Crossing Guards and School Buses

Keeping on the grade school in the 1960s theme, I was reminded of my encounter with the urban phenomenon: crossing guards.  We moved to Fox Point in fall 1961 where I went to first grade at Indian Hill School.  Here's the class picture (I'm at the lower right):

source: https://archive.org/details/MapleDale/Maple%20Dale6/page/n3/mode/2up

For some reason I remember Mrs. Smith as being really OLD  :)  I HATE the fact that 4 of those 21 kids are dead in 2026 :(  

Now except for maybe one time (that was a civil defense thing where school was let out early and we walked home from Maple Dale) I usually rode the bus.  The suburbs didn't have sidewalks or crossing guards or even that many stop lights.  So it was probably asking a lot for a 4, 5 or 6 year old kid to walk 1.8 miles unsupervised to school and back home.

Bing chose this route to Indian Hill where I went to 1st grade

.

Bing doesn't like direct routes :)  this time to Maple Dale

One consequence of going to 1st grade at Indian Hill (it was just kindergarten and 1st grade then) was that the bus went all over the western part of Fox Point rather than just a small area near my neighborhood.

But I went to the Congress Street School in Milwaukee for kindergarten and the first month or so of first grade.  It was two blocks from where we lived and Milwaukee had sidewalks so I walked to school.  The Olsons lived in the small middle house (no ramp or decking then):

Google chose the same path I took in 1960-1961:

I just walked straight north along 53rd street crossing Marion St. (a lightly traveled side street) but Congress street was a busier through street - there was a crossing guard.  However I remember being late one time in kindergarten - no Mom along to hold my hand (maybe I made a fuss ?) - I get to Congress street and the crossing guard is GONE !  I was about to start crying but then an older girl came out of the corner house on 53rd and Congress and just walked across the street !  So I didn't want to be a baby, I crossed too :)  Here is the house where the older girl lived and the school across the street:

But for a second there I was traumatized because another time as an even smaller kid, I had crossed Fond Du Lac Avenue, a REALLY busy diagonal street and gotten yelled at - so I wasn't supposed to cross busy streets by myself.  That was the only lesson I remember from school that day, in fact it might be one of my earliest memories.

I *miss* those days, as bad as they were in some ways.

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm