Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Halloween Party (1953)


I found this educational film from 1953 about a kids celebrating Halloween in the 50s. I plan to post a 70's Halloween safety later to show how attitudes toward the holiday changed. This revolves around a boy name Peter making a mask for his class Halloween party. The dog tears the mask up while they are out of the house, as revenge for Peter trying to scare him with it on. Actually, Peter looks better with the mask on. Peter's mother consoles Peter by dressing him as a "lady scarecrow."

Thursday, October 11, 2012

MY 3rd GRADE REPORT ON DRACULA THAT NEVER HAPPENED

I was watching a documentary on the history of Dracula last night, when I remembered something from my horrific childhood in Lebanon, Missouri.

In the third grade, my teacher's name was Mrs. Torquemada (Okay, that wasn't her real name, but I changed so I don't get complaints from her family and friends). SHE HATED ME! She also told my mother that I was "worthless." Even the other children in class knew it, because one of them told my mom, "Mrs. Torquemada hates Desdinova."

It didn't help that I went to a really bad elementary school, then called Mark Twain Elementary School (now called Boswell Elementary). The only thing about Mark Twain that was even represented at the school was the fact that the principal and many of the teachers treated kids the way Aunt Polly treated Huck Finn. Principal Betty Moore threatened everyone with a spanking from a large board she kept in her office. It was kind of a Republican/Baptist gulag. Other schools the kids got to dress up on Halloween, but only kindergartners were allowed to dress up on Halloween at Mark Twain Elementary. This was because Halloween was a "man made holiday" and dressing up for Halloween was is "immature." I really wished I had grown up in a community with more respect for its children. One of those communities where every child is given an award just for participating and nobody gets spanked. Unfortunately, I had to grow up in this nightmarish Hell-world known as the Ozarks...but I am off the subject.

We were told we would have to pick out a person a historical figure to write a report about. I had read in an Electric Company magazine and seen on the TV show In Search Of that there really was a person named Count Dracula. I even knew what he looked like because there were pictures of him (Above) and what was left of his castle in Transylvania, which had only recently been discovered.

Unfortunately, one of the rules to this assignment (Mrs. Torquemada and Mark Twain Elementary were BIG on rules) was that you could only use the World Book Encyclopedias that were in the class room. If your subject wasn't in those World Books, you didn't get to write on the subject you wanted. Apparently, the jugheads at World Book Encyclopedia didn't think that Vlad Tepes Dracula, the 15th century Romanian prince, who impaled people and inspired a famous literary vampire, was worthy of inclusion in their precious little encyclopedia.

To make this situation even worse, old Mrs. Torquemada said I was making the whole thing up and that there wasn't a real person in history named Dracula. She said I couldn't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. I was forced to write a report on a "real" historical figure. I can't remember who I wrote that report on, probably someone boring and unimportant like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.

Vlad Tepes Dracula III
These days you can find anything on the Internet and more than likely there would be information in the World Book (If they still have them) on Vlad Tepes Dracula. You might even find him mentioned in a section on "Cruel Heartless Dictators." Next to his name would be Mrs. Torquemada, my third grade teacher from Mark Twain Elementary.

Of course, Halloween post, like this one, is why I'm considered the Super Villain of the Ozarks!!! Mwu-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! 
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