From the archives (and revised!) The Great Shoe Box Float Parade of 1981

In the fall of 1980, I went into third grade. I was eight but felt much older. My grandmother had died two months before, after battling lung cancer. I was devastated when she died; however, I also felt this sick sense of relief. She had been sick for so long, so when she died, it was a blessing. Yet I missed her so much, and I didn’t want to go back to school. I didn’t want to hear that my handwriting was messy or that I couldn’t do math. I didn’t want to hear “try harder” when I was trying as hard as I could. I really wanted to go to Los Angeles and be a movie star. Okay, I couldn’t sing or dance, but I could memorize lines. I could look cute on cue. However, I was stuck in Pleasant Hill, California, and I was going into third grade.

We had a new teacher that year. Camille Sihler was brand-new to our school in 1980. She was five feet tall yet had a booming voice. She was from New Orleans and had the accent to show it. We all looked at her with awe. A new teacher! Someone we knew n…