6th Grade - 1980 - 1981

The photo at the very bottom is of my 6th grade class. The one above that is 5th grade. For class photos we usually got to dress up. I'm not sure why they made us wear our uniforms that year. I went to St. John the Apostle school for 9 years. I have some good memories of that place. It was much better than the Catholic high school that I went to. I was thinking about 6th grade as I was watching the very last launch of the space shuttle today because that's when I saw the first one. Our history teacher Miss Mead had it on in her classroom. The top photo is of the hankie that I painted an apple on during Apple Day in her class. I forget what other crafts that we did but I'm pretty sure that we made shrunken heads out of apples too. Our class trip was to Sandy Hook for that grade. I'll be doing a post on that in the future.

2 Deaths And a Bad Fall In The Family

I haven't been at this site much lately because I've been kind of depressed about a few awful things that have happened over the past few month. My Aunt Dorothy died at the beginning of February and a few weeks ago my Uncle Mike also passed away. They are both my Dad's siblings. And last week my Mom fell three times and on the third one wound up breaking her collarbone. She is in a special rehabilitation unit of the hospital now. I just found out today that this is not covered under charity care, only Medicare so we are responsible for 20% of the bill. My mom has so many medical bills as is. I feel so guilty for being mad at her because the reason that she fell was because she overdid it on her as needed meds which she has been doing for many years. It is hard focusing on much of anything even reading blogs and doing posts because of all of this stress. I will try to get back into doing both sometime soon. I miss my friends here.

The top photo is of mom and I at the Danbury Depot Restraunt in the Poconos PA in 1994. The one of Uncle Mike is from the Christmas of 1980 and that's my Aunt Dorothy at my 8th grade graduation party in 1983. I feel so terrible because I didn't really associate with Dad's side of the family much after my parent's divorce in the early 1990s. I only saw them a little in the mid 90's and a few times after that. Uncle Mike was in the VA hospital for many years. He would send me a Christmas card with money in it every year. I wish that I had been closer to them. I have some good memories of them from my childhood like getting to go to movies for free because my aunt worked at the theater and Uncle Mike teaching us lessons like look both ways before you cross the street and don't sit too close to the TV because it will ruin your eyes.

Happy Easter

I made this picture in 1985 based on a set of placemats that a friend of the family gave us in the late 1970s. Originally I did one in 1979 or 1980 but I foolishly used it as part of a project for Spanish. The teacher liked it alot and kept it hanging in the classroom for several weeks. I should have asked for it back. Mom liked my redo enough to put it in a frame. I should have retaken this photo though- I didn't notice how badly it turned out in the one spot. I haven't been able to spend much time on the computer lately but hopefully will get to do more reading and commenting on blog posts soon. My uncle just died last week and my mom is in the hospital because she fell and broke her collarbone yesterday. I hope that everyone has a very Happy Easter.

Christmas Show

I can't really remember much about this show or even if it was a class or Girl Scout trip. I do recall that it was pretty exciting going to New York City and that I had a good time. I can't believe that this was 30 years ago.

Christmas 1980

I was in Home Depot on Saturday and they already have Christmas decorations there. Our cashier at Shop Rite said that they have them at K Mart too. This is just so ridiculous. It's getting earlier every year. I love this holiday but whatever happened to waiting until at least closer to Thanksgiving to put Christmas stuff in stores?

I was thinking about Christmas 1980 when I saw all that. The top 4 pictures are of my family and 2 friends Suzy and Jenny. We were singing Christmas songs for our families. I'm wearing one of my fav dresses. Grandma next door , Uncle Mike, Mom and my brother are in these photos.

The bottom 4 photos are at my Aunt Al and Uncle Gene's house in Bordentown. We had our second Christmas there during that week before New Year's Day. My cousin Mary, Mark and I were singing songs for our family. I'm wearing my favourite sweater that mom knit for me. I love Janet's overalls. Gene David, Ellen and her boyfriend Bruce are also there.

Guilty Pleasure #1 - John Denver

This week is pledging on our PBS station which usually means there are music type programmes on instead of the regular stuff. I found this out when I went to watch Mystery and there was a John Denver special on. I only caught the last 10 minutes or so but kind of wish that I had seen the whole thing. I used to be ashamed to admit that I like his music but I don't care what people think anymore. I hadn't listened to anything of his in a very long time until 2 nights ago when I put this live cd into my discman.

I actually have a tape of it that my Aunt Al dubbed for me in 1980. It was the first tape that I ever really owned. She let me look through her albums and pick out whichever one that I wanted. She had his greatest hits 1 and 2 and I thought about choosing those but I went with An Evening with John Denver instead. About 2 years later I decided that I hate live albums and dubbed my own tape of it trying to leave out as much of the talking parts and clapping as I could. I got the cd version of it for free only to discover that a few of the songs that I like aren't on it which was disappointing.

I do have a special 2 CD box set that mom got me which I haven't listened to in a long time either. I should get that out of my storage container soon. I was laughing a little when I was listening to the live cd and heard him say "Far out!" It is hard to read the little print on the booklet included with this. I miss albums. The 4 songs that I was really getting into was Rocky Mountain High, Rocky Mountain Suite, The Eagle and the Hawk and Take Me Home, Country Roads. I think that one of the songs left off of it is Boy From the Country.

I was thinking about when he was on the Muppets and did Grandma's Feather Bed and the Garden Song. I loved the Christmas special that he did with them too. I used to have the 8-track of that.

My John Denver and Nat King Cole tapes used to be the go-to music for when I was feeling sad and anxious in the 80's and early 90's. Some people may say that his music is super corny and I do agree that it is a bit cheesetastic but I like it anyway.

Childhood Friends

These photos are from around 1980. The top one is Michelle S on the right and Michelle H on the left. We had alot of Michelles in our class. Maybe some of their parents were Beatles fans. This was taken on the playground at our school - St. John the Apostle. I was friends with Michelle S for only about a year and a half. She started hanging out with the more popular girls. I was like the class nerd, I suppose. Michelle H left our school by 7th grade and we didn't really keep in touch afterwards which I regret.

I remember the birthday party/sleepover at Michelle H's house, her love of Grover - she had a Super Grover stuffed animal, and the time she accidentally dropped a meatball with sauce on my white shirt at a Girl Scout cover dish supper. Michelle S had a sleepover too but I didn't go to it and regret this. I was afraid to because the popular girls who picked on me sometimes would be there. I told her that I was sick. Soon afterwards we were no longer friends. I think that she was upset with me one day when she was looking at this School Days book that I had and she didn't see her name on the friends list. I told her that I was sorry and just forgot to write hers but I'm sure she was still upset about this.

The bottom photo is of me with Kim and my brother Mark. Kim was in my brother's class, which was 2 years behind me. We are playing with his Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars. I considered her my best friend back then. We loved playing with stuffed animals. Sometimes we'd pretend that her house was California and ours Florida.

This friendship ended badly. My dad is partly to blame. He was mad at her parents because they weren't taking us to school as much as my parents took her. There was a big arguement and shortly after this Kim and I didn't hang out together anymore. That was sometime in 1982.

Another factor was that she was hanging out with a couple of the popular girls in her class more. Maybe she didn't think that I was cool enough and perhaps those girls wondered why she'd want to hang out with a nerd like me. I'm not trying to do the mind reading thing, just supposing what might've happened. I 've never really been able to feel that close to anyone after that. I know, get over it - this is still pretty upsetting though.

Mark and I

Here is a picture of my brother and I from 1980. We had this in the center of individual photos of him and I on the wall in our living room throughout that decade. I'm wearing my favourite green top and skirt set. I'm sure it was polyester. I also have on the gold cross that my grandma next door got me for my First Holy Communion. I think that we had this photo taken at Sears in Watchung. That seemed so far away when we were kids. It's about a 25 minute drive.