I was going to start off this blog with a story about the
Great Blizzard of January 1970, then I did a little research and discovered the
big blizzard of 1970 that southern Kansas was actually on February 21, 1971.
So, what I can tell you about the weather of January 1970 is that it varied from
a low of between 3⁰ F to a high of 51⁰ F.
I was in the fourth grade, at his time, and my teacher Miss
Pierce was the prettiest teacher I had ever seen. She looked like a blonde
Marlo Thomas on That Girl with her
flip-curl hair. We were her first class
ever.
One day only the boys were allowed to go to recess because Miss
Pierce needed to talk to the girls alone. I did not have much in the way of
real friends, but the few I did have gave meaningful looks to each other. Apparently,
we needed to learn how to sit like women because we were mostly sitting like
boys with our legs spread out and although our bare legs were under our desks this
was still unladylike and Miss Pierce could see “clear to Sunday.” I was properly
horrified. I was already an out-cast, at least in my mind, by being the only
girl singled out to work ahead in math class; I could very easily be sitting
like a boy, too!
Yes, all girls wore dresses to school no matter what the
weather. It wasn’t even an issue, you just did it.
By the end of the school year I made sure I sat properly in
my chair, in my dress. I had also gone so slow in math class, making sure all
my papers looked good, that I was added back to the regular class. Miss Pierce never
made any mention of how ladylike I was sitting, but she did tell me she was
disappointed in me going so slow in math to make everything look nice and neat.
