With a mask covering my face and gloves on my hands, I have been going through the bags and boxes rescued from the shed. This stuff has been taking up space where Pete generally parks his car in the garage. I promised him that today and tomorrow would be spent working on it. I am taking a break to blog.
Ready for his perusal, are bags and boxes of books of all kinds which Mike wants to look through before they are tossed. They are now neatly sorted into Grocery Store paper shopping bags ready for him to see. The moldy boxes are in the trash.
For the last hour I have been looking through Mike's early school work from 1973 and 1974. I have decided to throw the mimeographed worksheets with smiley face and big 100's out unless they contain some priceless original art.
There are pages of book reports. Even then, he was an avid reader. For a while he wrote something about the storyline of the book, but later, he must have decided that he would rather read than write. The comments on all the rest said either "I like the book" or "I like it".
.
Here are some samples of the stuff I can't toss:
Mike Oct. 26, 1973
(Beautiful picture of a boy walking animals between two houses on a sunny day. He didn't forget to add an antenna to one of the houses. The boy has black hair and a smile on his face.)
"My pet dog and Jaggila we play together today."
.
Mike November 20, 1973
"I like turkey."
..
Mike Feb. 1, 1974
"Did you know the archer fish can shoot a bug 3 feet away?"
(Great picture of an ocean with a striped fish with his tongue reaching way out of the water to catch a bug.)
..
Mike Feb, 6 1974
"I like valentines because you get candy."
He added a big red colored heart.
..
On May 20th 1974 the teacher must have asked the children to answer some questions.
Neatly printed on a his paper was:
Mike May 20, 1974
1. We have 30 children in our room.
2. We see bees outdoors.
3. My favorite place is home.
On the top of the sheet, written in red ink the teacher had penned a big "Excellent"
And, after the last sentence wrote "How nice!"
...
I don't know when this was written. There is no date.
The class wrote a newspaper updating Aesop�s Fables as newspaper features.
Each child got a copy of the "Storybook Times" to bring home.
Here's Mike's take of the memorable race.
"On July 28, 2828 A.D. Speed E Hare III, grandson of Speed E Hare I, who lost the same annual foot race in 2825, beat Slow E. Tortoise III, grandson of Slow E. Tortoise I
in a 44 mile race at the Animal Raceway."
"Hare beat Tortoise to get revenge for his grandfather and father. The tortoise instead of going on and on stopped, and the Hare took that advantage and won the race by a hair."
Mike Pusateri
(Accompanying the story was his adorable cartoon of the event.)
Later, when Mike got into Rocketry, he made a detailed map of Rocketry Island with legend and this typed explanation:
Rocketry Island
...Rocketry Island is fifty-four miles long and fifty-six miles wide.
Usually there is a slight breeze that travels southwest.
...Rocketry Island is a model rocket builder's paradise. It has fifty-seven small rocket launchers and six transportation rockets. The airport is only used during conventions and emergencies.
...Rocketry Island is powered by a turbine generator in the Century River.
...Rocketry Island is owned by Michael Pusateri. It costs 1,000.00 to fly there except for family and friends. Mr. Pusateri lives in the five story mansion. The mansion is the largest in the world.
.....
.....
Well, back to the treasure hunt.
......
I will leave you with this thought to ponder.
"Love is the master key which opens the gates of happiness."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
BE HAPPY!