Monkey Bars

My sisters and I aattended elementary school and middle school in the same school that my parents attended and from which they graduated. Franklin School is an old brick school not too far from where I lived. When I was there, pictures of classes 20 years before me hung in a little hallway at the front of the school. When we played , we would look up at the faces now parents of my my classmates and I. Old statuettes still sat in the old trophy case hidden by the years of trophies captured in the following years.

Music was held in the basement. Fern Fourman would take the old books off the shelf, and we would raise our voices echoing those of earlier times. We sang "Pickin' Up Pawpaws, put 'em in your pocket" as Fern pounded out the melody on the piano. Everyone loved music.

Normal Rhoades taught PE when I was in middle school. We learned to raise and lower the flag and to fold it. She taught us to shoot archery and to have great hygiene. We learned square dancing as well as ballroom steps.

So many good memories there. However, one of the best was when we got new monkey bars on the playground. Monkey bars! Who could believe such luck! We had stepped out of the past and into the future. Our time had come. I'm not sure that this new play equipment made a difference in our grades, but it was our legacy to leave the school when we moved on. We were the first. The first to slide down the pole, the first to climb to the top, the first to play tag around them. No trophies. Nope. Only brilliant, bright new monkey bars. Did this impact my life? Sure. I still like to play on monkey bars whenever I have the chance.