5th Grade Angela

Found these gems while searching for pics from 5th grade.

I know you're thinking, get that girl into braces, stat!

But would you believe that wasn't part of my teenage experience? 

I grew into those teeth somehow and closed the gap eventually.

I never was a bows and ruffles kind of girl so I'm really wondering how I got sold on this shirt.

What I do remember is my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Potts, telling me and Anne Thackeray that he was really tempted to get the scissors and cut off our side curls.

I see it now. 

But at the time I remember thinking it wasn't a very nice thing 

for a teacher to say to his star students. (Which we were.)

Thanks to my mom for her painstaking efforts at curling my hair for picture day

with five other children at her feet, including a new baby.

I don't think I learned to curl my own hair until a few years later. 

Surely by Jr. High. Yes, because I remember burning myself with the curling iron a lot and everyone would tease that it looked like a hickey. But all the girls were burning themselves, so it was just something we laughed at. At least I'm pretty sure everyone else just had curling iron burns.

As you can see, cute hair wasn't my normal day-to-day.

She's pretty cute, though, isn't she?

You'd have fun hanging out with her if you liked to jump on the trampoline for hours, climb trees, ride bikes far, far away, read and listen to KRSP on the radio.

I wish I could go back and give her a hug and tell her she was pretty great.

These were my favorite 5th and 6th grade books. 

It was after reading these that I fell in love with books that made you feel.

Hardy Boys had been great, and I'll always love a good mystery.

But I discovered literature and the eye-opening effects of stories

of kids and big-world situations and how books could help you learn sympathy.