Tunnel of Fun

When I was in elementary school I lived in a little town named Coloma, Wisconsin. Coloma was a town of 400 inhabitants. There were only two restaurants in the town, if you can even call them that considering one was a bar and the other was an A & W. There was one church and one elementary school with grades Kindergarten through sixth. There really weren’t very many activities for kids. So one summer morning my brother and Laura, one of his friends, decided that we should start digging. I really don’t know where we were digging to, but we ended up making a huge tunnel. The opening of the tunnel was eight feet in length, four feet in width and seven to eight feet deep. Looking at the tunnel from above ground and from a little kid’s point of view it was like a cave or a fort. Only children could enter our tunnel. I don’t know if that was necessarily the rule or if adults just couldn’t fit past the entry way. After expanding the tunnel we filled it with water and made our own mud bath. The mud bath was fun until we realized that we had to rinse off before going in the house. My mother sprayed us all down with freezing cold water…Brrrr. We finally convinced my mom to let us rinse off in the little pool we had in the back yard. Ugh…why didn’t we think of that sooner?

By Suzanne Carlgren

Peeing My Pants

By the time I reached elementary school, I was potty trained. I hope everyone is. But when a teacher says, “You can’t go to the bathroom until this time,” you hold your bladder until that time. Well, I wasn’t a very good listener.   

During 3^rd grade, my P.E. class had to do some kind of running test out on the playground. I really had to pee, but I had thought my P.E. teacher told us we couldn’t use the bathroom until AFTER the running test. I really had to go, but I figured I could hold it. We had to run in pairs, and my best friend, Liz and I paired up. I knew I wouldn’t beat her, since she was a BEAST, but I tried hard. We had to run the entire length of the blacktop and back in under a minute. We did it three times. I was being beaten badly by Liz every time.

Right before we did it the third time, I really had to go “relieve” myself. Looking back, I’m glad we were the last pair to run, especially after what happened next. Someone on the sideline was talking about how thirsty they were, and I was straining to control my bladder. Suddenly, Liz leaned in and told me some joke about someone running in front of us, and I start laughing. I laughed so hard that the flood gates opened. I start crying, and the P.E. teacher rushed over. Liz just laughed.

I knew I called Liz my best friend for a reason because she helped me into the building and waited with me until my mom came to the nurse’s office with a clean pair of shorts and underwear. That is when I learned what a best friend really is, and Liz was a best friend. Sticking with your friends, through thick and thin, or even through urine-soaked pants, that’s what a true friend is. Liz and I are still close, and I’m glad for that.

By Brittany Randall

Stuck in the Mud

It was a cold rainy day in Concordia. I was a first grader in Mrs. Walters’ class. We were not allowed to go outside for recess that day because the playground had turned to mud. When the bell rang and we stepped outside the rain stopped and I took off on my journey to the babysitter’s. I was walking on the black top when I saw all the kids standing around the big mud puddle on the soccer field. I walked over and asked what was going on. They told me that they were going to walk across it because the mud wasn’t very deep. I told them I would cross it too because it would make my walk shorter. They told me to go across it first and they would follow. I started across the mud and immediately started to sink. I tried to move, but I felt like I was in quicksand. I fell to my knees. I turned around to see all of the older kids staring and laughing hysterically at me. I tried my hardest to get unstuck but my boots came off, and I had to pick them up and crawl out of the mud.  As soon as I was out of the mud, I ran as fast as I could to the babysitter’s knowing that I was about to be in huge trouble!

By Trent Tholstrup

Church Fainting

Fainting can be a traumatic experience. It can be especially scary when it involves cemeteries, nuns and a priest’s tombstone.

            I was about twelve years old. It was Memorial Day, and as we had every year before, my family went with my grandma to the Catholic Cemetery for mass. I woke up as late as possible, and didn’t have any time to eat breakfast or even get a glass of water. This particular year an aunt and uncle were also around for Memorial Day. When my parents and I arrived at the cemetery there were not enough folding chairs to go around, so I ended up standing. As mass began I noted that it was a particularly hot and humid morning. I was fine until right after communion, when I experienced the strangest sensation. It sounded like a train was rushing by me, and my vision began to blur. I was rather bemused by these events. However, I wasn’t bemused for long. I promptly keeled over.

            When I opened my eyes and blinked a few times to clear my vision, I saw a nun leaning over me. I didn’t know where I was or why a nun happened to be leaning over me. Her head was about a foot from my face, which, to say the least, was a rather disturbing sight to regain consciousness to. When I was helped up I realized that when I fainted my head landed about three inches away from a priest’s headstone.

            Now this fainting spell wasn’t so bad. It was a decent way to get out of church; though it could have been much worse if I had succeeded in cracking my head open. So the moral of the story is, if you ever want to get out of church in a dramatic fashion, stand for your knees locked for long periods of time until you faint.

By Ike Uri

Tank Trouble

One hot summer day, I was at my friend’s house playing in her stock tank. (Pretty hick huh?) We were having a good ol’ time until I decided to run up her slide that was connected to her tree house right beside the stock tank. If you can believe it I wasn’t the smartest cookie in the jar, so I ran up the wet slide. This ended with me tripping up the slide, falling on my chin, and biting all the way through my bottom lip. I saw blood running down my face, and my friend freaked out and went and told her mom. Soon after they took me to the emergency room and called my mom telling her what I had done. Turns out my mom wasn’t surprised, since this would be my second time getting stitches. Everything went fine in the ER, and I was proud of my battle wound like any child would be. To this day I still have my scar. So next time you see me, ask me and I’ll show you.

By Courtney Monzon

Drew Has a Scare

I have a lot of memorable childhood moments. One memory that sticks out in my mind is when Drew Erkenbrack had a scare. Recess was a big deal back in elementary school. For my friends and I, our plan was always to eat lunch as fast as we could so that we would be the first ones to go outside and get a swing. There were only three swings, and everyone wanted one. One day, Drew and I were the first two people to get outside for recess. As we were sprinting to the swings, Drew suddenly stopped and took off back into the school. At the time I didn’t think anything of it, so I proceeded to get a swing. Just as I sat down, I noticed that Colton Odette was running towards me laughing hysterically. I asked him what was so funny, and he told me that Drew ran past him saying, “I think I crapped my pants!”

            About ten minutes into recess, we noticed Drew was just making his way outside. All of my friends were pointing at him and laughing. Once he got to us, we asked him, “What happened?” Drew then said, “I was so excited to get a good swing, that I thought I crapped my pants.” He had not soiled his pants after all, but my friends and I will never let him live it down.

By Blake Woellhof

Jealousy

If you can believe it, back in the fourth grade, Leyli Beims and I weren’t best friends. Well, we were for a while, but for some unknown reason, the two of us had a falling out and drifted to separate friend groups. Now remember, we were ten at the time. So of course, my friend group and I decided we would make Leyli jealous enough to come crawling back crying on her knees. Or something like that. So, being the great planners we were, all of us walked past Leyli and her cool friends: Olivia Leif, MaKayla Nelson, and Jaden Spear. We were at recess and they were playing on the jungle gym. We stopped, and without looking at Leyli, began to laugh like we were having literally the best time of our lives. We nonchalantly looked behind us to see if Leyli had that jealous look of despair on her face. Actually, it was more a face one makes when watching a dying bird. So, we took it up a notch, and what do you do when laughing doesn’t make someone jealous? You sing. You sing your little faces off. So we sang our favorite theme song to our favorite T.V. show - some Japanese cartoon - this time not hiding our blatant manipulation. We checked again and saw Leyli and her posse ignoring us. The rest of the memory is fuzzy;  we may have resorted to name calling or physical violence. I’m not sure, but this story has a happy ending because the next week Leyli and I became best friends again over sugar cookies. And I know that for a fact.

by Cody Schmitz

First Grade Confusion

My father works outside constantly during the summer; he relishes the sun and the heat. As a result, he gets very tan during the summer and my mom always says, “Goodness, Bill, you’re almost turning black!” I understand this figure of speech now, but when I was in first grade, I took it literally.

One day during Mrs. Ball’s class we somehow got on the topic of the Civil War and slavery. As Mrs. Ball tried to explain what slavery was to us in the most delicate way possible, I remembered my mother’s comment and shouted, “My daddy’s black!” Mrs. Ball just looked down me, a very blonde blue eyed little girl, and nodded her head. She murmured, “Mmmhhhmmmmm” and resumed her lesson. Sure enough, Mrs. Ball found out for herself at the next parent-teacher conference that I might have been confused.

by Siri McGuire

Bloody Rocks

Bloody Rocks

            In first grade, Dylan Moore and I were in Kristin Peltier’s class. Dylan and I were troublemakers when we were together, which probably explains why we were not in another class together until high school. Every day the routine began. Come to school, talk to Dylan, flip a card, go to recess, talk to Dylan, and possibly flip another card by the end of the day.

     One particular cold day, he and I were playing at recess when someone got a bloody nose so there was blood on some of the rocks underneath the blue and white jungle gym.  Martina Gieber warned us, “No one to touch the rocks,” before she escorted the nose bleed victim into the building to get help. Of course there was a big huddle of kids around the jungle gym, and before I knew it, Dylan was crawling underneath the playground equipment and grabbing the bloody rocks. Right as he was crawling out, Martina was coming back and she yelled at Dylan. He threw the rock down and acted as if he had done nothing wrong. Martina proceeded to tell him that he could have contaminated his gloves, so Dylan figured he would solve the problem by removing his contaminated gloves. It didn’t dawn on him that in order to remove the last glove he would have to use one of his bare hands. Dylan was then escorted into the building to wash his hands. Perhaps they should show the Blood Borne Pathogens video to first graders? 

By Kadin Zimmerman

Tooth Trauma

                It was a rainy day, and I was in the first grade. Like every other day when the weather was less than amazing we had recess indoors. But instead of watching an episode of Scooby-Doo or playing board games, we went to the gym. I met up with my crew and we decided to play a game of tag. In the midst of running around and screaming our heads off, I ran into Kira Krause. She must have been extremely focused on running away from whoever was “it”, because she shoved me out of her way with impressive strength for a six-year-old girl. I face-planted it right into the hard wood floor. When I came back up, I had a weird sensation in the front of my mouth. I inhaled and felt a sharp pain resonate from my front two teeth. When one of my friends looked at me in horror and starting screaming for the teacher, I got pretty concerned.  I glanced down at the floor and saw a white speck. I picked it up, and realized it was a piece of a tooth. My tooth. My teacher came and I was rushed to the nurse’s office. My mom was called and she showed up to take me to the dentist. Unfortunately, he did a terrible job. For years after the incident my classmates constantly asked me what was up with my teeth. It annoyed me and I usually end up yelling at them. Needless to say, elementary school wasn’t my best time.

by Leyli Beims