In the beginning, before "us" (1940-41 school year)

 I came across Mom and Dad's school photos from 1940-41 and placed them side-by-side.  She was a 6-year-old first grader.  He was a 12-year-old seventh grader. My Mom told me her first-grade school "bus" was an open horse-drawn wagon pulled over rutted red dirt roads. These photos were taken in the depths of the Great Depression, more than a year before the US entered WWII following the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. My Dad joined the Navy in 1945 at age 17, serving mostly in Japan and China post-war into 1949.