Back to School - Disgruntedly!

September 2, 1964

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill. Sadly. Disgruntedly. (That word was in my Learn Ten New Words a Day book. Doesn't it sound the best? Like a mad pig or something.) I guess I shouldn't say sadly. The first day of school isn't really a sad day. Dad says I should try to come up with exact words for what I want to say and not just pull out whatever's handy. 

But I don't really know how I exactly feel about starting school tomorrow. Every morning I'll have to get up early and try to get my hair to look like something and see if I can grab a skirt and blouse that maybe match. Leigh says clothes should match, but I haven't exactly figured out what she means by matching. I don't care about clothes, but it would be nice if I could comb my hair into some kind of decent order. 

I don't want to tease it and make it into a stiff beehive like Vanessa. You know, she's the cheerleader all the boys swoon over. I guess they like sprayed stiff hair, but at least if I run into a spider web I can shake it out of my hair with my fingers. The spider would just settle down in blissful happiness in Vanessa's hair and wait for the next bug to come along and get trapped in that beehive cone of hair. No more building webs necessary. Not that Vanessa would ever be out in the woods or anywhere she might run into a spider web. But maybe I'll tell her I see a spider in her hair anyway. Just for fun. Sigh, I guess I'd better not. I might get sent to the principal's office on the first day of school. Dad might find some exact words to tell me that was not a good thing

School's really not so bad. And I have my typewriter now. I can type my themes. Well, I could if I didn't make so many mistakes. I did filch this old typewriter eraser out of Zella's trashcan. I took a picture of it for you up above. Zella got a new one. She doesn't like it when the brush gets all sprangled out. Sprangle is a word, isn't it? Sounds exact to me. It's not easy correcting typing mistakes even with it. But boy, are they easy to make! My fingers stumble all over the keyboard, but Dad says with practice I'll get better. Maybe I'll just save my typewriter ribbons for fun writing and do my school writing the old fashioned way with pencil and paper. Mrs. Johnson, the high school English teacher, is picky about the papers you turn in anyway. Not just the words of the assignment either. I've heard the kids talk about her. No papers torn out of a wire bound notebook. Fringed edges send Mrs. Johnson over the edge. No light pencil marks. No messy ballpoint pens. No red or green ink. No creativity allowed in that class. 

Creativity will conquer though. It'll just get slowed down by back to school. Did you like starting school every year? Ever use one of those typewriter erasers or tease you hair into a beehive? Tell me about your school days. It might jump start a little creativity and give me reason to practice my typing. I did figure out how to make a sideways smile. :) So all that pounding on the typewriter keys accomplished something!