Oak Grove Elementary School Memories -  by Jenice Graham Benedict

I enjoyed reading Shirley Burleson Espinosa's posts about her activities at Wilshire. The experiences she wrote about were remarkably very similar and parallel to those of us who attended Oak Grove Elementary in NEISD.  Reading her detailed entries helped me recall other grade school experiences, so I thought I would add some extra topics following her great entry. - So here it goes…

Oak Grove: 1961-65

In 1961, Oak Grove Elementary was one of the newest schools in NEISD. Students were pulled from Wilshire, Coker, and Serna for it's enrollment.  I entered into third grade not knowing one soul in the whole school other than my older brother, because my dad had been transferred from Texas, to New Jersey, back to Texas following promotions within AT&T. The school district must not have projected its enrollment very well the year Oak Grove opened, because our classes were already bursting at the seams with about 34 kids in each class. Portable buildings were brought onto campus within a year to relieve the growth numbers of the classrooms. - No wonder why most the teachers were grouchy!  How could anyone teach effectively with that class size enrollment?

The Principal:

Our principal's name was Mr. Pots.  He wore a suit every day to work and was the nicest man… the kind of man we would run up and hug every day. I liked going to the school office. His office was the only place that had a full-time air conditioner.  It was fun to be picked to go to the school office in the mornings to make the school announcements over the intercom to lead our classmates in the pledge of allegiance, prayer, or recite a poem.

The Teachers:

If I recall correctly, there was only one man who taught in the classroom at Oak Grove. He taught 6th grade for several years and later became a principal in the district. All the rest of the teaching staff was female.  The female teachers were allowed to wear dresses or skirts and blouses to work. They could not wear pants, other than the exception of Mrs. Johnson, the P.E. teacher. She could wear pants and Bermuda shorts. Lucky lady!

The classrooms were not built with central air-conditioning in the 60's. In the hot months, (which is ten full months in Texas) the classroom’s windows would be open all day. There was only one large room fan that circulated the air to keep all the kids growing bodies cool in the classroom. The fan was turned toward the teacher's desk most of the time. If we were lucky we got to sit close to the teacher's desk to feel the breeze. We looked out those windows and daydreamed a lot.

There were no female principles in the 60's. Teachers were not supposed to get pregnant while they taught school. If a married teacher became pregnant during the school year, she could remain on the job until she started showing the baby bulge. Once she started showing a bump she was expected to resign her job, and then a substitute would be hired to take her class for the rest of the teaching year. We missed our teachers who had to leave their jobs in the middle of the year, and it was confusing to us why their pregnancy was treated in that manner.

The Students in Our Class Level (1961-65):

I can still picture these people in my mind: Brian Hastings, Jimmy Berry, Sandy Bielstein, Karen Johnson, James Sikes, Beth Childress, Helen Luker, Victor Meinkoth, June Bunger, Steven Elmendorf, Steve Flowers, Donnie Flowers, Roxie Anderson, Carla Thrasher, Jodie Collins, Bobby Able, Liz Doyle, Brian Hangen, Paul Hodges, Trey Nelson, Doug Pautz, Nolan Schubert, Dan Shipley, Frances Swearingen, Josh Hiller, Patrick Rudloff, Missy Molberg, Diane Berry, Bobby Swanagon, Carol Carnes, Bernie Johnson, Simone Childs, Cathy Pope, Terry Sulser, Pam Woods, Tom Leas, Keith Anderson, Linda Duckworth, Mike Ramsey, Tom Reel, Tom Gee, Vickie Mayfield, Keith Valone, Keith Mullins, Ricky Ison, Axel Borg, Carla McAninch, Michael Boger, Margaret Eagan, Melinda Roland, Vincent S.(?), Bill Edminston, Mary Menke, Mike Saling, James Hetherington, Linda Smith, Bob Bailey, Danny Coon, Debbie Parker, Jimmy Stinson,  Biff Young, Chuck Kenworthey, Timmy Touchstone, Bob Olson, Mike Markey, Sandy Gray, Mike McWhirter, and many others as they were in 1965.  ( Forgive me if I have left anyone off this roll call list; Not intentional.  I know there are others, but I am doing good to remember what I have! )  

Do you remember we had class officers?  They were: President- Jimmy Berry; Vice President- Bernie Johnson; Secretary- Debbie Parker; and Parliamentarian- Danny Coon.

I can barely remember that we had a 6^th grade talent show. I recall some singers, dancers, tumblers, jokers, and someone played a guitar (who? Tom Leas?) and we all thought he was really cool like he was a rock star.  It was so “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”!

Yes, by 6^th grade we used our own generational words to describe things amongst ourselves like: “Groovy, Neato, Far Out! Can You Dig It? Way Out! Hip! Spiffy ! What's your bag, Man? Cool Man! Freak-out! Groovy Baby!  Heavy! Outta Sight!, Peace Out, Don't have a Cow, Hang Ten, Uptight and Outta Sight,  That’s Boss!”.  We understood what these meant in our conversations with each other, and we felt pretty HIP for using them. 

We affectionately called each other “IT”, “Rat Fink”, "Spaz", and “Fang” (All silly names we learned from watching the TV show, The Adams Family.)

Travel To and From the School:

Since there wasn't school bus service for our neighborhood area, my mother would take my brother Joe and I to our elementary school in the family car on cold days. Our car was a chunky 1957 red and white Buick Special with lots of shiny chrome on it.  My mom would start the car and let it idle for a while, then pile us in with the family dog and a blanket. We would travel through our neighborhood's curvy streets (no seat belts then) for about a mile until we arrived at Oak Grove.

Sometimes Joe and I just walked to our school in the mornings, but on most days we rode our bikes. (Yes, we had the Peewee Herman style heavy bikes.) Joe's bike was red; My bike was white and purple. We had the one mile walk and bike ride timed just perfect. All our books, lunch, and things went into our bike baskets that were located either on the front of Joe's bike or the side-saddle baskets behind my bike's seat. When we arrived at school, we parked our bikes in the school's bike racks or lawn area. We left them there without worrying about locking them, because we knew they would be there waiting for us when school was over. No one would think of stealing from a little kid at school in the 60’s on our side of town.

In the mornings, we had to be careful what clothes we chose to wear while riding our bikes to school. In Texas, sometimes it was chilly in the morning, but then the day would get warm in the afternoon.  If we didn't layer our clothing right, we would burn up while riding our bike home in the afternoons and become really hot and thirsty.

After we got home from school we did not have to go anywhere for lessons or organized sports, until my brother and I were older. My mom would have cookies, apples, or some snack waiting for us. Then it was time to play outside in the front yard or street with the neighborhood kids of all ages. Most of the time, we played Panther-Antelope, a type of chase. We usually did not go inside our friend's houses because their mothers were busy, getting things done in the house, just like our mother. It was more fun to play outside anyways. There were no rules to abide outside, no parental adults telling us how to play ‘nice', and there was no fear of the ‘boogie-man' lurking to get us. Sometimes we played whiffle ball or skated on the bumpy streets with the medal type skates that cranked down tight onto our shoes. We would tighten the skates with skate keys and fastened the straps around our ankles. When we were thirsty, we drank water from the garden hoses outside. My puppy and the neighborhood dogs ran with us with their long tongues hanging out, showing their dog smiles. They wagged their tails with glee while playing with us. We collected rocks, caught lizards, horny toads, butterflies, and lighting bugs.

We knew to return home when it was almost dark. Our mom would have a home cooked meal ready for us. (No pre-bought fast food entered our doors for dinner at home.) Our dad got home from work at about the same time every single day. At 6:00pm is when we would sit down for a family dinner together, say a prayer holding hands, and discuss our school day. While eating, we had a conversation together and we looked at our father and mother respectfully at the dinner table, and they did the same to us.  After dinner, we did our homework and were allowed to watch just one TV show a night… if we were not in trouble and our grades were good. 

Some of these shows we watched were: Flipper, Mr. Ed, The Addams Family, I Dream of Jeannie, Gommer Pyle, Bewitched, Hogan’s Heroes, The Ed Sullivan Show, Batman,  Gilligan’s Island, McHales Navy, Rawhide, My Favorite Martian, The Rifleman…and the list goes on. During our years in elementary school, our televisions shows began to convert from black and white to show in color.

Those were the most carefree, fun days of my childhood, and I was so blessed to have experience them. I am sure you feel like that about your 60's childhood, too.

My Loyal School Dog:

Sometimes Bootsie, our black 20 pound mixed-dachshund, would follow us to school.  There were no leash laws and everybody's family pet was allowed to roam and be free. Our Bootsie loved children, and consequently, he looked forward to attending Oak Grove School more than Joe, and I did!  Any time he could, he would follow us to school or make a dash on his own accord. When Bootsie completed his morning jog to school, I would have to telephone my mother from the school's black office phone, to come get him and take him home. There wasn't any ‘call-waiting' back then, so if I missed Mom with the phone calls Bootsie would then be free to run after all the children on the playground. Meanwhile, I had to go to my classroom to learn. He would be just fine and happy about that scenario until the school janitor would catch him and chunk him into the utility boiler closet at school for doggie-jail confinement. I would hear him barking and yipping all day long while I was in school. After the school day was over, I would find the janitor to open the door of his prison cell, and Bootsie would obediently follow me while I rode my bike back home.

When you are a kid, you don't know to appreciate the gift of loyalty and a free loving heart. But today, I miss that happy-go-lucky, Heinz-57 dachshund and all the tricks he would gladly perform, just for me.  He lived his cheerful life for 18 years, and he loved me till his last tail-wag. He died when I was away in college, but I was able to come home to help my parents bury him under the shade tree in our backyard.

The School Cafeteria:

There was no central air in the school. The school cafeteria was an echoic, multi-purposed large room with big fans perched high to circulate the hot humid breeze around, along with some houseflies that constantly buzzed the lunch tables. When it was time for lunch, we came into the cafeteria one grade level at a time and sat in our designated class areas. The people who brought their sack lunch would get to sit down at the tables first. For those of us buying our lunch, we either paid real money for our lunch, or we used a pre-paid paper ticket for a month's worth of lunch meals. The cafeteria lady would punch a hole with her hole-puncher through the card, indicating each meal we consumed. These paper tickets got pretty flimsy and dirty being held daily in our sweaty little hands while standing in line for our food…..which meant we probably didn't wash our hands before we ate. (Don't want to think about that…)

The school food was...well.... just school food served on a divided, one-piece, light green, plastic tray. There were some favorite meals that we all looked forward to every week, but none of it was considered very healthy or ‘green' in today's standards.  On Wednesdays the cafeteria served cheese enchiladas with beans and a huge block of buttery corn bread; on Fridays it was Fish-Day so all the Catholics could have their fried fish intake that day; another favorite of ours was the peanut butter cookies for dessert or an ice cream sandwich; and our very favorite was good 'ol Frito Pie smothered with greasy yellow cheese and Frito corn chips.  Yum-Yum! These delectables were all washed down with either whole white milk or chocolate milk. Milk initially was served to us in little milk bottles with cardboard stoppers, but a few years later the milk was served to us in the waxed-paper mini cartons.  Sometimes we were disappointed because the milk tasted curdled. There were no snack machines, soda dispensers, or any conveniences for the students to choose from.

While eating our lunch, we could talk to our friends and compare what they were eating with the sack lunch kids. We socialized and sometimes we could sit next to our latest boyfriend at the time. In 5th grade, I had a crush on a 6th-grade boy for a couple of weeks. I thought he was perfect in every way. He was handsome, smart, good at sports, funny, and he actually talked to me! And did I say he was handsome? – Anyway, I saw him in the cafeteria line getting his lunch tray and I watched him sit down to eat his meal. I was so mesmerized with him….until…until…. I saw him eating his food. Yuck!!  He ate like a caveman with his hands, talked with his mouth full, and the food was falling out of his mouth. He even stabbed at his food with his utensils. Oh my my!…What a disappointment.  I decided right then and there that I did not like him anymore. My crush was over. On to finding a civilized man!

Square Dancing Fridays:

We Oak Grove Acorns got to perform square dancing indoors on Fridays, lead by the music and P.E. teachers. The students looked forward to square dancing to the old-style fiddle or Texas country music, even though it wasn't the latest Beatles or Beach Boys' rock and roll tunes. We usually wore nicer clothes and shoes that day to be more festive for the occasion. At square dancing, the girls would stand at their dance spots in the middle of the cafeteria room, and the boys were told to pick a partner.... but a different partner for each dance. The boys were also told, "NOT TO RUN" to their female selection, so the boys 'sped-walked' to their girl choice. Learning the dance involved twirling, skipping, clapping, and footwork, while doing ‘the promenade' to music. Many of the dances required the boy and girl partners to hold hands or lock arms, which always resulted in nervous giggles and BIG goofy smiles. It was a very innocent social experience for our age, and it still brings laughter to my heart.

Recess:

Since Oak Grove was newly constructed, there was lots of undeveloped raw land and woods around the school.  We had running trails through these woods that were great for hiding and chase. Tetherball, four-square, jump ropes, hula hoops, and spring baseball was important to us at recess at Oak Grove. (I don't remember soccer being played.) The boys would play flag football.  The girls would wear shorts under our pretty 60's style dresses, so we could be active in a modest way. If we forgot our shorts, we couldn't do as much activity and we knew it wasn't going to be a very fun recess or P.E. day. 

Many of us played 'horses' and chased each other at recess time.  I wore my hair in a high ponytail for that very reason. The boys would try to catch us and 'round us up', but I was so fast that it rarely happened for me.  I had an elderly 3rd-grade teacher who wore lots of white powder, old perfume, and red lipstick. She told me "girls do not run", and disapproved if I ran and sweated (glowed). She wanted me to hula hoop or just chat with the girls. She would stop me when she saw me playing horses and tell me, "ladies don't run like that!".  I would respond, "Yes Ma'am", in my Texas accent, blink my big blue eyes, walk away from her, and then go ahead a run despite her opinion. No one was going to tell me to not play 'horses'.... my favorite animal of all!

We also played the game 'King On The Mountain', unsanctioned by the teachers. Since Oak Grove was a brand-new school, with lots of raw dirt hills piled up in mountains for reserve landscaping usage. We would climb up those hills and then we would shove/sling our classmates off the top of the dirt mountain, watching as our friend tumbled down to the bottom becoming filthy dirty, but they were laughing all the way.  Lots of shirts were torn during this game.

Even though I was a little, tiny thing I was pretty good at this King On The Mountain game, despite my size. If my cat-eye glasses weren't already bent and crooked from playing tetherball, then they surely got misshaped after I was launched down the dirt pile a few times. The boys were especially good at this mountain activity and very celebratory when victorious. We would do this rough activity until the teachers yelled at us and told us to "get down", but somehow we would sneak back up the dirt pile, and it would start all over again. - The fun did stop one day after some kid broke his arm while falling. Recess was never as much fun for us after that.

Becoming a School Patrol:

Becoming a school patrol was a big deal for the older student in school.  First we had to be on the Honor Roll and behave well in class. Then we could be selected to be a patrol. When we got selected to be a patrol, we were entrusted to wear a red sash and a shiny badge, indicating we were similar to the policemen of the school. It was awesome power for a kid! We used traffic signs at crosswalks, telling drivers to slow down or stop. Little kids minded us and even big adults did. It was fun to officially ‘boss people around' yelling, “STOP, GO, or YIELD”.  Great fun!

The Permission To Watch 'THE FILM':

About the permission to watch the first film..... All the girls were asked to return the parental permission paper in a sealed envelope to watch the secretive film about females and their changing bodies. It was really special that we got to be in a private meeting with just girls. No boys were allowed, because this film was supposed to enlighten us about the biological functions of our delicate womanly bodies. While watching the film, I was so confused about the diagrams and information. Becoming a grown-up woman was not something I had spent too much time thinking about or wanting to do. I was a calendar year younger than everyone in my class, rather small for my age, and happy to stay in my 'Peter Pan-ish, never-ending, Neverland childhood frame of mind'.

I don't think I learned much from ‘The Film', but I do know that our rapport was different with our friendships with the boys after that film. When we 'Little Women' got back into our classrooms, the boys had foolish looking grins on their faces and I thought it was hard to look the boys in their eyes without getting red-cheeked and embarrassed… at least for a couple of days afterwards. 

P.E. Class and My Most Favorite Teacher:

At Oak Grove we had a fantastic P.E. teacher named Mrs. Betty Johnson, who was a real promoter of good health, sports, gymnastics, and zealously supported females participating in physical activity events. She was a positive mentor for me and my kind of active lady! Mrs. Johnson could expertly execute anything she asked of us to do in sports being small and very athletic herself.  Many times she used me as the 'example' whenever she wanted to show the class how to do chin-ups, sit-ups, high jumping, tumbling, running long jump, etc. She raced me against the older boys in school to give me competition because no Oak Grove girl could beat me in track & field.  She encouraged me to participate in the summer NEISD track & field camps. There I met and competed against girls from Coker - Loyce Bates, Pam Merkin, Penni Mobley, and Cindy Nobles.  We won many track activities at those camps…. but that stopped for all girls in junior high.

There wasn't an official junior high or high school women's volleyball, track, soccer, softball, and basketball teams for girls in NEISD in 1960-1971.  (There was only tennis and swim/dive teams for the girls later when we were at MAC.) Because of this, Mrs. Johnson was thinking ahead for me and held a special conference with my parents. She talked with them about the possibility of hiring a track & field trainer to train me for track events and to eventually compete in the Junior Olympics. After hearing what Mrs. Johnson suggested, my parents just looked blank at her in silence… (Sounds of crickets could be heard, I am sure.).....because she might as well have told them that they should send me to the moon!  Needless to say, my parents did NOT follow up with that suggestion. They could not imagine driving me all the way to Houston for training, and for all the track & field trials on the weekends.  Thus ended my budding track career and a plausible pursuit of a track scholarship in college! 

 A couple of side notes:  I did understand my parent's frame of reference in the 60's. The track training idea was an unheard of financial and logistic challenge for parents to do for one child in that day in time. Later, my mother told me (when I was much older) that my dad was very opinionated about me not training for the Junior Olympics. He was an avid reader about science, politics, world events, and about communistic Russia. He was quoted saying, "Jean, we need to get that daughter of ours into some other sport. No daughter of mine is going to run braless in track and field events, looking like those brawny soviet girls on growth hormones." - I always thought he was kind of irrational for thinking like that, but today the public is very aware of professional sports pressure to use performance enhancing drugs.  It is still in controversy today. So my dad had a lot of foresight to be concerned for me.

To my parent's credit, they did sign me up for tennis lessons in San Antonio, so I did get to play tennis starting in 5th grade. Later I earned a varsity spot at MacArthur ....one of the few female sports that NEISD offered in 1969. (*The rest of my story is in the General Forum, Topic 1 Woman's Rights in 1971.)

Many years later Mrs. Betty Johnson became a vice-principal at MacArthur. I had heard that she was working at MAC, so I made an appointment to visit her. It was nice to visit and connect adult to adult, and I told her thank you for being a passionate teacher who had a caring, positive influence on my life. 

                                                   ***********************

Well, MAC Friends…..There are more sagas to tell, but it is your turn to tell your unique stories.  Shirley, Cuddy, Steve, and Jenice can't be the only brave ones to initiate a MAC User Forum discussion board… Right?  Come on and give it a try! We are getting to that stage in life that Father Time will pay us a visit to dull our memories someday, and we are going to wish we could write a story about our life but not be able to recall enough of it anymore.

Remember friends.... we will never be this young again in our lives…..so ‘GO FOR IT' in everything we do from now on! Enter every race. It does not matter if we win or lose…..No holding back for us at this stage of the game!

Hugs to all,

Jenice Graham Benedict       11-17-14

Great job Jenice & Shirley & all !!! I just posted this on the message board, but Jenice had suggested to also use this board & to copy & paste it here, which I agree is good to add to the thread of memories ...before we are all too senile to remember! hehe.

In a hurry now, but will look for old photois & add more when can! Also putting a reply post by Robert & myself:

"Hi all! Thank you Robert Cuddy, for posting the old pics of Oak Grove Elementary! The Oak Grove Acorns we were titled. Good work Robert.

The first thing came to mind when I saw those old desks was the Air Raid Shelter practice drills during the Cuban Missle Crisis & threat of nuclear attack. So in case of an incoming nuclear misslie, we were to crawl under those little desks & we would be perfectly safe. Yeah...right, LOL. Kind of like holding your breath & closing your eyes & not even an atomic bomb would bother us. hehe.

I showed my wife the pics (I was in one of them) & told her that story. I also remember playing football in the dirt & rock-filled new football field...missing the grass. Who needed grass on a football field when we had great brown dirt, flint rocks everywhere, cactus, & stickers patches all over(thorns). We all did great in football because we were so darned scared of getting tackled in a cactus patch, or on a sharp flint rock, or a sticker patch...or on a rattlesnake. haha

I also remember us boys poking the cactus apples with a stick & flinging em' on other kids in the field & each other. At times there were all-out crowded "cactus apple wars".

My good friend Ben (Biff) Young & I were in hog heaven when we had enough money from the Coke bottles we collected(from the new houses under construction down on Wahada Dr. & Regency Place), & cashing them in at the Mr. M Icehouse...got enough money to buy 2 Frostie Root Beers & sunflower seeds. Ahh that was the rich life. hehe

"Too many other memories & good people to mention...thanks to all there for your part in the fun! Oh, for everyone still here: tell the new people to central Texas that the correct language is not "convenience store"...it is an "ICEHOUSE". Ok, got it? LOL Bob"

Robbert, Bobby, Carla, and Debbie, and MAC friends....

Those were some great Oak Grove Elementary and school memory posts that were added by Bob Abel and Bob Cuddy. Of course we Texans said "icehouse" for the convenience stores!  Same thing goes for 'icebox' for the refrigerator.  We understand perfectly what you were talking about and still use those words today in Texas.

Bobby, sorry if I pinched you in 3rd grade.  I don't really remember but please except my appoligies if I really did.    

Cuddy, I didn't know you lived in South Dakota for a while. Gosh,.... Burrrrr!