·     You never knew what surprise would be next. One morning we all arrived at school and the bell rang so we were all in our desks…but Mrs. Vargason was nowhere to be found.  We waited…and waited…for what seemed like an eternity to classroom full of 2^nd graders…and as we all sat in silence we heard an alarm clock bell going off in the room—in the closet. And out stumbled Mrs. Vargason in her bathrobe, face cream, curlers, and slippers saying “Oh my goodness I overslept!” And then with all of us staring at her, jaws agape, she said “Oh dear…you didn’t know that I lived in the closet?” It was April 1^st and we had certainly all been fooled.

·         Our school was broken into and vandalized that year which was seemed so strange for such a rural school. The vandals had hit the faculty lounge and several of the classrooms including ours. You knew something was very wrong the moment you walked into the classroom and it felt very violating. They had spread purple paint everywhere and broken things. I remember that they had, for whatever reason, glued a long knife in Mrs. Vargason’s grade book with an excessive amount of glue so all the pages were stuck together. We couldn’t believe that this had happened to our classroom and to our favorite teacher whom we all adored. My best friend at that time, Bryce, and I swore we would seek revenge. Hell hath no fury like a 2^nd grader scorned. It wasn’t long before she had us all calmed down and turned the whole incident into a valuable life lesson for us.

·         The tales of Little Blue Elf and Little Black Goblin were the highlight of ever day. I wish I had a recording of her telling a story.  Little Blue Elf and Little Black Goblin lived across the road from the school in a field. I think I got in trouble once for crossing the road to see if I could find them there.  As a child, I had a rug at the foot of my bed that had a football field printed on it. I also had a good Lego collection. So I worked for some time on building an elf-sized stadium scene with Lego bricks on the rug complete with bleachers, ticket booths, concession stands, and goal posts. My mom took me to school one day with the whole thing in a box and Mrs. Vargason had me set it up on the floor in front of her stool during lunch time. After the noon recess she told a fantastic story about Little Blue Elf and Little Black Goblin playing a football game. It was such an honor for me and I’ll never forget that.
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Pete, 2nd grade student of Mary McPherson Elementary School in Meridian

May 24, 2009