I'm Tom, the Cheese Head from Wisconsin. Speaking of cheese, I grew up in the Northern half of the state in the country near a small town named Gleason, and one of my friend's father was a Cheese Maker in a small cheese factory. I used to go with him to the cheese factory and we would get paid (50 cents) for washing the disks of the cream separator. When the fresh cheese curds were cut and warmed up we would grab a hand full and salt them and enjoy the squeaky cheese curds, yes they would squeak in your mouth when you chewed them. Then we'd promptly run to the general store and spend our money on pop and other sugar filled goodies. Pop was a dime, and many of the ice cream treats were a nickle. It was about 3 miles from our house to town, so we would at times ride our bikes on the dirt roads into town. Other times we would ride my neighbor's ponies into town, bareback, at a full gallop. We never walked them, always at a gallop. I don't know how we didn't kill them.
I attended a one room school for my first through eight grade. We didn't have Kindergarten then yet. I started school a year early. Our Teacher Mrs. Wyant, was a family friend, and thought I was ready. Also there would have been only one in my class if I waited a year, so this way I had a peer in my grade. We had to help with teaching each other, as there was too much to do for one teacher with 8 grades. I remember how I couldn't wait until I was in 3rd grade as then I could help teach the first graders to read. Guess I was destined to be an educator.
Here's a picture of our class, I was in 4th grade here, guess which one I am?
I graduated from HS at age 17, and started College the next year at a County run school to train teachers. After two years you could start teaching, so I started teaching at the ripe old age of 19! After teaching a while I decided I'd like to be a principal some day, so after completing my BS degree, I began working on my MA. Attended the University of Northern Colorado for that. Spent 28 years being an Elementary principal in two different districts. I retired in 2003 and then began my journey down Iris Lane!
The staff had a Christmas party at my house my last year as principal. This is me with my 2 secretaries. Yah, I like wine.
