THOUGHTS ON A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME

     I started sixth grade at Westmore Elementary School in Fairfax, Virginia the fall of 1958.  A new student in a new school we had moved to Ardmore subdivision that summer.  My new friends were Pat McGhee who was in Mrs. Lowe's class and I was in Miss Ponton's class with Barbara Conklin, Libby Mauldin, Karen Hennage, Kathy Lam and Sherry Boyd.  Miss Ponton used to say "vegaTA'bles" and was from Richmond, Virginia.
     Karen Hennage was tall and pretty and very blond and she and Larry Erwin were a sixth grade "couple".  Karen took ballet and Larry took tap dance lessons and when we had a class talent show both of them performed.  Karen was a twin.  Her brother William was called Spooky because their birthdays were on Halloween.  Karen and Spooky's parents worked in a local Northern Virginia lab but I don't know exactly what they did.  One day Spooky brought to school two cute little rats which we kids admired and played with all day  and the next day he brought in their dissected parts.
     Libby Mauldin I had known in first grade in Alexandria, Virginia when we were both students at Stonewall Jackson Elementary School and our teacher was Mrs. Brown.  When we reunited at Westmore we would continue all the way through to graduate together in 1965 from Fairfax High School.  I, myself, was in  first grade in three different schools.  In Alexandria, Virginia  they had the high and low system and because my birthday was November 30th I started first grade in February at Douglas Mac Arthur Elementary School with Mrs. Faulk as my teacher.  I don't remember Libby at this school.  I was in first grade from February to June and had summer vacation then finished first grade at Stonewall Jackson the next September to February because the school boundaries had changed.  I graduated to second grade but my parents moved to Popes Head Road in Fairfax in March and when I started school at Fairview they didn't have the high/low grade system.  Since I had just started second grade, and the second graders at Fairview were ending their year, they put me back to first grade for three months and I started second grade the next school year.  I'm sure something similar to this happened to Libby since we both ended up in the sixth grade together at Westmore.
     Kathy Lam was my best friend in Miss Ponton's class.  Her parents were divorced and she and her brother lived with their mother.  I had never met anyone whose parents were divorced much less who had a working mother.  Her father was a record promoter for Decca records and she had hundreds of records but I don't remember anything she had that was a popular song at the time.  I think they were all demos.  Kathy's father got us on a TV rock and roll show in Baltimore the August before 9th grade.  She invited me and our friend Danny Snider and Kathy asked Billy Hawk to be her dance partner.  This teen dance party TV show was the show writer/director/producer John Waters based his movie "Hair Spray" on and is now a Broadway musical..
     Barbara Conklin was a tiny, pretty girl with thick bangs and a long blond pony tail.  She had the nicest mother who sponsored us when we girls decided to start our own club which we called The American Girls.  We didn't do much but did have a door to door bake sale.  Barbara's father worked with plastics and built us a clear cabinet for our classroom where we displayed treasures such as fancy rocks and things.  She also had a play house he had built for her in her back yard that actually had windows and a door.  Cool.
     Sherry Boyd  had a great sense of humor and was an "artist" like me.  She was the first person I had ever met that had a color TV and her father escorted us on our field trip to the Smithsonian at the end of sixth grade.  Her father also took Sherry and me for our interview at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D. C. our senior year when we both applied and were accepted.  I did attend the next year but Sherry didn't.  In Miss Ponton's class both of us got to do wall murals on our bulletin board with colored chalk on brown paper.
     Pat McGhee  is a friend of my heart.  We were best friends for sixth and seventh grades.  Our mothers were BFF's and she lived a couple houses up the street from me on Allison Circle.  Her mom Ocie was the best mom and she allowed us to congregate every afternoon and watch American Bandstand in her living room.  I'll never forget sitting in the swings in Pat's back yard and discussing all the important things in life to 12-13 year old girls.  Ocie was the first parent of a friend I ever called by their first name and Pat and Ocie called my mom Pearson.
     Over the years life changes us, throws us up in the air and either lands us on our feet or drops us on our butts with a big UMPH.  All of us went on from this short period of time with school, careers, marriages and children and most of us are grandparents now.  We've lost touch and reconnected and wished each other well  and lived the best lives we could.  When I moved back to Virginia in 1978 I was reading an article in a local Fairfax newspaper, I don't remember which one maybe the Northern Virginia Sun, and an article I came across was about a Fairfax  police forensics investigator.  This article told how his specialty was investigating fatal auto accidents.  The officer's name was William Hennage.  I've always thought it was Spooky.