When you are a member of a class of about 25 kids in a neighborhood school, everyone knows you and you automatically have many good friends. I grew up going to school with the same 25 kids from kindergarten to the sixth grade. By then, it was a refreshing relief to move on to the junior high where one was grouped with other students of the same ability and one could make friends with many of the other kids in town. I'll have to save the challenges of junior high for another day.
Like most of the students in my elementary classes, we knew each other well. We played games on the playground...hop scotch, dodgeball, tag, kick the can, marbles, wiffle ball. There are a few girls I remember fondly because we played together on a regular basis....Ann, Shirley, Linda, Patty, Cheryl, Donna, Frances...and of course, Barbara. The boys rarely let most girls play their games, but we didn't care. In the pretty cotton dresses and Keds that we all wore, we had our own fun girl games. We only played with the boys for "Red Rover" or dodgeball...and, we could hold our own. Only the slowest heavier girls could not dodge the balls the boys could throw at us.
Some of the boys I remember like Kevin, Wayne, Albion, Kim, Jimmy, and Stan were incessant teases and would only let the best, most athletic girls play with them ever. I was one of those girls. I could run, jump, and play wiffleball with the best of the boys. And, I loved that I was just as good as they were. It set me apart from the other girls and made me different. I knew I had the respect and admiration of the boys like no other girl did. I frequently played wiffleball with the boys after school...and I was never the last person chosen for the team.
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