"Do you remember the Nurse's Room and the nurse, Mrs. Olney?

Had Mrs. Witty (my 5th grade teacher) retired by the time you were in 5th grade? Do you remember her? She was wonderful. Very strict. She and Berkeley Police Officer Huryich were in charge of traffic boys. She would drive her big old 1950's car around to the traffic boy stops and they would have to salute to her. Speaking of saluting, I remember you drilling "salute, toot; salute, toot."  What's "toot"?  Do you remember traffic boy drills with semaphores at the Twilight Frolic? Twilight frolic was such a thrill.

We had three kinds of recesses: outdoor recess, indoor recess and rainy day recess. Not sure of the distinction between indoor and rainy day recesses.  Recesses were on the upper terrace until we were in 5th grade, with the bars and rings and tanbark, then onto the paved lower terrace. And yes, I too remember the puddle. I also remember rainy day recesses in the basement with Mr. Jones in charge. Remember seasons like jump rope season, yo-yo season, trading card season and number puzzle season? Or was that just girls?

Remember lunch tickets and milk tickets with little punch outs?

Teachers I had that you may not have had: Miss Hoffman (4th grade); Mrs. Swarthout (3rd grade - she came to our house for dinner the year before Mother was stricken); Mrs. Gildersleeve (2nd grade) and Mrs. Witty. Like you, I had Mrs. Conklin (Kindergarten), Mrs. Kusich (1st grade) and Mrs. Rutherford (6th grade).

Do you remember singing Christmas carols around the very big tree in the main lobby?  (See the Yule Tree in the Oxford Album .)

No tales of Live Oak Park?  (See Mervyn Rasmussen's Stories of Live Oak and Finding the Turk.--ed.)

Dad's and Daughter's banquet at Valentine's Day was a high point for me. All the Dads sang "Let me call you Sweetheart" together to their daughters.

And Oxford School picnics at the Padre Picnic Area at Tilden Park. I remember kickball games and ice cream that was packed in dry ice and hard as a rock. And this was the only place I had ice cream soda - it was good!

Our dancing teach was Mrs. Tinkam - Mrs. Dart Tinkam.  A tiny older lady. Was she yours also? But I would have described all of our teachers as older until I saw their pictures on your web page - they were really young!

Remember Vine Five and Dime (later McLarty's Variety Store) that had a wide variety of many wonderful little things and McAffies Drug Store? And that ice cream place? What was it called? Daddy knew the owner."

Transmitted via e-mail to Jimmy Dean (the "ed." above), Kent Rasmussen, and Mara French