The corndog incident

After Adam and I got married, I was a school teacher while he finished his undergraduate degree.  I taught at American Heritage School, a private school in Pleasant Grove, Utah.  It is fancier now than it was then, but I loved and adored teaching at that school.  I loved and adored my principal and my charming class of third graders.  (What was less lovable was my salary...there wasn't enough of it to love.)  Adam and I were poor and happy in our tiny basement apartment with a table and wobbly chairs that were cast off from a middle school that my mom's cousin Larry knew about.  We had a cheap bed and two circa 1960s chairs we were borrowing from my grandma's basement and that was it.

The other teachers at American Heritage were all about the age of my mother and they were motherly towards me.  (When I was pregnant with Braeden someone told me daily how adorable I was.  I wasn't adorable but they were very kind.)  Most of them taught as more of a hobby and didn't really need the money.

We did.

We had a fall carnival for school.  Corndogs were served.  There's something about corndogs and me.  They are the most repulsive food I can imagine.  I can't stand the sight of them or the smell of them, forget the taste of them.  I would have to be really, really hungry before a corndog passed my lips.

They are the worst.

The sweet and motherly teachers I worked with were of course aware of our impoverished state.  After the carnival, they offered us a plate of leftover corndogs.  Adam accepted!  (Was he trying to kill me?)  We climbed in our little Saturn and since there was no way I was touching the plate, Adam put it in a little indentation on the dashboard.  As he turned a corner, the plate came sliding toward me.  (Adam delights in this story.) I shrieked and batted the corndogs away from me.  They were coming right at me!  Again, was he trying to kill me?

The corndogs flew the other direction across the car.  They smeared a nasty greasy trail across the windshield.  I'm not sure if Adam was able to salvage any of them.

I can't remember.

I think I've blocked it out.

Post traumatic stress.

Just for fun, here are some pictures I found of my darling third graders.  They are all older by now than I was back then which boggles my little mind.

I loved this light filled classroom.  It was my happy place.

I don't know who took this picture--because I'm in it--but it makes me laugh.  I am sitting calmly at my desk and meanwhile there is all this bedlam going on.  Maybe Adam had visited the classroom? They all loved Adam.  They called him Adam and me Mrs. Davis.