Piggy Tales: Remodeling, first date, and beloved teacher

10th Grade

   Wow!  Time is flying by and I'm already a Sophomore in high school If you're just stopping by, this is my12th of 15 post that will focus on my 10th grade year, as a part of Jana's Mommy's Piggy Tales. I'm glad you stopped by and would love to hear about a memory you had from 10h grade.

School:  Ah, this was a good year. I had Journalism with Mrs. Paine and typing, chemistry, band that I remember. I was still in band and we were now playing the orchestra for our school plays, but we had a new band director (a former Army Sargent), and he had little respect from the students.  Typing:  I never seemed to type fast enough - my fingers would stumble over each other, as I typed on our NEW typewriters.  They were a new style that had a ball with all the letters on it instead of all these metal extensions that clacked as you pushed on the keys. Mrs. Huff would inspect fingers as she walked the rows and If your fingernails were too long, she would have you stop and she would CLIP your nails in front of everyone!  I would later use my typing skills to help pay for things in college as I typed LONG papers for other students.  I learned that mistakes meant typing the ENTIRE page over because correction tape didn't make the page look very professional. 

Myself and Connie

Journalism:  I loved this class.  I took it with a good friend, Connie, and I had no idea how much it would impact my life.  I guess it wasn't so much about learning about the history or types of journalistic writing or how an article is written, but rather it was about the teacher.  Mrs. Paine was a middle aged instructor had a love not only for the subject she taught (Journalism, newspaper, English, and yearbook), but she loved her students.  It was here that I found a teacher that actually believed in me (I'm sure she made each of her students feel this way). It was here that I began to change my dreams of becoming a veterinarian (I knew I couldn't handle the math)  to a career in writing. 

Home:  We were adding on!  Mom had been saving and scrimping since she started working.  I really don't remember ever being hungry or going without any needs, she carefully budgeted for expenses and somehow managed to save some money to redo the kitchen and dining room.  We started dreaming, talking about what we wanted, visiting mobile home and open houses on Saturdays gave us a vision.  She got for a short term loan, and we started laying out the plans.  It was exciting the day that the contractor, Mr. McCoy arrived to start building and doing reconstruction.  Though we were losing our front porch, we were gaining a REAL updated kitchen with new stove and twice the cabinet space! When the dry wall was up, we all wrote our names and graffiti before the wall paper went up. 

Jay and I at the Snowball Dance

Turning 16: Mom had a rule that there was no dating until I was 16, and I was always thankful for this as some boys could be quite yucky.  One thing about going up for visitations was I got to spend time with Bryan and get to know his new buddies from my rival highschool better and mostly they treated me like the little sister.  There was Dennis (majorly smart and funny), Brian (musically inclined) and Jay. I thought Jay was kinda cute, but I wasn't into boys.  Over the next two years our relationship grew, but it never progressed past very good friends.  We had lots of fun together, I went to his Prom and he went to school dances with me.  He always had a huge laugh and I enjoyed spending time with him, but I never could get the idea of kissing and holding hands as being anything but gross.  Frequently,  he would send me flowers,at school and we spent many afternoons together at my Mom's or his grandma's. Sometimes he would try to sneak up on us as we were doing dishes in the kitchen and bang on the window to scare us.  One time we saw him coming and had a cup of ice water ready.  When he banged on the window, we threw the cold water on him!

Well, thanks for staying to the end of my 10th grade Piggy Tale.  I hope you got a giggle, or maybe my memories sparked some of your own memories.  If you would like to read more Piggy Tales from other ladies, hope on Over to Mommy's Piggy Tales.   If you would like to join in and start recording your own Piggy Tales, contact Jana at Mommy's Piggy Tales to find out how  (jannajoy25 (at) hotmail.com). she has a second session starting up in October.  If for some reason you missed any of my previous posts, you can find them here.

• Birth Story
• Preschool-Kindergarten 
• 1st Grade    Heading South
• In-Between Early Memories 
• Second Grade  Streakers, Metal Trees, and Good and Plenty
• Third Grade    Goodbye City Life, Hello Rural Life
• Fourth Grade - Moonshine, Gardens, and Uncle Zeb
• Fifth Grade - Elvis, my own room, and small town life
• Sixth Grade -Freedom Train, Far away friends, and skinny dipping  
•  Seventh Grade -Painful goodbyes, wobbly beginnings, and church camp
• Eighth Grade:Muddled memories, free time, and horses  
• Ninth Grade:John Denver, snakes, and more changes.