Re: Any Jefferson Elementary School Alumni Out There?

04/05/22 - posted by David Contreras

I started kindergarten in 1953 and had Mrs.Decatur. She told us her father engineered the cross on Mt. Davidson. I got busted to the bench for running with one of those clay bubble pipes in my mouth that she handed out at recess. I remember the principal throwing balls out the window at one of the upper floors at recess. I also remember that we got to go out to the modular buildings in the yard once a week to hang out with the special-needs kids. I dug it because they had a kiln and we got to make little clay bowls and put a marble in the bottom that would melt in the kiln when the clay was fired. My Mom died at 98 in 2018 and when I went through her things, the little bowl I had made, melted marble and all, was among them. I had a loud voice and when my Mom would come to help out in the kindergarten, she often found me sitting on a chair in the corner. Mrs. Decatur didn't cotton to too much loud yakking. I was a Green Bug in some play, maybe in first or second grade, and Gary Oyen was a Bee. We moved to the Outer Sunset in '56 and I finished elementary school at Mark Twain. The principal's husband was Santa Claus in each of the Christmases I spent there.