by Steve Roberts, 3rd grade
The Dayman
November 16, 1960
Louisville Country Day School

I was but a wee third-grader here, and this is certainly far outside the mainstream geeky content of this archive, but I just couldn’t resist. In my first published article (Louisville Country Day School paper), I agitate for new classrooms at the Rock Creek Lane campus. Judging from the cartoon in the same issue, I think this was an issue of much current interest, and I’m glad I contributed my little voice.

For visual context, this video is from my father’s 8mm movie camera during graduation ceremonies from second grade. I’m the kid waving.

Kentucky Country Day School – 2nd grade 1960 from Steven K Roberts on Vimeo.

Memories of this epoch are hazy, so it’s nice to find historical treasures. The old LCDS is now Kentucky Country Day. About this time, I had a brief and unremarkable flirtation with hierarchical group dynamics:

I think we should have four new classrooms because too many books and other things get knocked off desks. The reason is the room is too small and so the aisles are too narrow. When the fire drill comes there is not enough room for us to get to the fire door quickly. When the children walk by Mrs. Wallace’s desk they usually bump into it or they have to twist to get by. When a visitor comes into the room, there is not enough room to possibly get a good seat for him or her.

Sometimes on a real cold day, when we have to have the radiator on, some of us (about four I’d say) who are back by the radiator are too hot, and up by the front most of us are too cold. Some of the children say “whew, it sure is hot,” About a quarter or a half of us have an awful hard time staying the right temperature all the time. It would be nice if we could have an air conditioner, because in the hot weather everybody is boiling.

Windows and doors should all be screened because flies are always bothering us. Mrs. Wallace said “What would the poor flies eat if they didn’t have us to eat on?” We used to have a fishbowl in our room, and once some flies came along and got drowned in the water. If we can not get screens maybe we could put a fishbowl in each room for a fly trap!

With all these problems, don’t you think we should have new classrooms?

The row of faces below are clipped from the group yearbook photos during my time there (grades 1-9, skipping the 6th). The third from the left is the little guy who wrote this piece:

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