HEALTH CLASS 3/23/07

The school nurse used to see me a lot in grammar school. When bored with class, I would escape to the girls' room. The girls' room had old-fashioned bead board stantion doors and walls. The doors opened out. Stepping down one would find the old-fashioned sinks with two faucets and the long mirror. Everything was white. The large window faced west and I could see the ancient pine trees outside it.

Right outside the entry to the girls' room to the left was a water fountain. It was gray and in those days the water was kept nice and cold. I liked to hear the "motor" rev up inside of it. The nurses' office was in a small recess to the left and behind the water fountain. The school nurse sent a note home once when I was in fourth grade about the amount of water I was drinking. The drunken family doctor declared me average in glucosity and nothing much came of that. My mother didn't seem to care about my admitted boredom when it came out at the doctor's office that it was boredom driving me to drink. I continued to escape to the bathrooms and the water fountains when bored throughout my school career.

Mrs. Eugenia Simpson was an old-fashioned school nurse. She was good-natured but her health class for seventh and eighth graders was boring. One day, we all got together and I was elected as the willing spokesperson. Mrs. Simpson came into class armed with that horrid health textbook and I spoke up, "Mrs. Simpson, the class has some ques----ti--ons." What followed was a very frank question-and-answer styled discussion on sex. We all had raided the Life magazine with the pictures of the fetus. Additionally, I had memorized the Dr. Spock's Baby Book a couple of years before that.

sapphoq on life