School Daze

My good buddy, Lile (we saw each other EVERY Sunday at church and spent 11 of 12 of our school years together), sent me this picture from her files. What a treasure! My family's home in Decatur, Alabama, was just a block from our grammar school (dear old Gordon-Bibb), so our house was a not infrequent spot for "field trips" during my five years at that school. This is our first grade class with our dignified and beloved teacher, Mrs. Poer. Lile and I have put our heads together and remembered a half-dozen or more of these 56-year-old faces. (Note the April 1955 notation on the photo's top edge.)

Sweet Lile is on the top row, upper right corner, and yours truly is on the top row, two spaces down from Lile—elbows on knees, brow furrowed, cowlick in place. That was a great house with stairs large enough to hold the whole class. Oh, for such a house today!