Lisa Baker
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Lisa Baker and I went through all 13 years of school together…from the lowly kindergarten class at Fairbrook Elementary to graduation day at Beavercreek High School. Along the way, we shared moments of both disdain and awkward crushes – but I always considered her to be a constant friend. We first shared the same classroom during second grade in Mrs. Deets’ class (her picture from that year seen at left), and then again the following year in Mrs. Corn’s third grade class. There were times when we got along fine and then there were others when I can remember her eyes shooting daggers at me during Mrs. Owens music class. And I have no doubt it stemmed for some display of obnoxiousness from me like, oh say, tapping my cowboy boot to the music. Read the rest of this entry »
School days nostalgia is fun to recall. Spending 13 years in the public schools is bound to yield a great number of memories spanning from early childhood to the onslaught of adulthood. I hold all of the memories from these years in very high regard, but it seems that the older the memory, the fonder it is. My Ankeney years came at the beginning of the latter half of my school years – from the Fall of 1984 to the Spring of 1987. It was a new era of leaving behind the safety of Fairbrook Elementary where I was an upper-classman, and become a lowly pre-pubescent, chubby, gawky, early teenaged seventh grader. But, boy, these were fond memories too. 
I spent a good amount of time for at least three consecutive summers at Discovery House daycare center. The little house located on Woodman Drive in Kettering was an ideal spot to hang out, and although I always seemed to have balked at having to go there, I have absolutely nothing but pleasant memories of it. Mom had gone back to work in October of 1978, so I believe that my first time that Denise and I attended was Spring Break of 1979. Then we returned again for the Summer, going there on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays while Mom was at work at Connelly & Co. 
I was nine years old as I entered fourth grade at Fairbrook Elementary school on August 25, 1981, and at the age of five, Denise was joining me at school for the first time. We would be making the daily trudge to the Mulhern residence where the bus would pick up Denise, Kenny Carroll, and me and transport us to school, where we would each go to our separate classes. Mine was taught by Mrs. Smith, one of the oldest teachers in the school – and certainly one of the best. She could be both stern and kind and I think gained the respect of more students than any other teacher I ever had. Denise had Mrs. Ferguson, who had not been there when I was in kindergarten. 
I have only the most fleeting memory that we went on vacations back-to-back during August of 1981, so fleeting in fact that it would never hold up in court. However, I have one clue that our trip to visit my Mom’s Aunt Louise and Uncle Carroll immediately followed our trip to Detroit for the Classic Chevy Convention. This piece of evidence is a calendar from 1981, with the dates August 2 – August 8 marked as vacation. This was the Chevy Convention week. But the following week, August 9-15, indicates absolutely nothing at all. Every other week of the Summer has other appointments, sporting events, and reminders – but this one has nothing at all. So I’m pegging this trip as August 9-15…give or take a day on either end.