My memories (Blanche Courtney/Bea Coxe)

Class of 1963

 

I remember recess (Geneva Elementary)

·        Mrs. Musselman, 2nd grade teacher

·        Running around the statue of the soldier (I think)

·        Playing jacks

·        Playing jump rope

·        Climbing the monkey bars

 

I remember winter

·        Where the snow drifts were up to my waist

·        Walking to school (nearly a mile) and crossing over the RR tracks on N. Broadway, and the wind ripping 40-50 MPH down the tracks

·        Making snow angels

·        Playing “duck, duck, goose”

·        Eating ice-cycles that hung 10 feet from the roof of our house

·        Eating snow, but not once the ashes from the coal furnaces got on it.

·        Skeleton keys to lock our house doors (only locked if we went on vacation)

 

I remember summer

·        Going to baseball games with my dad, and never watching the games, but playing in the creek behind the ball field, and balancing myself as I walked over the big drainage pipe that led across the creek (and sometimes falling in the creek, ugh!).

·        Playing kick-the-can, hide and seek ‘til dark with all the neighborhood kids.

·        Having to weed the garden with my brother and sisters (I hated that job, especially picking off those big ugly tomato worms).

·        Climbing the cherry trees in our backyard (Boy was I a tomboy back then)

·        Geneva-on-the-Lake and the family picnics on hot summer nights.  Playing in the lake until my lips turned blue, but still insisting I wasn’t cold.   I loved gathering drift wood for the fire so that we could roast our hot dogs on sticks and of course roast the marshmallows until they started on fire.

·        Bikes were our main mode of transportation.  The fashion statement we made with the colored plastic streamers hanging from our handle bars.  The noise we created by pinning pieces of cardboard to our wheel spokes with a wooden clothes pin.

·        Working at the Lake on my summer vacations, Eddies Grill, the Italian restaurant, and all the great friends I made.

 

 

I remember

 

·        The little candy shop by the grade school (kinda behind the post office), where you could get a bag full of candy for 5 cents.  Those candy pastel colored buttons on a long strip of paper, and the pink, white, and black stripped coconut candy, and the jaw breakers (those were really good for the teeth).

·        Seeing the first “colored” TV set at Shirley Lastition's house.  Wow!

·        My first Sadie Hawkins dance (I asked John Szewczyk, or should say Sue Crawford made the phone call and pretended to be me).

·        Mr. Unger and all the times he slammed that wooden stick or bat across his desk to get our attention.

·        Hey guys, remember Ms Mazzatenta?

·        Mr. Ayers…..he could yank anyone from their seats in a matter of seconds.

·        After the football games... the rush we made to the school gym for the dances

·        Study hall (our sophomore year) in the cafeteria…..Mrs. Martin……… and all the senior guys chanting “ta-dum ta-dum” with her every foot step as she walked between the tables and aisles.

·        Our class graduation party at Skin Beach……..warm beer, yuk!…..work the next day…….no sleep.

·        Slumber parties.  What fun!

·        “Cooning” ………. Those poor farmers didn’t have a chance!

·        Going ‘steady’ and wrapping mohair yarn around his ring so it would fit my finger.

·        Mr. Caton, Slim Sprague, Mrs. Bernhart.

·        Jeanne’s dress shop, Standard Drug, Reeses. 

·        Graduation day, and all the promises to keep in touch, the ‘goodbyes’, and ‘best of lucks’ spoken, and of course, the tears that were shed, both out of sadness and happiness.

 

I have wonderful memories of growing up in Geneva and sharing that portion of my life with my classmates has always meant a great deal to me.