School years.

 

For five years I attended Wood Grove, a one-room country school near Lake Fork. Grades 1 through 8 attended this school with 1 teacher hired to teach 10 to 15 students. In the back corner stood the pot bellied stove our only source of heat, windows that opened in spring and fall supplied air conditioning. Water was pumped from a well and carried inside for drinking and washing up before lunch. A lone towel hung on a nail next to a small enamel basin and a bar of soap sat in a dish. Everyone shared; water, towel and soap. The water was ice cold in winter, lukewarm in summer and was changed occasionally by pitching it out the door and refilling the basin. The water bucket had a dipper that everyone drank from. A small mirror hung above the washbasin and a lone comb lay on the shelf, we shared that also. No one ever had head lice and colds were far and few between. 

On the occasion that someone got a sick, they stayed home for a few days and home remedies were used. Mustard plasters applied to the chest for a cold, lots of Vicks vapor rub for sore throats and Vicks nose drops to clear ones head. Aspirin, sulfa drugs and hot lemonade were administered as often as the patient would allow. If your nose was stuffed up and you had a sore throat it was a cold. If you were throwing up it was the flu. If you had a fever and a sore throat it was tonsillitis. If you had tonsillitis more than 3 times in one winter a trip to the doctors office was in store next spring and the tonsils were removed. 

I breezed through the years at Wood Grove.  Classes were not very demanding. We were there to learn the 3 R's. Readin and 'Rithmetic came easy to me. 'Ritin was limited to printing, then cursive. We practiced forming the letters but very little time spent on making sentences. I thought I was smart. Little did I know? We didn’t have a library but our teacher read to us every day right after lunch and it soon became my favorite time of the school day.

Our playground was a field with a swing set, a teeter-totter and a place to play softball. In winter it became a snow field where we played fox and geese, made snow forts and waged war with the only available ammunition, snowballs. All students, young and old, boy or girl wore the same "uniform", jeans and a shirt. We didn't know about styles or color coordinating or name brands. Clothes were just something to cover ones body and keep one warm.