If someone asked you for a memory from elementary school, what would come to mind?
Fourth-grader Maggie Lombardi remembers way back to first grade at Randall Elementary School in Waukesha. PJ Day. Popcorn and reading. She got to bring a blanket and a stuffed animal and watch "Finding Nemo." Even her teacher wore pajamas.
"It was super cool," she wrote.
Maggie's dad, Jim Lombardi, an electrical engineer who attended the same school between 1969 and 1976, has memories, too, if a bit more vague. Happiness. A great learning experience from great teachers. Fun times with friends.
He still stays in touch with some of those friends who've settled in the same diverse neighborhood around Carroll University. Now his kids go to school with some of their kids, he wrote.
Maggie's grandmother, former Waukesha mayor Carol Lombardi, walked the same hallways as a student in the early 1940s.
"I was a very good student, and usually the teacher's pet," she said. "I got to ring the bell in the morning. I got to answer the school phone. A lot of the kids hated me because I was doing all those things, but I learned so much responsibility."
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