the space shuttle’s in the sky so you know not to do bad things

I unearthed some old fourth and fifth grade writings and decided to share them with the world. The spelling is wretched (who knew I’d grow up to become a professional editor?), but they’re worth a read, even if only to see how often blood and knives made an appearance. If you have trouble reading any of them, click on each image to see a larger size.


For shame, Mrs. Detweiler. You don’t “understand” this? Well, duh, obviously it means that the astronaut should’ve listened to the dude who told him not to go up in the sky. But he didn’t listen, and because of that, he ran out of fuel and got stuck on a cloud. It’s a fable, see? See?

I love how playful hooting and disappearing abruptly segues into cutting off people’s heads with a sharp knife, putting their blood in a stew, and forcing people to eat it.

Glad this merited five extra credit points instead of a call to Social Services.

It’s nice I was confident that I’d be safe in my bedroom and that no muggers would jump out with a knife and kill me. As they so often do in little girls’ bedrooms.

Suppose you were a teacher and one of your students wrote, “The room was covered with blood. I won’t go there again! Never!!!” Wouldn’t you wonder if maybe that kid was being, like, ritually abused or something? Apparently not.

This one...ahhh...*scratches head*...I don’t know. Maybe the assignment was to list things that one might see on Halloween? Because Halloween at my house, you see, meant knives and blood.

What a coincidence! 23 years later, I still don’t like to see work! (Note: one of the “things” I liked to see, Chris Loftus, was my fourth grade crush. As you can see, he was pretty high up on the list—I apparently liked to see him even more than I liked to see money.)

A nuclear war would make me “nervous”? Gee, ya think? Note how, in the list of all the things that would make me sad, I made no mention of my family or friends dying.

Fire away, people. Tell me how much you like me. And my shirt.

Aw, I wish I would’ve cut poor Fluffy some slack. If she were barking a lot, surely she had a good reason for doing so. But cutting my sister slack? Not so much. She was mean to me back then! She dangled my Cabbage Patch Kid out a second story window by her feet while I wept and begged for mercy! No wonder I said that she made me feel annoyed!

Pandas are still my favorite animal and obviously I still like computers and love animals. And, admittedly, there are some *ahem* Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie songs on my iPod. “Almost Paradise” is on there, too. My, how far I’ve come!


song heard most recently before posting:
Lament—Lisa Gerrard