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Well by now my old grammar school is being torn down. I feel like I need to do the eulogy for this grand old school. It was built in 1909 and opened in 1910 as the high school. Later, Leon Godchaux High School was built in 1930 and the old school became Leon Godchaux Grammar School.

We had a section on the side of the school where we played marbles, yo-yos, tops and even hop-scotch. Some kids had what you would call a dropbox where you would drop marbles into a hole on the top of a cigar box. If you missed you lost your marble, and if you made it, you would get three marbles back.

I don’t know what the girls did other than play jacks and hop-scotch. Back then us boys weren’t too interested in girls. We had some great teachers. I remember in second grade, Sidney Savoie used to run away from school all the time. When he would jump up the teacher would say “get him,” but Sidney was too fast for any of us.

There are so many good memories to talk about that would take me all night to write about. I remember in the seventh grade we had a teacher name Miss Brady (Birdie’s Remondet’s aunt). She would walk around the room with a ruler and if you were misbehaving, she would smack your knuckles with that ruler. Miss Brady would always call 20 spelling words starting from the bottom up. She never mixed the words up or called them from top to bottom; it was always bottom to top. Well a student named Pierre (by the way, he was the only person named Pierre in the entire school) decided to make a cheat sheet writing each word from bottom to top and as she called each word. Pierre would make as though he was writing the words. Well along comes Miss Brady, and she caught him. Now talk about a fast thinker; Miss Brady asked Pierre why he had all the words written down already. Pierre responded, “Miss Brady, I studied so hard I knew what words you’re going to call.” All I heard after that was the sound of the ruler hitting Pierre’s knuckles.

Well goodbye Leon Godchaux Grammar School, but I will never forget you. I hope y’all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Now don’t ask me what I did yesterday!

 

Carl Vicknair Sr.

St. Amant, Louisiana

Graduate, Leon Godchaux Grammar School