School Days--Uncle Billy

I hope that School Days will be a reoccurring feature in which I ask people about their early memories of school. Everyone has a story to tell about this and I hope to give them a voice here. 

Here is Today's Story
 

Uncle Billy started kindergarten in 1954 when he was five years old.  He went to his neighborhood school in Baltimore that had grades K-6 in it. 

Tell me about starting school or an early school memory.

I walked to school about a mile with other kids in the neighborhood and half of that was a long hill. Miss Hess was our traffic guard and helped us get across the four-lane road we had to cross. There were four other neighborhood streets we had to cross and those were stationed with safety patrols. I was a safety patrol in the fifth grade and the captain of them in sixth grade.

When I was in first grade, they built an addition to the school and doubled the size by adding another class to each grade. They still had only one kindergarten. With the new addition, they added a gym with a stage and a cafeteria. You could buy milk and snacks in the cafeteria but they didn't serve hot lunch. I had a brown bag lunch every day and bought white milk.

I don't remember anything about my school work, but I liked school. I remember the names of my teachers.

Kindergarten: Mrs. Blunt, 

First grade: Mrs. Burkholt, 

Second Grade: Miss Orlardo--she was a new teacher and was pretty and young, 

Third grade: Mrs. Schultz--I liked her best of all, but I don't remember exactly why. I just liked her.
 

I had recess everyday and one time fell off the jungle gym and got a scar on my chin. Also, one time I was a toy soldier in the school play and wore a big hat. I wasn't nervous because I didn't have any lines.