Garfield Photos and the Great Volcano Explosion

Here are some Garfield Grade School photos:

I am on the upper right.

Carol Murrell, PhD, is on the lower left.

John DeVos is in the center, bottom row.

My mother, Gladys Parker Jackson, is on the lower right.

Corrections are welcome.

The group photo reminds me of the old rule of snapshot photography: "Get back as far as possible with that wide angle lens, so everyone can see an acre of ground, sky, and trees, and faces so small no one can recognize them."

I remember my mother's class creating a volcano out of paper mache. She found some safe chemicals to imitate a volcano eruption. That turned into an all-school demonstration outdoors. The other teachers warned the principal, Mr. Bandle, that all of us could be horribly burned, perhaps killed, in the volcanic eruption.

The volcano was moved far away from the building, to minimize damage.

We were lined up near the building, just in case we needed easy access to water, shelter, and bandages from the nurse's office.

The chemicals were mixed and a tiny plume of smoke came out. It was not the beginning of an explosion. It was the peak of the reaction.

All the kids were disappointed.

We laughed about the incident for years.