Childhood memories!

Today is my long time friend, Jackie's birthday! I won't say how old. . . but she's four months older than me!  We go back a long way, to third grade at Myrtle Grove Elementary School.  This morning, I wished her Happy Birthday on facebook.  Here is her reply (some of these I had forgotten!)




"I think that was Mrs. Burchfield's class, right?  Remember the field trip to Wakulla Springs?  You loved the outdoors way back then.  I remember you bought a bird book.  LOL!  And our Girl Scout outing where we dug a trench and fixed our lunch in aluminum foil packs and put it over the fire?  And going home from school for lunch and having hamburgers that your mother made with a press.  That always amazed me!  And Mr. Howles' class, 4th grade.  You were the teachers pet.  He let you write on the blackboard every day.  You always had the best handwriting.  And spending the  night.  We sat in bed and played with those crazy magnetic pads where you put hair and a mustache on the bald man and then flipped it up to erase it.  And Whitmire Cemetery and the ghouls.  We were scared.  We always had such fun!  It's great to have old friends that remember your childhood!  Thanks for the birthday wishes!  Wish you were here.  We could go and get in trouble.  Ha Ha!"


The Whitmire Cemetery story, unfortunately, is real and creepy.  I had never heard the term "ghoul" before at that stage in my life.  It means someone that digs up graves.  (I told you it was creepy.)  The man dug up multiple graves before his wife turned him in to police.  Yes, he was a mental health case.  She noticed that every time a new grave was disturbed, her husband came home late at night and he was dirty. 


I had forgotten the trip to Wakulla Springs.  I wonder if that is still open?  It is in Florida, near Tallahassee.  We rode glass bottom boats that let you see what was under the water. . . all kinds of fish and marine life.


Yes, I loved the outdoors back then.  There are few things I love better than getting out in the woods, a long way from civilization and noise of the everyday world, either on foot, in a canoe or kayak, or on a bike!