6th Grade: Worth the Wait

Join with me as I join Janna in recording my youth for my superstars!

Anticipating 6th grade was so exciting. While hanging out in Mrs. Aliotta’s class, I remember hearing and seeing the 6th grade teachers. I couldn’t WAIT to be in 6th grade.
Exciting things that exceeded my expectations:

•  I got Mr. Witt as my teacher. I wanted Mr. Witt to be my teacher so that was THRILLING! Mr. Witt was the football coach at school and even though he was loved by all the sports guys in our class, he also got along with the girls, too. I remember after lunch he would read us a chapter in a book and that’s when I was introduced to The Sign of the Beaver.
•   Once again Kaydee was in my class (this will be very important to remember later).
• My favorite subject was Minnesota History.  LOVED it!  Maybe because I had lived in some many parts of MN.
•   6th grade class trips were anticipated by everyone in school.  In the fall, we took a trip to the State Capitol (and I was on the grass.  I wasn’t supposed to be and got yelled at by some groundskeeper.  I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to be, but I guess that didn’t matter), Alexander Ramsey’s house (a MN governor in like the 1800’s or something), and the Science Museum and Omni theatre.  I was freaked out to be in the Omnitheatre–pretty much because I was freaked out to do ANYTHING new–but it was kind of fun.  We watched a movie about the Blue Angels, Blue Devils, Blue Something for the Navy–those guys who do all the cool airplane tricks in the Blue jets.  In the spring, we traveled up to the iron ore mines in Northern Minnesota.  We visited an Open Pit mine and a shaft mine.  Well, I should say that the rest of my class did the shaft mine.  I was SO scared (convinced I had claustrophobia) to go down in the mine, that I convinced my mom to write a note excusing me from that part of the trip.  GOOD GRIEF!  Spending an hour by myself in the buildings was NOT fun, but I was convinced it was the best thing for me.  I could go on and on philosophizing about this, but I will spare you. On that class trip, the boy who I liked (Mitch Bruns) found out that I liked him.  You want to know how?  His mom was one of the chaperones and she was in my cabin.  As we were talking that night like we all do, she found out that I liked her son.  So, she told him.  My seat on the bus was right by his.  His friends were all involved, “Do you like MItch?  How much do you like Mitch?  Do you LOVE Mitch?”  To which I replied, “NO, I do NOT love him.”  I was so matter of fact even in my crush that I have to grin.
• The big art project in 6th grade was making paper mache masks out of grocery bags.  I’m talking GIGANTIC paper mache masks.  Every Friday afternoon, we worked on these ugly things.  It took forever!  And the paste was NASTY!  I remember it was warm and lumpy and we were all soaking our strips of newspaper in it and getting NASTY goopy hands.  By the end of the year, I had “magically” turned mine into a tiger and Kaydee had made hers into a rabbit.  We still laugh about it because for her rabbit she made paper mache eyeballs about the size of a tennis ball cut in half and painted them BRIGHT blue.
• For science we did an experiment using white lab rats.  We had given them names for class, but when the project was over, Mr. Witt held a drawing for who could take them home.  Whoever wanted a chance had to bring back a signed permission slip from their parents that it was okay.  I did NOT want a rat.  But Kaydee did.  And Kaydee’s name was chosen. Yea for Kaydee!  She still can’t believe that she got him.  She was able to rename him and henceforth he was called Ratty or Ratter.  We still giggle over that, too!
• At the end of the school year, the 6th grade hosted a 6th grade project fair where we displayed our personal projects from Minnesota History.  I chose to study Split Rock Lighthouse.  We (meaning my mom and dad) made a model out of a huge piece of styrofoam painted gray.  My dad then somehow “carved” a lighthouse out of wood and wired it with a little lightbulb to make it light up.  I’m pretty sure that I painted it, but it could have EASILY been my mom.  I don’t really remember.  What I remember the most was that my report was TERRIBLE!  It had to be at least 6 pages long and most of my report was a story quoted from a book that I read about Split Rock!  Not good!
• I started wearing a bra that year, too.  Not that I needed one, but I told my mom that I did.  Then, she bought me one, and I was too FREAKED out to put it on.  It was in my drawer for days and every time I opened my drawer I got sick to my stomach.  (do you happen to notice a pattern in my life?  I was SCARED of EVERYTHING!)  Finally, the first day I wore it, it felt really weird and my brother had a friend over so I couldn’t mess with it.
• Probably the biggest thing that happened in 6th grade was that we moved to our most permanent house ever.  My parents built a house about 3 miles out of town (in a different direction than we were currently living). Yet on another big hill.  No trees this time and SURROUNDED by fields and a big muddy creek.  My parents did a lot of the work themselves, and my mom designed most of it.  It was an A frame house with a loft and an open ceiling.  It was pretty cool.  My brother and I had funky shaped rooms because they wanted to make sure our rooms were about the same size, but the placement of the windows made it impossible to do that with a straight wall.  Our rooms had a zig zag wall.  In the month we were finishing it, we ate a LOT of pizza.  And for some reason, school had pizza one day each week that month.  I was SO sick of pizza!  But I loved our house.  I remember before we got our permanent address, our mailing address was Rt. 3 Box L4A.  Mom always said that meant, Love For Arly.

I truly LOVED 6th grade.  Can you tell.  I think that was one of my favorite years ever!