SCHOOL DAYS, SCHOOL DAYS,

Hi Neighbor, Glad you stopped by.

Spending nine years going to school in a one-room schoolhouse was a great experience. Sometimes when I look back to my school days and see the difference in the school world of today, I am glad that I attended a one-room schoolhouse with just one teacher. If you were lucky to have a teacher like I had.  I don't know how many years Mrs. Edna Wallingford had been teaching there before I started, but I sure am glad that I had her for my nine years. I will share some of the things that happened during my years there.

There was one thing  we did that was  very unusual for a school to do.   I remember Mrs. Wallingford taking all of us, (all 20-30?) on a walk up the road. We were looking for milk-weed pods to collect. It seems that they were used somehow in the war. I think it might have had something to do with making parachutes. I expect that a good teacher would use that experience as a science lesson for us kids to think that such a thing as a milk weed pod could be use for something besides blowing the fluff away after it went so seed.

During noon recess time, the kids that lived close enough to walk, would go home for lunch time period.  Those of us who were bus kids hung around and ate our lunch and then could write on the boards, play board games or go out and swing on the huge metal swing that had four swings on long chains.  One of the games we played in the yard was "Rover,  Red Rover, Send somebody over". Across the small road that ran by the front of the school house and the yard, there was space enough for us to play Scrub Baseball. I particularly liked the noon time  recess because Mrs. Wallingford's husband, Joe, ran the post office a couple of houses away.  He also had a few goodies that he kept to sell.  Mrs. Wallingford would send someone up to get the daily newspaper for her to read.  I loved it when she chose me because Joe was sure to give me one of those delicious creme rolls he always had on hand.

Oh there is another story that I hate to tell because it could have been much worse than it was. It was winter time and we kids would go out behind the schoolhouse and cross a short field and over the wire and up the hill.  The crust was hard enough so we could slide down. It was great fun, but after awhile the crust would be all broken up with all of us tromping around.  I looked across a barbed wire fence and over there the crust was slick and shiny and did not have a crack in it. I thought that would be a good place with no holes, etc.  So a friend and I went over there.  There was that fence that ran down the hill and further across was another fence that ran down the hill. So my friend and I sat down on a piece of cardboard or whatever we were using to slide on and off we went down that bright shiny crust of snow. Just after starting I happened to look down to the bottom of the hill and there was another fence!!! It was going right across the bottom of the field. I started scrambling, grasping a piece of yellow grass sticking through the crust. I was trying to work my way across to that other fence going down the hill so I could grab a hold of one of the posts.  But my poor friend.  She just kept going down and down to the bottom of the hill. What could she do? Nothing. She just plowed into that barbed wire.   We were so grateful that she just ended up with a couple of stitches above one eye. Thank God for watching over two crazy kids and I must own up that I believe that it was my idea to go over there, so I am especially thankful that she was not hurt any worse.

Well, let's see. Oh yes.I had my first crush while I was in K, 1st or 2nd. Doesn't matter which grade I still was pretty young. I don't think I ever told anybody about that.  It wasn't  til few years ago while we were visiting North Wayne and went to visit "him" and his wife that I finally told him about my crush I had on him way back then.  He was quite surprised because he had no idea.  We still keep in touch from time to time.  Another thing that might fit in this paragraph was "my first kiss" happened during those  school years.  But he got caught because Mrs. Wallingford saw him and he got in trouble. That's all I remember of that incident.

Well I'm sure there are plenty more memories if I could remember them, but the years continued to pass by and so did I as I passed the grades and now I have reached the back of the room. It is now my last year as an eighth grader along with four other classmates. It will soon be time for our graduation ceremony. I remember that pretty well as we excitedly waited for our final time on the stage. I was Valedictorian and so will end the years with my speech:

Friends, Schoolmates and Classmates

It has been said that the last word is best, but today I do not enjoy saying it.

To give you a pleasant surprise, I shall be brief.

I wish to tell you how grateful we are to all who have made this day possible and have brightened our pathway of learning.

We are feeling a little sad because today we cease as a class and because we are leaving the scene of many happy times. Yet we are proud because we are standing here to day as graduates. We have learned the joy of study and have learned that life means service, calling for trained minds as well as active hands.

Whatever the future has in store for us, we hope to do our work well and faithfully that we may be a credit to you and to the North Wayne School. Today's realities brighten the dream of tomorrow.

Classmates, we say good by to these ties of yesterday, to our school and schoolmates, but let us still march on as the valiant class of 1950, til we face the western sun, our tasks well done.

So long to my days at a one-room school house.

Stop by again soon and we'll have another chat.