The Blizzard That Wasn't

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.