HOME EC

HOME EC: I attended Parkview Junior Highschool from fifth through eighth grade. In order to graduate eighth grade one had to know the eight parts of speech; um,,noun, verb, adverb, pronoun, preposition, quark, matter, antimatter. No? Sixth grade was Mrs. Smith. She had an old phonograph from 1880's and she had an old Vaudeville bit about two Swedes talking to each other on the phone. They could not understand each other. I remember one comment, “Not the devil, the wind, the wind, what goes shwoosh!” There was also a song about Barney Google with the goo goo googly eyes. His name was Barney Oldfield one of the first to race Ford racecars. Dad knew the song and would sing Barney Google. In the seventh grade, I took Home Economics. The only thing we ever cooked was milk toast, which is disgusting, only a toothless invalid would find any value in such a treat. What a waste, we would havse been baking cookies or something delicious. The whole class was L shaped; the sewing machines on one side and ovens on the other. We had two projects for sewing. The first was hemming a tea towel. We were shown how to pull a thread and make a clear path for tearing or cutting. My fabric was so rotton that is tore crooked, but I adjusted. The final project was to sew a simple dress. I had blue fabric. I don't remember but Mom probably washed it and had me help stretch it into shape. Then I cut out the fabric and put it together. The plann was to have a fashion show at the end of the year. I took it home. Mom looked it over and promptly tore it apart and sewed more neatly than I had. I do not remember if I ever wore it again. More than likely, I did. That building was torn down in the eighties and replaced with a nice post office. I have a brick somewhere saved from the demolition. Fourth grade was at Wardwell School. The third floor was condemned. Lunch room was in the basement. The building was purchased by the Catholic Church. Parking was saved for the church. A bank and the city Library were built on the rest of the lot. I always wanted to slide down one of the fire slides but no such luck.