Here are some stories that I thought everyone would remember! Even though some of these incidents are humorous, it doesn't take away from the seriousness of the issue of child abuse!
Who could ever forget having to yell, "Coming down!" every time you walked down the hallway. And then there was the response, "In the Hall!" to let you know it wasn't safe to walk down that way! God forbid we would have passed one another in the hallway.
Do any of you still take 3 minute showers? I didn't think so! Those showers were the worst, especially since we had to wear those dumb shower shoes! I for one didn't have my normal menstrual cycle while I was at Hephzibah, but those of you that did, had the pleasure of the "pad basket." It must have been the grossest job to be the staff that had to confirm that a girl was actually throwing away a used feminine hygiene product! Almost as gross as checking the daily "BM" chart!
I'm not sure if they still do this, but in my day, we had "uniform checks." The purpose of this check was to make sure that each girl was wearing a bra and a slip. Like anyone would try to wear those itchy uniforms without a slip! And since we're talking about clothes, I was never lucky enough to have "cool" culottes. Apparently mine were too worldly, so I got the ones with the "flaps" sewn on front and back.
Laundry day...I can still hear Miss Saylor counting out how many pairs of socks and underwear were in my laundry bag. They had to ensure that we were changing every day. Does anyone else remember having to sort the laundry at the Kagin's? I've heard other girls talk about matching up all their socks after they came out of the dryer. We also had to rotate beds every week when we washed our sheets. When I was there, the girl on the bottom bunk was not allowed to sleep with her underwear on. But the girls on the top 2 bunks had to keep their's on because they didn't want anyone to see "anything" while someone was climbing the bunks!
After Katrina left, did you girls still have the crocheted name tags for your beds? She was handy! I still remember how to make those.
Did anyone ever have sick days? Our sick days were the worst! If you even so much as complained of a headache, you were instantly put on a "sick day." All 3 meals for that day would be nothing but the thinnest, tasteless broth. The whole day would be spent lying on a mat in the "closet" up in the school room. I guess it did keep you from having to do chores, but that's the only positive!
I remember waking up in the middle of the night and being brought down to the kitchen. And there up on the counter would be a fresh road kill! Literally, there would be a deer that had been hit by a car, and now at 2AM, we were going to help process it. Aside from being tired, and it being a bit of a disgusting job, the few girls who were in there got to hang out with Aaron, so that part of it was okay. Too bad they never let us eat any of the venison though, which brings me to another funny story....
A couple of girls the other day were talking about "fish soup." I honestly don't recall ever having anything even remotely close to fish, but I have been told this soup was horrible! I guess the Miso is still put into the soup though, and that smell is one you never forget! Back in my day, we didn't have fish, but we had dog food! Along with peas, Chef boy Ardee ravioli, cream of mushroom, asparagus, and just about any other item you can imagine coming in a can. We had so many donated cans of food...dented cans or cans with missing labels. It was definitely an adventure opening those cans....it was the worst thing seeing what went into the soup though and sitting at school knowing that it was waiting for you at lunch time! I also remember grit casserole, which was actually pretty good!!! (Anyone feel like putting together a "menu" page of old HH recipes???) Remember how we had to write up a weekly menu and send it home along with out letter to our parents? I actually got yelled at over the intercom by Patti once (big surprise) because i wrote "powdered milk" on the menu!!! I hated eating cucumbers with the peelings still on them...yuck!
OMG, can you believe how they made us try to shave with those little flicker razors? And how they were locked up like contraband (along with scissors...haha), and then brought out on sundays. It's pretty gross to think that we were all just sitting around, shaving, and then sharing a nasty bucket of water to rinse off our razors. Not that we could really shave with those things anyways (especially since we couldn't use them in the showers).