Let's start this off with a song!

click here Now that right there is the truth if ever I printed it!  Back in the days of sand and shovels life was so much easier!  We walked to school in a cluster.  Our family lived on Strong Street and there were 3 houses with kids.  On the end were the Ayers kids.  Willis, Ralph, and Marurite.  Then the Reinke kids.  Delores and Irene.  Flo was older so she ignored us.  Then came the little Bartholomew kids! Josephine, Jake, and me.   Donna, Mary and Dorothy would come later. I attended all 8 years in that 2 story red brick building on the corner by the First Christian Church.  I attended that church the same 8 years. 

We all walked to school.  Not so much in a group as one would think, but rather as a bunch of stragglers off to learn to be responsible adults some day.  My brother Jake was pretty much a goof off  but most of the boys in that era were.  He finally joined the Army, because that is what boys did back then.

Now back then, if a kid misbehaved they were sent to the office where Mr. Houston would administer the proper punishment.  That usually meant a spanking.  Lordy!  times have changed, haven't they?  If your kid got a spanking at school, they would also get a better spanking at home.  No mother or father wanted to have a kid that would misbehave in public.  It just was not done!  Period.  End of story.  The classroom teacher was not allowed to spank.  She (and most of them were women) would walk up behind an inattentive, wiggly kid and whack them on top of the head with the edge of a wooden ruler.  Trust me on this; I seen stars for days!  Mrs. Howe was the only one who ever struck me.  That woman was mean!  I prayed every morning that she would not look at me, but God ignored my plea!

I still remember my teachers through grade school.  First  grade was Miss Donough who married in the middle of the year and became Mrs. Breece.  She was so kind.  Then grade two was Mrs. Wait.  Grade 3 was Miss Holmes who was very sweet.  Fourth grade was Mrs. Howe who was, to my recollection, the meanest woman in the world.  Fifth grade was Miss Swenson who was kind and the first person to ever praise me for my feeble attempt at writing poetry.  She actually got me published in a magazine that was popular at the time. Sixth grade brought Miss Lauver.  She was strict, but very fair and probably one of the best teachers in the school.  Old maid.  Seventh grade was Mr. Schriber and eighth was Mr. Bollinger.  I did not like men teachers.  They were full of themselves.  But in all fairness, Mr. Bollinger owned the movie theater so he was cool.  

At the time I was in school there were less than 1,000 people in Nickerson.  The red brick building has been demolished and a one story grade school built a block away.  A bunch of houses occupy the lot where so many memories were made.  The church I attended which set on the corner across the street from the school is boarded up now.  There is one grocery store and it is in the building the appliance store used to occupy.  I left Nickerson, Kansas 65 years ago, but in my mind, I am still there.

We never wore shoes to school in the fall.  When the weather started getting cold the shoes were dug out and whoever they fit had shoes.  The Montgomery Ward Catalog was dug out and feet were measured and new shoes bought for whoever did not get a pair of hand me down shoes.  Life was hard back then, but poverty did not discriminate.  New shoes were a luxury, but they were also harbingers of blisters on our feet because they were stiff and needed "broke in".  I did not like new shoes.

I watched the kids getting on the bus in front of my house.  They are in little uniforms.  Shoes are all the same color.  Wonder how that works for developing adults that are unique?  Oh well.

Busy day ahead of me so I better get busy.  The days of sand and shovels must go back in my mind and wait for another day.  I hope I never get so old that I forget where I came from and the road I took to get to this day.  School days, school days, dear old golden rule days!  Reading and writing and arithmetic. taught to the tune of a hickory stick.........

Peace!

...

It used to be a very long ways from her house to mine.

Back when I was in third or fourth grade, I had a best friend.  Her name was Barbara.  Her house was in the center of town very close to the school.  Mine was on the edge of town on the other side of the school.  Mother cleaned house for her mother so we were connected by that, I guess.  Arrangements would be made that I went home with Barbara on occasion.  Usually we just played and some times I would spend the night.  That was the best.  There were sheets on her bed and the bathroom was inside the house.  Now that was not a deal breaker, but it was really nice and I could always hope that some day I would live in a house so fine.

I don't remember what we played, but I am sure it entailed dolls and stuff like that.  Maybe we colored. I think we played hide and seek sometimes.  I liked hiding at her house because she had a garage and a car port.  I think,  I just don't remember. I do remember that her dad would sometimes make us an ice cream sundae and he always put a cherry on the top.  That was to die for and to this day when I see a squirt of whipped cream with a cherry on it, I revert back to my childhood and my friend Barbara.

I do remember that when it was time for me to go home I dreaded that long walk.  The streets in Nickerson were not paved.  Well, Main Street was.  It was paved from the school to the highway.  Then the highway ran off to Hutchinson or Sterling depending on which way you turned.

Sometimes Barbara would let me borrow her roller skates because it was so far to my house.  As I calculate it in my mind now it was probably about 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile.  The roller skates were really of little use because I only had 4 blocks of sidewalk then I had to take them off and carry them because anyone knows you can not skate on dirt.  I was careful to take very good care of the skates so I could use them again.  In all fairness, I spent a lot of time falling down and getting back up.  I could have been home a lot sooner had I just hoofed it.

Barbara never came to my house.  I always went to hers.  I guess that had something to do with her house being more modern that ours.  I sometimes wonder what became of her.  I saw her mother after I was married and learned a little about the years between.  Seems her mom and dad were divorced.  Barbara had moved to Kansas City and had a very good job and a very rich fiance.  I let it drop there, because I had no reason to pursue it.  Still I wonder.

I wonder about a lot of people back there in Nickerson, Kansas.  Sherry Stires who lived up by the high school in a big two story house.  She invited me to spend the night once, but she showed me a spider web on the outside of her house with a giant spider in it.  Scared the living pee wadding right out of me!  No way could I have stayed in her house.  I think I never went back there again.   Sometimes at night when I can't sleep I try to remember the names of my classmates.  Seems like there were about 23 or 24 of them.  I think I will try that now.  Let me know if any of these ring a bell.

Gay Withrow, Joan Moore, Barbara Hawk, Irene Reinke, Martha Knoblock, Nancy Cuthbertson, Sherry Stires, Beth McGonigle, Gary Battey, Loren McQueen, Larry Collee, Earl Kelley, Barbara Massey, Eleanor Kirkpatrick, Joyce Pedersen, Ronnie Beck, David Sjoberg,  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Oh where have you gone, Martha Knoblock?

The older I get the more I remember when I was young and foolish, but mostly young and taken care of by some one other than myself.  I remember my classmates so clearly.  Now let me go on record right here as saying, I have my memories and thiers may be entirely different.  Like Martha Knobloch.  She played the piano and I recall her piano recital.  She lived near us, but up on the highway closer to the sand pit.  Her mother set up a recital in her home and several of us kids were there.  It seems like maybe only 4 or 5.  We set on a couch,  all us little girls in a row with our feet straight out in front of us.  I am sure her mom made some sort of refreshments, probably to entice us into setting still!  I recall being very proud that I knew someone who could play the piano.  I bragged about that for years, and look here, I still am!
Irene Reinke,  Beth McGonigle and Nancy Cuthbertson grew up to be cheerleaders.   They were the cool kids.  David Sjoberg,  Owen Lentz and  Gary Battey were the smart ones.  Kenny Fenton,  Jim Redford, and Larry Collee were the jocks.  Oh, and David Sjoberg was also a jock.  A smart jock, if you can imagine that.   Earl Kelley, Loren McQueen, Jay Moore, Joyce Pedersen, Barbara Hawk, Sherry Stires, Joan Moore, Eleanor Kirkpatrick, Eveline Piper, Barbara Massey, and Martha Knobloch.  I am drawing a blank on the rest of them.  I am sure when I hang up the blog, I will remember the rest of them.  But this was the core group.  Others came and went, but these were the ones I went to school with for 8 years and then into high school. 
I was not a very good girl in high school, so I lost track of them. The bus brought in kids from Hutch and the outlying areas and I just went to hell in a handcart mostly.  All through grade school Barbara had been my very best friend.  Mother cleaned house for them and I spent lots of nights at her house.  Remember the sleeping arrangements at my house made it impossible to squeeze in another kid.  She had her own room!  It had a bed in an alcove and a settee, a fireplace, a chair with a lamp to see by, a desk and everything I could ever dream of for comfort.  And her mother kept ice cream in the freezer and her day would make us a sundae with a cherry on top!  Her dad was the local dentist, so they had lots of money. She had a brother named Bert who always called me "mudpie" because making mudpies was always a pastime in my world.  One thing we always had was dirt and water.  Had I made bricks instead of pies I could have built a house.
I remember 3rd grade when hygiene became important.  The teacher's name was Miss Holmes.  The first thing every morning she would ask, "Did you brush your teeth this morning?"  We had to hold up our hand as a yes answer.  "Did you comb your hair?"  Another yes was expected.  "Did you wash your face?"  Yes.  Then she would walk around and physically inspect our hands to be sure they were clean.  I rarely passed.  I had answered yes to all the above questions, but only because everyone else did.  I am not sure I even owned a toothbrush back in those days.  I never had a cavity in my life until I married my first husband.  He gave me the cavity germ along with the nest full of babies! 
One of the really nice things about school was the bathrooms.  I never knew why they were called that because there was no where to take a bath, but they were nice.  All that tile and running water was more then I could ever dream for at home.  And hot water came out of the faucet!  In the 4th grade I went into the  bathroom one time at the same time as Beth McGonigle.  She had a popcorn ball tired up in a scarf.  It was uneventful until a few minutes later when Mrs. Howe grabbed me by the ear and took me to the office.  There the story was told by Beth that I had grabbed her popcorn ball and thrown it in the toilet!  I had not even touched her damn popcorn ball, but that was the story.  Mother had to come to school and hear what an evil child I was.  On the report card every nine weeks there was an area for teacher comments.  "Louella is mean to her classmates".  "Louella teases the other kids."  "Louella does not play well with others".  That continued until the last 9 weeks when there was no comment written because Mrs. Howe had been taken to hospital because she had a thorn in her lower intestine and needed surgery.  It was iffy whether she would make it or not.  Talk about Karma! 
In 5th grade I had Miss Swenson.  I loved that woman.  She found potential in me and entered one of my poems to a magazine and it was accepted.  Had I stayed in 5th grade forever, my life would have been so different.  But life went on and I am here today to tell you that Karma is good.  Well, Karma is good unless it is bad.  I like to stay on the good side of that bitch!  
I wonder where all the kids have gone.  I wonder if they had good lives.  One of the kids that wandered through my world in the 4th grade was a girl named Mavis Reed.  She had a brother named Jerry.  They lived outside of town and sometimes I would ride the bus to her house and then her brother would take me home on the handlebars of his bike.  Wonder what ever became of them?  Wonder why I thought of that?
Well, the world of church, geese, dog food, and all that calls to me, so I am out of here.  Just in case someone whose name of have mentioned above reads this, I would like to know.  Or if you know what became of the kids in the class of 1959 in Nickerson, Kansas, give me a shout out.  email is loumercer3@aol.com  Just copy and paste in your browser.  I try every day to be a better person just to make up for whatever I did back then.  I keep searching because if we do not learn from our history, we tend to repeat out mistakes and it is the same in the growing up world of skinny little girls!

Yeah, what she said.

Happy Early Father's Day to my dad, who for years wore the hat of both mom and dad, who bought me tool sets and training bras, taught me how to fish, curse, and say excuse me, who gave me the courage to stand up for what's right, and the compassion to help others. Dad, you raised some kick ass kids! We love you!

Just read this on face book and since the world has seen it I assume it is alright to put it on this blog.  I would hope the girl who wrote it would add a comment here.  It is always wonderful to see the love between a parent and child at any age.  I know this gal's situation and that makes it even more special. I confess it also made me sad.

My mom and dad were separated in age by 20 years.  That may not mean much in this day and age, but back then things were different.  The father's job was to earn the living and the mother was supposed to stay home with the kids.  It did not work that way at our house.  Momma helped with the farming when Dad share cropped.  The 2 littlest kids were carried with her and the rest of us ran wild at home.  Well, technically, Josephine was supposed to watch us and she did.  She watched us play in the mud.  She watched us chase the chickens and torture the cat.  Donna poked her finger at a turtle and she watched us try to save her.  But that was 65 years ago.

My father was a man who lived in our home.  He had no patience for us kids.  He was just there.  I always envied the kids at school who could be seen around town walking with their father.  Or walk past and see the father figure mowing the grass.  A real sand and shovel memory if you get my drift.

It was not so with my father.  I knew none of his relatives although I was named after his mother.  He had 5 children from his first wife.  A son and daughter died as infants from sand pneumonia and 3 sons  were placed in an orphanage when his wife died.  I assume she died. Two of the 3 surviving sons were adopted.  Gene was not.  I have letters he wrote to my father from the orphanage that tear at my heart.  From the letters I learned that my father was never a caring man  to any child he had.  So it was never personal.  Just one of those "It is what it is." things.  Richard served during WWII and came home shell shocked.  Today we call it PTSD.  Earl married and had 3 children.  Gene spent most of his life in prison and finally just disappeared off the face of the earth.  He left a son named Billy who I remember only as a fact, but not a person I ever met.

My father never attended my wedding or acknowledged that there ever was one.  But he surprised me.  When I had my first baby, Debra Louann, he came by the apartment and looked at her.  When he left I found a bib in her crib.  For her 1 year birthday he had my sister Josephine make her a pretty red dress and bought her a pair of red patent leather shoes.  I have a picture somewhere.  I had forgotten all about that until   I started this paragraph!  He died before my second child was born.  I wonder if things had been different if we could have actually been friends?  Maybe....

But I can not think of that tonight.  It makes me too sad.  Life is just so full of missed opportunities.  So full of roads not taken and choices not made.  As I get older I think of all the things I should have done and all the things I should have said and I wonder if the good Lord let me live though all my past just so I could finally get it.  Lizzie, I am so glad you have this time with your father and I envy you so much.

That having been said,

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Home, Home on North Strong Street where my memories actually begin to be sort of accurate.

I have noticed that fuzzy little memories of life on the Stroh place and then the Ailmore place change according to my mood of the moment.  Most of the time I remember those days as carefree and happy.  Well there were a few exceptions.  Seems like I was always getting my ass beat for something that I was sure I had not done, but someone gave me the credit for being the instigator of one foul deed after another.  But when we moved North of town life took on meaning.
Miss Donough was my first grade teacher.  She was so pretty and so sweet.  The school was two stories tall and we were not allowed to ever go up the stairs.  I longed to walk those stairs all the way to the top and see what mysteries lingered there, but alas I was 4 years away from that trip.  Little did I know how quickly those years would fly by and then I would be going up the stairs every day and would hate that too.
The first grade classroom was very big.  The alphabet danced around the top of the room and the numbers followed.  At one end of the classroom was the "cloak room."  That meant coat room.  It was also the place where we took off our goulashes and there was a shelf for our lunch buckets.  Now you should know that when I say lunch bucket, I mean lunch bucket.  Some of the rich kids had lunch boxes with designs on the side of them.  Some were black.  Some kids brought paper sacks and those kids could just throw them away when they were done.  While I envied them that luxury I still thought it was wasteful.  We carried a bucket that had once held lard.  It was called a lard bucket when it had lard and lunch bucket when it had lunch.
At the far end of the classroom was the "sick room."  It held a small cot and it was for whoever was sick to lay on until they either felt better or a parent came and took them home.  I longed to be sick and lay on those clean white sheets, but it never happened.  Being blessed with an immune system that never allowed a disease or virus to enter your body is a curse to a kid wanting to see what it felt like to lay on a sheet.  Our beds at home were shared with at least 2 other kids and sometimes more.  Sheets were unheard of at our house.  Mother cut up old wool clothes and made them into quilts which were used both as a sheet and a cover.  Course with that many kids there was a lot of body heat shared.  To this day I can not even "rough it" when I go camping.  I need a sheet over me and under me and a pillow with a crisp pillow case under my head. I love fresh sheets and if I weren't so damn lazy I would wash my sheets every day.  I digress.
At the end of my first year of school, Miss Donough married a man named Mr. Breece.  Miss Donough ceased to exist and Mrs. Breece came into being.  I sadly left the first grade and moved across the hall to the second grade and Mrs. Wait.
This was where I would learn "manuscript" which is known today as "cursive", but is no longer taught in school as a required subject.  Not sure that anyone writes anymore what with the tablets, laptops, and such. It was here I also learned to add and subtract.  The second grade class was also responsible for raising and lowering the flag on the flagpole in the sand box.  Not the girls though.  No, no.  Girls were in training from day one to be good little girls and learn how to be good wives and mothers and raising and lowering the flag was not woman's work.  Strange, but all my life I have been on the wrong end of the stick as far as boy/girl things went.  Second grade passed in a blur.  We were kids.  There were no class distinctions.  We had not yet learned that there were the "haves and the have nots".  We had not yet learned that clothes were for anything except covering our bodies.
We ate what was in our lunch buckets and were damn glad to have it.  Potato sandwich's, wrinkled apples, or a cold piece of carp were just fare for the day.  Just something to keep us fed so we could make it through the day and home to our tar paper shack we called home.  A place to lay our bodies down, a place to rest our head and dream of places we were learning about where there was electric lights, a gas stove and  water that came out of a pipe in the kitchen, all warm so you could wash the dishes or take a bath.   .A fairy tale place that existed just outside our reach.  Soon I would learn that Strong Street was the wrong side of the tracks, but for now I was happy and secure,  and when I was 8 years old the present was all that mattered.  

Myself-Edgar Guest

I woke up this morning with this in my head.  Kept playing it over and over until I went and found it so I could print it here.  Know where  I first heard this?  They always say that a teacher can make a lot of difference in a kids life an this one sure did mine.  I was in the 7th grade and his name was Mr. Bollinger.  He also ran the movie house in Nickerson. 

I remember him  as a little round man with very thick glasses.  I was devastated when he left the school after only a few years. At least it seemed a short time to me.  He would set on the corner of the desk and for the life of me I can not remember what class he taught, but he was always quick to give us something like this to "think about".  

 

Myself 

I have to live with myself, and so,
I want to be fit for myself to know;
I want to be able as days go by,
Always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don't want to stand with the setting sun
And hate myself for the things I've done.


I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
A lot of secrets about myself,
And fool myself as I come and go
Into thinking that nobody else will know
The kind of man I really am;
I don't want to dress myself up in sham.


I want to go out with my head erect,
I want to deserve all men's respect; 
But here in this struggle for fame and pelf,
I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to think as I come and go
That I'm bluster and bluff and empty show.


I never can hide myself from me,
I see what others may never see,
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself- and so,
Whatever happens, I want to be 
Self-respecting and conscience free.

Still on the Ailmore place.

Just read the last post I made before I wandered off to do my craft shows.  We were on the Ailmore place and had just had our cyclone.  I have a few more memories I need to share there and then I will move on. 
I mentioned Bull Creek being right by our house.  I am going to try to figure out my directions here.  Sorry, I got confused, but if you want to look just click here and you can figure it out.  Just know that the Arkansas river runs on one side of Nickerson, Cow Creek figures in there some where on the other side and Bull Creek is a little furrow you can step across most of the time and has no water in it at all.  But it is, or was at the time, a whole different story in the Spring.  I think it is still the same because I used to make several trips down there every year and some times I like to take 96 Highway just for a change of scenery.  Starting about in Rice County the sheriffs and volunteers would be out to make sure that when cars crossed the flooded parts of the road there were no casualties.  Just one of the hazards of the area.
I recall once leaving our house and walking to check on the Shultz family, which was about 3 blocks away, and wading water all the way.  As quickly as the floods came, they receded and we were left with puddles of water in all the low places.  So we built little boats and sailed them in the puddles.  As I recall, our house was set up off the ground so the water did not get inside.  Most of the houses there were that way.  I do not recall having a pet at the time, but I sure there was an old mangy dog around some where.
Back somewhere in the far recesses of my mind I can recall my father "pulling a prank" on friend of his or at least on his wife.  Her name was Salina.  I think she was married to John Britan, the guy my dad share cropped with for many years.  All I remember is waking up and hearing them laughing and John saying "Just look at the egg my chicken laid!  I am going to take it to the newspaper."  Then they laughed some more.  "Damn, Rueben, where did you get that turkey egg?"  I do not know if anyone ever told Salina Britan that her chicken did not lay that egg, but it was a source of amusement at gatherings for a very long time as it quickly circulated through the town, and I am remembering it over 60 years later.
There are a lot of things I remember on the Ailmore place.  Some one up the road had a car and took the children to school.  They would stop at the end of our drive and let us ride with them if we were out, but if not, then we walked to school.  There was a young man about Jake's age that sometimes hung out at the house, but he preferred to hang with us girls.  Mother, Dad and Josephine would run him off the place.  I did not understand then, but now I think I do.  I thought they were just being mean because he was my "friend", but looking back, that was pretty strange.
The man right across Bull Creek on the way to town raised pigs.  Right now his name escapes me    ( Roy Keating) but some times dad would go do chores when the man left for a few days.  We always went and gathered the eggs.  That was really nice because he had a special little shed built for the eggs to be taken into, cleaned and put in crates.  Our hen house had blown away and our chickens just laid where ever they felt like laying.  Oh, but there is nothing more terrifying than reaching under one of those hens to get the egg.  I lived in mortal terror that I would be pecked.  Still afraid to do it now, so I just don't have chickens.
Jake always wanted to be a mechanic.  I recall once he wanted me to blow in the gas tank while he looked under the hood.  Then he had the bright idea to syphon the gas out of the tank and coerced Donna into sucking on the hose to get it started.  She had no idea what she was doing so she got a big mouth full of gas.  Lordy, mother liked to beat that Jake to death!  And we had to make Donna throw up and maybe there was another trip to the medical place in Hutch.
Lots of gaps in my memory back then, but remember I was very young.  Life back in those days was straight out of a John Stienbeck novel; poverty in it's purest form.  But everyone was in the same boat, the war was just over, and better days lay ahead.  I know cause we heard the adults say so and adults knew every thing!  But we were about to move again.  I had been born on one place, moved to another and was on my way to a third.  I was 7 years old and the world lay before me like an open oyster, and sorry to say, smelled about the same...a little fishy!

Woke up this morning, Nickerson on my mind.

That should be a country western song!  Woke up this morning, you were on my mind.  Forget who sang that, but this morning I woke up remembering when I was a little girl in Nickerson, Kansas and for some reason I was remembering the layout of the school and the lunch room.  Lunch room?  Who am I kidding?  The school was a red brick which was 2 stories tall.  There were 4 double doors to get into the school; two in front and two in back.  Face the school and on your left was the main entrance.

Well, here I made a little sketch of it.  It is not drawn to scale, but let me tell you, on top is the bottom floor.  See you come in the main entrance which is the upper left corner.  On your right is the first grade room.  I remember the alphabet marching above the black board.  But that is not why we are here.  See that hallway running down the middle?  See that table and those benches?  That was the lunch room.  At the end of the hall was the kitchen, restrooms and janitor.  Here was the heart of the school as far as I could tell!
Now this is what I looked like back then.  This is actually my mother, but even today I could pass for her.  Look at those shoes!   Button ups!  I wore brown Buster Browns.  Remember that ad?  "Arf!" then "That's my dog Tide.  He lives in a shoe.  I'm Buster Brown, look for me in there too!"  They came in two colors.  Black and Brown.  I mean you could get a pair of Black shoes or a pair of brown shoes.  In later years they introduced white and then combined white with them and the Saddle Oxford was born!  That is a whole nuther story.

Ah, the kitchen!  When we arrived at school the ladies were all ready at work cooking.  Mrs. Ritchie was the cook and her brother-in-law, Mr. Ritchie was the janitor.  I think that was right.  In later years, I think he committed suicide.  I recall her as a short, kind of heavy, very sweet lady.  He was always very kind.  Anyway, at the appointed time the kids were allowed to file past the end of the table and pick up their plates and a carton of milk.  (I think it was actually still in glass bottles at that time.)  That was if you could afford the meals.  If not you took your lunch sack, pail, or box and set at the far end of the table.  Seems like the far end was always more populated than the hot meal kids. Although I remember eating hot meals there, so it must have happened a  time or two any way.  I know I carried my lunch in a paper bag which I must be sure to bring home.  Do not remember what I ate, but I do remember that meat was a rarity and peanut butter was a real treat!  And bread was a nickle a loaf!  (I also remember being very jealous of the kids who had the fancy tin lunch boxes.  And today they sell on eBay like gold!)
And another thing, showing that the government was always taking care of us was that once a month, in the middle of the morning, we were sent down to the tables where we were given a paper cup full of orange juice.  This was given to us so we got out vitamin c and did not develop Rickets or some such incurable disease.  I am sure that the one glass of orange juice once a month was the only thing standing between me and being dead today!  But it sure was good orange juice, and the only time we ever had it!
Now a lunch room is a far different thing.  No way would kids be allowed to eat in the hallway.  I know when they were building the new grade school in Nickerson, one of the selling factors was that it would have a lunch room!  Course it was built after I left grade school, so I never got to see it.
Another thing that stands out in my mind is the music room.  It was at the head of the stairs and very small.  There were shades on the windows that were designed to block out light or to keep light from escaping.  This was in case the Germans or Japanese or  some one came and bombed us.  I do not think we ever used them, but you just never knew back then what might transpire.  Early in my school days, the district purchased an older frame school building and moved it to the property and it became our new Music Room.  When it was time for music we marched single file out the door, across the school yard (being careful to stay on the side walk so as not to step on any of the weeds.), and into the music building, which was very big and very airy and we loved it.  Miss Barkiss was our teacher and some years later she would marry David Houston, son of the principal of our school.  That is all I know about that!
I do remember the last day of school was always cause for celebration.  We would be full of anticipation for the coming summer, but we would be sad because we would not see our friends.  Seems people did not visit then like they do now.  Oh I would walk over to my best friend, Barbara Hawk's house and we would play, but that was a long ways over there and when I left she would walk me half way home.  But school ending was always a big deal.  We may have had a picnic!  I think we did!  And the band would play and we would listen. And my eighth grade year which was my last, a bird flew over and pooped right on Gay as she played her Clarinet and she did not even wince, just kept right on playing!  Always admired her for that though I never told her so.
I often wonder about my teachers. Miss Donough  was first grade and she married a guy I think was named Breece in the middle of the year.  Mrs. Wait was second grade, Miss Holmes was third,  Mrs. Howe was fourth.  (She got a thorn in her intestine and almost died.)  Miss Swenson was 5th, Miss Lauver was sixth, Mr. Bollinger was 7th and Mr. Schriber was 8th.  At least that is how it goes in my mind.  Nobody ever quit.  Nobody ever got fired.  Nobody ever molested anybody and as far as I know they are still all there in Nickerson, Kansas where I left them.  Mr. Bollinger owned the movie theater and tickets were 7 cents.  It was open on Friday night and Saturday afternoon.
When I was in 4th grade Aunt Helen came and enrolled me in Brownies, which was the precursor to Girl Scouts.  Bought me a brownie dress and hat.  She was very rich and had no kids.  Her brother was Frank Wocknitz who made bologna named "Tony's Bologna" and it was the only kind we ever ate and was carried by both grocery stores.  Lord only knew what was in that other bologna.  And when he died, that was the end of the business cause he took the recipe to the grave.
Well, I could gas all day long here, but I need to get busy.  The memory is a wonderful thing.  I am sure mine is accurate.  But if it isn't one of two things will happen; either someone will email me with their memory or they will say, " Oh, I had forgotten that!  I am so glad she remembered!"  But if there is anyone out there who remembers my good old days, and me, give me a holler.  We will have a great visit, if we remember why we came.

An ill wind that blows nobody good.

Remember your momma telling you that when you were small? Ever wonder what that means exactly? Well, I figured it out. The ill wind is just the gossip and innuendo that preceeds something. There is an ill wind blowing in my life right now and I intend to stop it this afternoon. For several days now I have been hearing rumors that are upsetting. I do not like that, so this afternoon I shall "beard the lion in his den", so to speak. When I know, you will know. That is a given. You all know I can not keep a secret. What bothers me right now and has for several days is the "He said, she said." When we were kids in school we played a game called "Gossip." (Please remember I grew up in the Bible Belt!) We would set in a row, side by side, the girls and the boys. The teacher would whisper something in the first students ear. This student would in turn whisper to the next student until at last the "secret" was told to the last student who announced what they heard to the class. "Melba is going to France to have a baby." May have started out as "Melvin is going to the dance with a lady", but that was sure not what it ended up. The fun part of this is not knowing who changed which word, only that as innocent as the game was we learned how words can be misconstrued and misinterperted and how those same words that were so innocent can be twisted into something that is very different. I can write a sentence, but since the inflection is not in my voice and you have no idea what I am doing, it will mean something different to whoever reads it. Like this. I say " I am cold." What do you take that to mean? "Lou is cold. She has no heart." or "Lou is cold. She did not pay the heat bill." or "Lou is setting naked in front of the window again." So, before I play the "he said/she said" game I want all the he's and she's in a row so I can look them in the eye. Something about looking people in the eye that makes them accountable. Letters are a piece of cake cause you do not have to hear a rebuttal. Phone is easy, kind of, cause you can slam it down and walk off, but the eye to eye, somebody is going to blink! So that is where I am right now. I will come home from this little meeting either happy or very, very sad and will need to deal with that. Either way, you will get an update this evening or in the morning at the very latest. And right now the cold wind is blowing here at my house and I can definitely feel the nip of fall in the air. After this hot,hot summer, I kind of look forward to the fall. So this is not an ill wind here. Side note here, Do not go to my AIDS Walk site at this time as I am changing something on there. Will let you know when! ;)

They have arrived, took sister Mary, and left!

Here are the culprits! This is Dorothy and Mike Flory. They live in Shawnee, Kansas. They both work and have strange hobbies. They have cows for pets and a farm for a hobby. It is calving time on the farm and with this weather, they keep pretty busy overseeing the birthing process as well as having full time jobs! Then to take time out to run out here and pick up Mary, my hat is off to them!

They arrived Saturday night, ate supper, slept, ate breakfast, loaded Sister Mary in the car and away they went! Now I am alone. Well, not really alone since I do have Bret, Daisy, Elvira, 10 geese, and 23 ducks, but I have nonetheless, lost my buddy.

And here is Sister Mary, all ready to go. She even has her purse hooked on her arm. Maybe they are going to stop and do some shopping! I do not like to shop, so we did not do that while she was here, except when we did it for survival.

Having Mary here was a definite treat, and a diversion to say the very least. You have to look back on our childhood to realize what a learning experience this really was. Mary was always the "pretty one". Dorothy was the baby, Donna was there, Jake was the boy, and Josephine was the oldest. I came in between Donna and Jake, so that made me the "middle child" and you know what the middle child was good for--nothing.

Middle Child Syndrome is what it is called. I am not a leader and not a follower, just kind of there. Or at least that is how it should have worked. But in our family, Josephine married and left very early, Jake attached himself to a farmer and then forged a new birth certificate and joined the Army when he was barely 16 and was never there. So, I then became the leader. Then I left.

But back to the relevant part. Mary and I were never very close. She was closer to Donna. Then she married Tommy when she was 13(?) and he was 15(?). Think that is right. They remained together and lived happily ever after until he passed at the early age of 52. So when the opportunity arose for her to come spend time with me we jumped on that. You really get to know someone when you set and talk for hours. We have a lot in common. We both lost our mother, both lost our husbands, both have grandkids, went to the same grade school. And on and on. Lot more than I thought. Might have to do this again someday!

But for now, I will savor the weeks we spent together, knowing she is safe at home with her family checking up on her. Guess I will plan a trip to Wichita, Kansas as soon as the snow melts!!

Snowing again!! I must be hungering for the sun!

Hey! I see a Robin out there in the snow storm! What is he thinking? I sort of feel that perhaps I am getting a mixed message.It snowed yesterday and is snowing this morning. According to the Indian Lore, we only need 18 more snows to end the season. Course everyone is wanting Spring. Apparently so is the Robin Red Breast!

One thing nice about snow is that I can go out to the duck pond and see what kind of critters have been visiting during the night. I know there is a skunk and something with little paws. I think that is probably a fox. I am sure I will need to do some work on the fence before spring actually arrives.

Had a great email from a guy I went to school with in Nickerson, Kansas. He had been sent my blog about Nickerson. He is younger, but of course everyone is younger that me. He is actually the cousin to the "Beth" that got me in trouble with the popcorn ball in fourth grade. Small world, huh?

 I actually joined one of those Classmates things once and paid for a whole year. This one did not work quite like I thought it should. Every time I would see the name of someone I remembered, I would click on it and they wanted me to contact them and get them to sign up with them!  Well, excuse me, if I knew how to contact them I would not have paid you to tell me where all my dear friends are today!

I also signed up for a Find People Fast, although I do not remember just what the name of the company was. I think that cost $29.95 for the year, but every time I found some one, I needed to pay $2.95 for the address and phone number. For only $39.95 I could look at their criminal record.  Bet some of those kids I went to school with would freak out if I showed up with my mohawk! Bet they would be looking for my criminal record! This is where I put in LOL, which means laugh out loud!

Ok, we now have a real crisis! I can not find the spell checker! Just go with the phonics thing! Since I can not use any big words, I guess I will sign off for today. Got to go do my Brain Gym exercise, if I can find the book!

Nickerson, Kansas Elementary School, 1945-1953

This may take more than one posting. I woke up this morning thinking about grade school. When I can not fall asleep at night, one of my favorite things is to remember the one mile walk to and from school. I picture the houses and try to remember the names of the people who lived in them. It usually works if I follow it with the Lord's Prayer.

What I woke up remembering this morning was the music room. At least what passed for the music room before they moved in a small school building and set it on the corner and that was the music room. This room was on the second story. Cultural Department.

The windows in the whole school were huge, very tall. Every window in the school was covered with heavy blackout curtains that were fastened to the sides. This was in case the Japanese were to fly over here and end up in the center of the United States in a town named Nickerson, Kansas, population 1,100, we could close them and no light would get out so they would not bomb that building. Homeland Security!

Once a month, we were all called to the central hallway, which doubled as a lunch room and given a glass of orange juice. There was a small room off the first grade classroom that doubled as a sick room. Health Department!

I think that was so we would not get Rickets, or something like that. Our meals were cooked in the kitchen by Mrs. Ritchie. Her husband was the Janitor. He committed suicide shortly after the 8th grade, or so we heard. Probably about the 4th grade one of the boys in our town was killed in the war and the whole school went to the train station to meet the coffin. All I remember is looking up his marker in the cemetary and it says "He sleeps in Iwo Jima."

Also in fourth grade, a classmate named Beth (You know who you are!) brought a popcorn ball to school and dropped it in the stool in the bathroom and blamed it on me! Said I grabbed it away and threw it in there! If I had touched it I would have eaten it! Mrs. Howe was very upset with me and wrote on my report card, "Louella teases the other kids on the playground." So much for the Justice Department!

Fifth grade I had a poem published in the Jack and Jill(?) magazine. Other highlights: Last day of school in 8th grade, the band played outside and a bird pooped on Gay Withrow's cap. Mother had cancer and the church ladies sewed all us kids clothes for school except Jake who only wore overalls anyway. Mother recuperated and lived to be 80 years old. Miss Barkis, the music teacher, married the principals son, David Houston. Miss Donnough, the first grade teacher, married someone. Mrs. Howe, the fourth grade teacher got a thorn in her intestine and nearly died.

Oh, for the days of trivial nonesense!! And to think I have remembered some of this stuff for 63 years!!!

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days!

Reading and writing and 'rithmetic,

taught to the tune of a hickory stick!