how she had been the one that got me interested in basketball, and by the time I was in the eighth grade I had improved quite a bit from my sixth grade days.  By this time I had an official basketball goal and basketball with which to practice at home.

In Mrs. Dedmon's class, we had art classes.  The one project we had was making a puppet out of papier-mache, actually, we made just the head of a puppet.  I remember we used strips of newspaper that we would dip in water and then cover with starch or maybe it was dilute Elmer's glue.   Then we painted eyes, lips, maybe added hair, I don't remember.  I do remember that we had devised a little stage where we could sit behind and put on a play with our puppets.  My friend Libby and I were apparently pretty good playmakers because we were asked by the other students to put on another play after the required one. (Looking back, I bet our classmates were just trying to get out of having other less fun classes.) We would sit down and hold our puppets up and just make up a dialog as we would go.  I'll have to ask Libby, who is still my friend if she remembers this.

I also learned to type in the eighth grade.  Mrs. Rudasill came to our school to teach typing, and we had to pay to take the class.  Eighth graders were allowed to sign up, and I think my friend Shirley and I were the only eighth-graders to take the class.  We were allowed to leave our class during what was the last period for the high school classes and go up to the room that was adjacent to the stage in the auditorium where the class was taught.  I was a little apprehensive being in a class with high school students, especially since my first cousin Douglas was a senior that year.  I was determined to do as well as he did.  I can remember typing, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."  It had all the letters of the alphabet.  I learned to type fast and accurately and did as well as most of the high school students.

I had no typewriter, but our book had a template of the qwerty keyboard, and I would practice on the template in the book.  But "Santa Claus" brought me a reconditioned Underwood Typewriter for Christmas and I could really practice after that.  I loved the class, and it has been one of the most useful classes I had during my twelve years of elementary and high school.  I'm still doing a lot of typing, guess it is called keyboarding now.  I find that I don't type as fast nor as accurately as I once did as I get older.  But I manage.  I never was good with numbers.  I still have to look at the keyboard when typing numbers, and I never learned to use the number pad on the keyboard.

An Underwood Typewriter similar to the one I learned to type on. (Still have one like this in Shelby.)

Not only do I credit Sarah Blanton Dedmon with my interest in playing basketball, but she arranged in the spring of that year (1951) for us to have what would be my first boy-girl party.  She arranged for us to have a party over in the elementary school one evening in the room that had been my third-grade room.  Perhaps that room was no longer used as a classroom.  Up until the eighth grade I had considered boys a nuisance at best, but that changed when a cute little blond-haired boy moved into our school district in the eighth grade.  I'll call him Joey (not his real name).  I had a"crush" on him, but I tried to be very cool and nonchalant about it.  Some of my friends had said, "Joey likes you."

Anyway, at this party, we were playing some kind of game, maybe Spin the Bottle.  Bet you have never heard of that game.   A boy would spin the bottle and the girl that the bottle was facing when it stopped spinning was the one that he could go with for a walk outside.  So on one spin, Joey's spin landed on me, and he and I went out with other pairs to have a walk.  As we walked on that spring night, he reached over and put his arm around my shoulder, and no he didn't kiss me.  I never thought of boys as a nuisance after that.  Thank you, Mrs. Dedmon, you were a wonderful teacher!

I'm sure you grandchildren will find this letter particularly amusing.

Love, GrandPat