AZUSA

AZUSA MEMORIES

These are memories not a story so they will not be in order of time.
We lived one block from longfellow school,it went fom kindegarten to the third grade.My third grade teacher was mrs Keller ,she was the sister of the principle mrs williams and her brother taught forth grade at henry dalton school.she was my teacher for two years ,because i flunked the third grade.We did square dancing at recess some times but non of the girls wanted to dance with me because i had several warts on my hands. I was the 2nd fastest runner at our school and the fastest boy,olivia was faster then me.I aways wlked home for lunch,one day i got into a fight of words with pamala mckraken on my may home.pamala was a mouthy girl and i did not like her but i did not use bad language so i was at a disadvantage fighting with her.when i returned from lunch,mrs keller sent me to the principles office.i was accused of calling pamala dirty words and several of pamalas friends said they heard me call her names.those girls were not anywhere near us when we fought ,but the principle was sure i lied because it was four words to my one.i never had much repect for people in authority after that.i had a crush on a girl in my class the 2nd year of third grade ,her name was sandy ?.our neighbor to the south was an invalid,he could not walk.he never talked to me but he did not mind me climbing his pepper tree .that tree was my favorite place to play,it was my space ship and pirate boat.there were also appricot trees in his yard and each summer we kids always enjoyed eating appricots.our neighbor tossed out a jute box one day and we found a lot of coins in it.there was a small market about a mile from us and i would walk to it and buy penny candy.i had two boys in the neighbor hood i played with,david gonzales and warren cockerel.we were great frinds until the 7th grade ,we then drifted apart.when mom and dad went out,we had a baby sitter from about 5 blocks away,when we passed her house in the car dad would honk and wave at her father,he did that for ten years before he waved back.guess even though he was stubborn he never met anyone as stubborn as our dad. I was not doing much better in school in the fourth grade then i did in the third,untill one day my teacher sent me to the library to punish me for disrupting the class.the librarian introduced me to books about the frontier and the old west.i was hooked on books and my school work improved overnight,it was like a lite was turned on.stories of fur trapers , frontier lawmen ,davy crocket,wild bill hickcok,william cody and the alamo were my dinner and lunch and desert.thank you librarian,i never knew your name ,but you touched me more then any teacher ever did. by fifth grade i was one of the smart kids,i was chosen to lead study groups and was asked by my teacher mr wolf to go on a special field trip with one other classmate,the smartest girl in our class. Sixth grade was mrs haines , i met her when i was in the fifth grade. A student of hers caught the bus at my bus stop ,his name was dick bazire and he was a bully.one morning he pushed me to far and he discovered that wrestling beats boxing.i had learned wrestling from my uncle red and from tv.i fought him to the ground and placed him in a scissor lock until he yelled uncle.that morning i got chewed out by mrs haines for being a bully,go figure.