As I mentioned in my August 28 blog post, I was a member of the safety patrols at Pleasantdale Elementary School during the 1969-1970 school year and went on their annual trip. We went by train to Washington, D. C. and then on to New York City. It was a lot of fun, not only visiting those cities which I had never been to, but spending so much time with school friends away from the usual school setting.
Looking back, I think it may have been the first time many of us went on a trip without our parents. There were plenty of chaperones and the trip was well monitored, but still there was a feeling of having some freedom and independence.
Music is part of the memory of Julie McDaniel Cheeseman’s safety patrol trip, including songs like “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and “Blowing in the Wind.” She was traveling with the students of Sexton Woods Elementary School. When the group was in New York City, she remembers snow and recalls almost getting left at the United Nations Building because she “stayed in the meditation room a little too long.”
Kimberlee Bowman, Lee Vinson (1957) and Scott Hostrup (1972), Patti Bennett, and Eric Rose (1971) were also Sexton Woods Elementary students who went on the safety patrol trip. Rose remembers he and his friends “tossed paper airplanes out the window” of their New Yorker hotel room.
Some students slept on rollaway beds. Cheryl Fulton Cooper went with the school in 1977 and says they only went to DC. She finds it “funny what I thought was picture worthy with my instamatic camera.” I also have a collection of instamatic camera photos, mostly blurry.
John McElroy went with his DeKalb County School, class of 1967. He said it was a great trip!
Patrick Livington attended Nancy Creek Elementary and went on the trip in 1981. In 1981, students only did the Washington DC part of the trip but like me, he remembers passing notes back and forth between the boy and girl train cars. In D.C., he recalls going to the top of the Washington Memorial, visiting the Lincoln Memorial at night.
Also with the Nancy Creek Elementary School group, but in 1972, was Suzanne Wiley Sessoms. She remembers it as a great time. Lee Wilkerson went with the first graduating class of Nancy Creek. She remembers sites the class visited, including Arlington Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Lincoln Memorial and Smithsonian. In NYC she remembers having lunch at an automat (I remember that too), the Bronx Zoo and Empire State Building.
Ken Bragg remembers the same trip with his Dresden Elementary safety patrol group.
Marsha Brown Fuller not only went with her Doraville Elementary safety patrol, she also went six more times as part of the police escort. She loved the trip but hated the train. Gail Farrell’s mom Jo Farrell went as a student and later as a supervisor/chaperone.
From Fulton County Schools, I asked Meredith Ogden Conklin if she went on the trip with Morgan Falls School. She had moved to Hammond School before 7th grade and did go on the trip with that school. The most vivid memory she has is the uncomfortable and cold train!
If you have memories of 7th grade your safety patrol trip, write me at pasttensega@gmail.com.