Forty Years Ago......

I looked like this.......

and Sesame Street looked like this.......

Some things change but some things stay the same. Forty years ago, I was sitting in first grade at Dillwyn Primary School, Mrs. Dunnavent's class. A big television was wheeled in and my entire class got to watch the debut of a new children's show called Sesame Street. I had always enjoyed Captain Kangaroo (Bunny Rabbit was a personal fave) and Kukla, Fran and Ollie. This was certainly a new thing. Learning and t.v. all at the same time.

It was certainly different in those days of 1969. I was attending a school that was not yet intergrated. That would come in 1970. Virgina, and that particular part of the state was the last of the holdouts as far as that would go.

Girls had to wear dresses to school. Pants were only allowed on the coldest of days, and you had to take them off when you got to school, wearing them under your dress.

If you misbehaved, going to the principal could mean a tail whupping. I never got into trouble unless you counted the time that I slammed the classroom door and I had to stand there and open and close it fifty times correctly.

That was also the year that my teacher commented on my report card that I was not reading with "expression". Yeah, like what six year old does? I remember crying over the comment and in turn wanting to show that teacher that I could read with "expression". By the end of the school year I was the best reader in class. By my second grade year, I was the only child to be allowed to go to the library and pick out any and as many books that I wanted. Looking back, that comment really did me a favor. It broke my little six year old heart then.

Funny the things you never forget. Happy Anniversary Sesame Street!! You sure have aged well. Please let me in on your secret.