Shady Oaks school

I was glad to come back to Fort Worth. Right away, my Nana put me back in "Shady Oaks", only this time, Shady Oaks was smaller in size and it was called "Lake Country Academy". I should back up, and go back to my childhood...I've skipped over some stuff...way before my mom had her nervous breakdown, etc, she and my stepdad were living in Taos, NM. People thought I had a learning disability and so they found "Shady Oaks" in Lake Worth Tx. It was a really down to earth school for students with learning disabilities. There was both an elementary school and High School. What was different about Shady Oaks was that we worked in our textbooks on our own pace. I learned to read and write at Shady Oaks. I remember a really cool teacher we had. We little kids..elementary school, we were called the Munchkins! Mrs. Russell was our teacher. We also had another Ms. Russell who was our PE teacher. but anyway, Mrs. Russell, she drove a green volkswagon bug and she wore bellbottoms and the peasant shirts, and she loved striped rainbow socks that had toes for the toes!! And she had blond hair parted in pigtails. I loved her! I often wonder whatever happened to her. We had her for 2 years, but then, she became pregnant and left, to concentrate on motherhood.

When I started school at Shady Oaks, around fall 1974, I went to live with a teacher and her family. Susie, Bernard and Tracy, their daughter who was a year or two younger than me. Susie was one of the teachers at Shady Oaks. She taught middle school. I remember I was sad, I couldn't stay with my grandparents, but it was really a blessing, because my grandparents didn't have any kids on their block. I didn't have any sisters..or brother yet. So I got to experience in a way, having a sister, and playing with the kids on the block! Everynite, Tracy and I would go to the back bedroom, and watch the Beverly Hillbillies and Bewitched on channel 11. Of course, we would also watch Slam Bang Theatre after school. Slam Bang Theatre came on twice a day..in the morning and in the afternoon after school. Gilligan's Island, etc. Saturdays we would watch "Land of the LOSt" I had almost forgot about that show!! The Sleestaks scared the daylights after me!

Back at school, one of my classmates was the brother of Lisa Welchel. Lisa Welchel wasn't famous yet. I never met her. Lisa was the actress who played "Blair" on the Facts of Life. Cody was his name! Yes, he resemble his sister in looks, and he was real little when I knew him.

They had a method at school that was very different from regular school. They paid us in tokens when we did our school work assignments! 2 tokens if we did good, 1 token if 'so-so' and I can't rmember what all...at the end of the week, on Fridays, we would turn the tokens in for candy!!

There was a place across the street..an open field, where there was a good place to find fossils. Ms. Russell (the PE teacher) would take us over there Friday afternoons to hunt for fossils! Many days, I would come home with fossils in my lunch box! I can't remember what kind of lunch box I have (It was usually of a tv show, etc)...maybe scooby doo.

I didn't do well in PE. Usually, Ms. Russell had us play soccer. I hated soccer!! We had to constantly run back and forth across the field, kicking that stupid soccer ball. I got low marks in PE, I think.

My last year at Shady Oaks was when I came back from San Antonio, after my mom had her nervous breakdown. Momma had moved us to San Antonio, me and my brother after she broke up with Jim. (1976) It all started when she started staying in bed all day and crying. She neglected me and my brother...one day she took us in the car and drove around town, talking to herself and crying...she finally pulled over at the airport and told a security man that she didn't want me and my brother anymore. I got scared and started crying...and I guess my baby brother was crying as well, not knowing what was going on. The security man called someone...and we were taken to a hospital. My mom went in the back for the dr.s to look at her, and me and my brother were in the waiting room. The nurses, etc were good to us...they got me dinner, and I guess one of them watched my brother...at one point, they called me in back to see momma. She was acting weird, her pantyhose was on the floor, and she told me to be careful of 'them'. It scared me...I was soooo glad when the lady at the desk called my grandparents. Then, she called some friends of ours...who lived a few houses down from us...those friends came and picked me and my brother up..and I spent the day with them, til my grandparents arrived.

Looking back to that time in San Antonio, I forgot to add, that at first, our first few months in San Antonio, my mom was ok, she started dating another guy, and he moved in. I remember another time...I think before she was seeing that guy, that another guy came one afternoon, and went straight to my mom's room!! I didn't think about that then...I was just a kid...but it's odd, I only met that guy once...and my mom was in her bedroom, and she told me someone was coming and for me to answer the door...he had called her...and he came..he was a scientist...that's what he told me...I think I was showing him something..a fossil or something..can't remember, and ...but it's odd, he went upstairs to my mom's room, then came back down 30 minutes or so later. I now find that creepy and seedy! I wonder where my mom met him. I only saw him once or twice.

Okay, I meant to talk about my return to Fort Worth after Colorado, didn't mean to get off on different topic. I'll start on that next time.