For
many my age, true socialization and a more formal learning passage beyond our
family and church began when we started to school. Kindergarten was not
required when I was that age so first grade was really the first time I was
introduced to a large group of others my own age. It would also introduce all
of us to a group of people tasked with helping us along our own educational journey
which would lead some of us into a world of possibilities and others into a
world of infinitives that split and participles that dangled. Looking back this
journey started at my first initial zip code, 30513, but more precisely at the
zip code, 30541, the home to Epworth Elementary School.
The
Epworth school was within ten minutes of our house. When I first walked through
those doors as a student, my brother and sister had already passed through
those halls. Over time I realized this was a mixed bag for me. My sister was a
very good student so when teachers realized who I was in relation to her they
no doubt had high hopes that I would often dash. Meantime, when they realized who
my brother was, they likely were unsure what to make of me. He wasn’t a bad
student but he was always much more interested in how cars ran and how to fix
them than why algebra related to his life. I wasn’t mechanically inclined, so I
fell somewhere between the two although me and algebra still struggle to get
along.
If memory serves me correctly, the Epworth school was a compound of five
buildings, a couple of ball fields and several playgrounds. The building that really
truly looked like a school house was the building that housed the principal’s
office, the auditorium and when I started there, grades six, seven and eight. Off
to one side was the gym and to the other side the library. Behind this building
was a long covered walkway that led into the upper building which housed the
lower grades. Past this building was the school cafeteria.
Over
the years, the county school system built other schools and rearranged the
grade levels at the existing schools leaving some schools to close. Epworth
would close although to this day most of the buildings remain standing as the
site now serves as a satellite branch for a college in the region. One of those
buildings, the cafeteria, was available a few years ago as a community center
and our family surprised Dad with a birthday party there one year. I was able to
go back then and walk around those grounds I had roamed so many years earlier.
The
visit stirred a lot of memories. I recall how we sat at tables in the first
grade then at some point in another grade transitioned to our own desks,
complete with a hollow shell under our seat for our books and coats. A small
lip at the upper part of the hollow shell was the ideal place to stash your
number two pencil. There were no white boards like in the modern classroom, we
had real chalkboards, green in color with real live chalk. Sometimes being
asked to go outside and pound the erasers together or against the school wall
was a privilege and other times a punishment. We had a pencil sharpener at the
front of the room and had to raise our hand to ask for permission to use it. It
seemed each classroom had a wall of windows to the outside. We had no air conditioning
so the lower windows would open in while the upper windows would push out.
There was even a window high on the inner wall and even now I am not sure why
it was there.
We
would bring our lunch money and hand it to the teacher at the start of the
week. In the cafeteria, I remember we would sit in different locations
depending on our grade. When lunchtime came, we would get in line, march
through the hall into the cafeteria then wait to go through the line where our
plates were filled. An extra milk cost a nickel. I recall a bowl of onions
being on the table once when I accepted a dare to eat a few spoonfuls of raw
chopped onion. I did even though I was unsure what I would wash them down with
since milk was the only available option. I remember getting in trouble once
after eating all I wanted but leaving a good deal on my plate. At that point me
and a classmate began mixing the leftovers on our plates into a messy goulash
of likely uneatable portions. We thought it was funny, our teacher did not. Sometimes,
you were called to duty to wipe off the tables after the class left. You were
handed a dishrag and a cleaned-out giant-size tin can of green beans now filled
with warm soapy water. This was the first place I probably ate pizza and
admittedly I still have a soft place in my heart for that unforgettable cheese
and cardboard flavor. I remember dumping our trays in the garbage cans when it
was time to leave, one can for food and another for napkins and milk cartons.
Most lasting though, I recall the hot homemade soft rolls made by the talented
ladies who fed us each day. I can still taste those rolls to this day.
At
this school, we learned to write in cursive, memorized multiplication tables
and visited the bookmobile when it came to visit. We recited the Pledge of
Allegiance every morning then usually read a chapter from the Bible as well. Sometimes
when we got in trouble we had to write something along the lines of “I will not
turn off the bathroom lights while others are in the bathroom” two hundred
times by the end of the day Friday or face greater punishment. I don’t recall
being allowed to chew gum but I imagine almost every one of us begged our parents
for thirty five cents each morning so we could buy a Nutty Buddy at afternoon
recess. The teacher reserved the right to sit us in any order she preferred and
if you happened to be able to sit by your buddies, you hoped you could behave
enough so the teacher didn’t move you to the other side of the room closer to
her desk.
We
would go to the Auditorium for special events. I remember performers singing
and even a reformed convict telling his story of misfortune and redemption. I
recall pep rallies in the auditorium, we were the Eagles, by the way, where we clapped and stomped our feet on
the aged wooden floor so loud it must have been heard in the houses nearby. I
remember trips to the library so we could check out books but I also remember
it was the place we went to have our class picture made. It was also pretty
cool to realize the librarian was married to the custodian.
On
the playground, I remember swinging as high as I could then jumping out of the
swings hoping to land on my feet. I recall the cold gray steel of the monkey
bars and becoming brave enough to swing through them skipping a bar every other
grasp. We played tag and freeze tag, red rover and took turns going down the
slide. On the bigger playground we moved to in the fourth grade, we might play
baseball or football. We would even make claims to be searching for arrowheads
on the ground. I even remember a few fights on the playground. We also won’t
discuss who did and who did not have cooties.
For
P.E. class, I remember jumping jacks and dodge ball, basketball and the trampoline.
We ran laps in the gym every class period. I was always leery of the trampoline
so the coach let me and a few others walk the bleachers instead. In hindsight,
I should have got on the trampoline. I recall field day and tug of war and
relay races. I even recall the changing room we used to get into our P.E.
clothes. Did I say we ran lots of laps?
I
rode the school bus every day as well. We were often the final bus leaving the
school. Our bus driver worked at the local Chevrolet dealership and had to work
his bus driving duties into his schedule. I recall once our regular bus, number
18, was sidelined for repairs for a few days. We were outside on the playground
waiting for the bus. We heard it coming and looked. Someone recognized it was
our regular bus and the group of us waiting to board cheered that our regular
bus had returned to duty.
My
class was only in the older building one year, sixth grade. The county school
system was in the process of changing things but this one year allowed us time in
the building with old waxed wood floors and stack heaters. It was also where
the principal’s office was located. If you needed to buy a pencil, Mrs.
Williams would sell you one. If you felt sick, you went to this office and they
would let you phone home. It was from this office the intercom we secretly
wished we could commandeer to announce how classes were dismissed was housed.
There
are so many other memories that rush back. Mostly now as I look back I am
amazed at how things really operated. When I stepped into first grade, I was
stepping into a room of other kids I did not know. In time, I would. What I
didn’t realize though was how most of the parents did know one another. Many of
our dads worked together. Many of our moms knew other moms because they had
grown up together. Our parents often knew our teachers as well. One teacher I
had for three separate years was the mother-in-law to our neighbor’s daughter.
You better believe I was on my best behavior in her classes. I like to think it
was this close sense of community that helped keep me out of trouble at times
and helped guide a path I could travel to where I am today.
Looking
back at then to compare it to now it becomes easy to lament that things today
aren’t the good ole days we knew. It is easy to do this when I look back. Today
though is what it is. Gone are the days when most families were intact with two
parents. Gone are the days when we knew the teachers in the school system. Gone
are the days you were okay with your children riding a bus to and from school. Gone
are the days when school lunch was not a politically correct football tossed
around on the cable news shows. Gone are the days when there was no confusion
which room you went in to change into your P.E. clothes.
Down
every hall, brothers with different mothers
