Orphans and Things To Do!
7th and 8th grade Orphans leave Orphanage for Christmas shopping! While still a very young kid, one good habit I set for myself, was to save all the small change I received – something worthwhile may come up and nothing like being prepared.
Sometimes some of the kids received punishment in the form of having to do checks. Let me explain, in the 40’s – checks/punishment was a math problem. The Nun would give you two to five numbers (5798). This number you would draw a line down the right side and place number 2 – then multiply the ( 5798) number, and that answer would be below, and you would put the next number 3, below the 2 and multiply the new result by the 3. Each new result would be multiplied by the next number and the Nun might require you to go as far as 12 for the multiplier. Now having a very great number, you would start to divide, draw your line down the left side and divide each result until your starting number (5798 ) was the end of your division. Sometimes you could spend all you free time doing these works of punishment. So I would offer to do checks for you, for 25 cents each.
The math was easy for me and I would make money! On the first Saturday of December, after our chores were done, and every Orphan except the kindergarten children had chores to do every day! Every six (6) months job assignments were changed.
As soon as, those of us that were going were ready to leave – we practically ran to the bus stop. The only bus that ran that for out to the county was the Ramona Bus. We were headed for an area that had quite a few stores and also a large 5 and 10 cent store!
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