Second Grade

Recently my wife was going through some boxes that contained a lot of old family photos. Some of the pictures included my grandparents, parents and other members of our family. In addition, there were some magazines and picture frames too. One thing we did not expect to find was a composition workbook from elementary school with my name on it. The book cover had a sketch of an airplane and railroad train. The word Whiz is printed on the top of the cover along with the words Composition Book at the bottom of the cover. Someone had filled in the blank spaces on the cover including Name – Mark Hopper. School – Ingleside Elementary. Grade – Second.       

The pages inside the workbook revealed that this was a spelling or vocabulary book. There was one hand-written letter on the top of each page. I assume my teacher wrote my name on the front cover and that I wrote each letter and the words on each page. I noticed that I wrote the letters A and B properly, but I wrote the letter C backwards. The words on each page were printed neatly – one word for each line. For example I had written these words for letter T – toy, two, three and that.

It was clear from this introductory second grade workbook that I was destined to be a writer and an author. My vocabulary was expanding and my penmanship was impressive. Of course most of the words were only one syllable like boy, ball, bat, and bed. I also noticed that I did not have any words for the letters Q or Z. I still had a lot more to learn.

I wonder if you have any memorabilia from elementary school. Do you remember the names of your teachers and what school you attended?  Recently, my family gave me a thoughtful gift from StoryWorth for my birthday. This company encourages older adults to write about experiences from their life and preserve them for their children and grandchildren. My assignment is to respond to a different question each week. I am looking forward to completing this year-long assignment. Let me encourage you to share some memories from your life with your children and grandchildren. Write them down and hand them down to your family. They will be glad you did and you will too!

You can read more articles and stories by the author in his book – Let Me Encourage You. It contains 365 stories and articles (one for every day of the year). The price is $25 and includes postage. Order a copy for yourself and as a gift for a friend at markh@efreedb.org.