Ruth Elaine and the Exploding Baby (Part II of II 1930s memoir)

Repost of earlier post few readers saw:

Out of respect for the family, Mr. Kinnebrew dismissed school at noon. Ruth Elaine, normally socially invisible, wandered from the office with her lunch bucket, mystified to find herself Queen of the Playground. The big girls jostled for position around her, shoving lowly first graders to the side, demanding details of the catastrophe. “Did it set him on

Ruth Elaine and the Exploding Baby (Part I of II 1930s Memoir)

I was praying for salvation as the class suffered along with Luther Simpson through a page of Jane and Fluff the Kitten.  The second-graders pretended to work on their sums across the aisle. in our shared classroom in 1935 in East Texas. Little Ruth Elaine Lawson, a girl I’d had always found dull, dropped her head to her desk and snuffled

Ruth Elaine and the Exploding Baby (Part I of II 1930s Memoir)

I was praying for salvation as the class suffered along with Luther Simpson through a page of Jane and Fluff the Kitten.  The second-graders pretended to work on their sums across the aisle. in our shared classroom in 1935 in East Texas. Little Ruth Elaine Lawson, a girl I’d had always found dull, dropped her head to her desk and snuffled

Ruth Elaine and the Exploding Baby (Part II of II 1930s memoir)

Repost of earlier post few readers saw:

Out of respect for the family, Mr. Kinnebrew dismissed school at noon. Ruth Elaine, normally socially invisible, wandered from the office with her lunch bucket, mystified to find herself Queen of the Playground. The big girls jostled for position around her, shoving lowly first graders to the side, demanding details of the catastrophe. “Did it set him on