• Fellow classmate Pamela Pon also transferred from Farragut to Commodore Sloat, but a year later.

• Three students joined a L5 class as H4 graders (me, Artie Kelly and Diane Kutalas...the daughter of a co-worker of dad).  Had to keep up with the older students.  I followed many of them to high school.

• Cafeteria that we rarely got to use.

• Got my first pair of glasses in the 5th grade.

• Handball during recess and lunch breaks.

• Hearing my first "dirty joke"...something to do with harbors and ships.

• Referee and playing volleyball.  I received a certificate honoring my time as a referee vice an athlete at promotion from 6th grade.  I was terrible as an athlete.
  

  

• Receive an invitation to join the local cub scout pack sponsored by the school only to later join dad's old boy scout troop in Chinatown.

• Learned my multiplication table (1 thru 12) in one night as the other classmates had already learned their table in the second grade.  I thought 11x11 equaled 1111 and entered that in a test.  Had to learn division as well.  Was in tears that night after a cram session with my father.

• Lost a spelling bee contest due to the teacher not hearing my response.  I was the champion for the boys.  Everyone heard it, but the girls won.

• Usually when a student was voted in as a class officer, they would remain in that position for the entire semester.  Since the girls outnumbered the boys, I lost the office of class president to Diane.

Promotion from Commodore Sloat to Aptos Jr. High was like a show for the adults.  Had to memorize lines from a script which included popular songs.  Had to sing falsetto as my singing voice was too low. 

Darlene Won, a pretty classmate, commented that my father "knew a lot of people" as he was friendly with some of the parents and guests at the Promotion Exercises.  He actually worked with her uncles at Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard who also attended.