That Snows the Goat

I was cleaning up some boxes of papers that have been moved at least 4 times without being opened. I can tell by the number of layers of tape and the various crossed out instructions for the movers. The obsolete destinations like “1st bedroom, upstairs” and “basement” are dead giveaways as to what houses these cardboard containers have resided.

The contents were packed with varying degrees of care, with some looking like a trashcan was dumped in and accidentally moved instead of being thrown out. I was rescuing important papers from one of these when I pulled out a little blue folder with “My Life” stenciled on the cover with this picture glued to the front:

MY

Inside was my first memoir, written in the 4th grade. I had forgotten it even existed, and reading it has brought memories of that time back to me. Here it is in all its glory.

I was born in a small town, Washington, North Carolina. The time was 8:15 a.m. Friday, August 27th, 1948. I weighed nine pounds five ounces. I had my first picture made when I was six weeks old and weighed twelve and one half pounds.
When I was four months old, I sat alone and crawled at five months old. Then I began walking when I was eight months old.

When I was two months old, I went to Baltimore, Maryland to see my Daddy. My Mother and I stayed with my Aunt. I went back to Baltimore for a visit when I was two years old. We went to a large zoo in Washington, D.C. I also went to see my first circus. I saw elephants.

We moved to Norfolk, Virginia when I was four months old. I could spell my name and a few other words when I was three years old. I used to catch crabs on a line, too.

My first year of school I went to a school in Norfolk, Virginia. My teacher’s name was Mrs. Glenn. She was also my second grade teacher. I started third grade in Elmhurst Elementary School in Greenville, North Carolina. We only lived there eight months. I came to Florida in January 7th, 1957. Since I have lived here, I have learned to swim. I joined the Cub Scouts last year. Our Scout Master took us to the Serpentarium. This past summer I joined the Summer Reading Club at the public library.

I like to see interesting places. Once I saw an old fort in North Carolina also one in Virginia.

My hobbies are: collecting foreign coins, studying insects and stamp collecting. My recent hobby is raising fish.

Please excuse the multiple topic paragraphs, maybe the attention span of a ten year old causes it, or the desire to cover everything that happened to me in my first decade.