Reliving Third Grade

Facebook never ceases to amaze. You might get transported all the way back to third grade in the click of a mouse. It happened to me this week.

I clicked on to facebook to see who might be hanging around and I saw I had mail in my postbox. I get excited about someone having something to tell me. I clicked it open. The note went something like this:

"Hi. Are you the Heidi Booher, who lived in Hamilton, Illinois as a girl? Because you look an awful lot like her. We were both in Mrs. Kennedy's third grade class." It was signed, Lisa Deyoung.

I felt this little shock on the inside like the one that zaps my finger in the winter when I reach out to open my car door, but instead of being annoyed at the surprising jolt, this e-mail made me smile with curiosity. I did live in Hamilton, Illinois as a kid, but I couldn't help wondering if I really looked like I did in third grade? Was this good or bad? I decided to go with, "it is what it is", and I e-mailed back.

"Yes, I am the Heidi Booher from Mrs. Kennedy's third grade classroom in Hamilton, Illinois. I lived at #6 Hillcrest Drive...." and I went on to name about ten classmates that I remembered, "...but remind me who you are again- I can't seem to place your name."

She e-mailed back some details about herself that triggered the opening of my mental third grade file and there she was! I could picture her. She filled me in on which of our third grade friends got married and who was still together. She updated me on the town, which is no longer the heartbeat of America that it was in the early '70s, but is depressed, suffering from the fact that once thriving industries have moved out of the larger, surrounding cities. She had just returned from visiting her 80 some year old father, who still lives in Hamilton, but she told me she likes to remember it how it used to be when we were young and in the third grade.

Those are warm memories for me too. Our brick, three bedroom, walk-out ranch, in which my father had built a fireplace flanked by a bookcase (I was so proud of him for that), sat on a large lot with several trees in the back. The side yard was a steep, wooded hill that led to a flowing creek. I loved to wander down into the creek bed and look for geodes. These rocks are gray, tan or brown, distinctly round and have ridges forming patterns of concentric circles on the outside, but when cracked open they are a treasure trove of quarts crystals. The sparkly, jewel- like interior might be clear, topaz or amethyst. I got pretty good at spying these rocks and when I did, I'd splash through the creek to the bank, run uphill as quickly as I could, scrounge around in the garage for my dad's hammer and start crackin'. Sparks would fly as the hammerhead engaged the rock. They were hard to break. Many were disappointing duds that smelled faintly of sulfur and did not sparkle. But every once in a while I'd find the geode of great price- the one that reflected the light off cascading, pointed crystals like a million diamonds piled in my cupped hand. That one would be proudly displayed in my mom's rock garden.

When the sun hit the geode crystals they really lit up one, tall stalk of corn we once grew in that garden, from a single kernel we decided to plant to see if it would grow on the rocks. It did. The strong stalk had corn with long silks hanging out the ears and was topped with a tassel that gently swayed in the breeze! I loved that cornstalk. Anyway, the geodes were fantastic, but we didn't understand how special they were. We took them for granted, thinking we could always find them anywhere, like they were a dime a dozen or something. That was incorrect.

If you click on the link to Hamilton, Illinois above, you'll see they have an annual geode festival. I don't think that was happening in 1970. I wasn't aware that this area, right across the Mississippi River from Keokuk, Iowa, where eagles nested in the trees by the dozens and fished in the wide river by the locks, was renowned for its geodes until 20 years later when I was with our kids at a rock and mineral show in Holland, Michigan. There in one of the display cases I spied geodes, halved and sparkling. A slip of paper sat beside each to identify where it had been found. The I.D. papers said, Hamilton, Illinois.

My best year in Hamilton might very well have been the year I was in third grade. By that time, we'd been there for almost three years and I had lots of friends. Some lived in our sub-division, so I could load up my barbies and pedal on over to Dawn's house or up the hill in the opposite direction to Gina's. My mother had convinced my dad to get chickens and they were hatching chicks in the backyard. That was so exciting! Until the neighbor behind us complained that our rooster kept visiting her lawn, then we had to get rid of the chickens. Our across the street neighbors were especially wonderful, occasionally inviting me over to share pancake breakfasts with them. Looking back, it seems to me that all our days spent in Hamilton were sunny.

It was there I learned all good things do come to an end. My dad's job moved us to Michigan the summer after fourth grade. I remember feeling excited to see a new state, but sad at the same time. After we moved, I was decidedly, 100% sad. I missed my friends. I soon found out there are wonderful people wherever you go, but I never forgot the Hamilton years of my childhood. We never found a geode anywhere in Michigan- ever.

After I graduated from high school, in Michigan, my mom and dad presented me with a gift-a quilt. Mom had sent blank, white squares of material to people who had shaped me into the person I'd become. Every square represented a piece of my life. My dentist embroidered some teeth on a square.

My mom's cousin embroidered an outline of her A-frame cottage in northern Michigan, where I'd once spent a summer.

But the jaw dropping surprise came when I saw squares that had been sent to Hamilton, Illinois. A ballet teacher embroidered a dancer, the neighbors, Jim and Rosalie Walker, two doors down from #6 Hillcrest, created an outline of their playhouse where my sisters and I would sometimes play, Bonnie and Red Rogers, from across the street designed the pancake breakfasts into a fabric picture, my first grade teacher, Virginia Nelson and my second grade teacher, Mrs. Clark embroidered a book and schoolhouse respectively.

One square displayed the signatures of nine childhood classmates, by this time in their senior year at Hamilton High. My mom had asked the kids to sign the square and send it back, then she embroidered over their names. In second, third and fourth grades, I had a big crush on Joey Coulter, his name appears dead center among the girlfriends.

Finally, in the upper right hand corner of the quilt, one row down, I found a picture of a 3rd grade math book. The signature underneath it reads: Mrs. Pearl Kennedy.

Thank you, Lisa DeYoung, my newest facebook friend from afar, for bringing back this refreshing flood of precious memories. It's interesting to know that I haven't changed a bit- since third grade.