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Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts

Thursday, February 9, 2023

His name was Dewite Jackson.

(That was not his real name, but rather a pseudonym that I shall use in case he is still alive and/or has family back in Nickerson, Kansas.)

Times were definitely different back then.  Nickerson Grade School was a 2-story red brick building.  Lunch was served in the downstairs Hall for everyone except the little Bartholomew kids who carried potato sandwichs tied up in a handkerchief.  The kitchen was located at the end of the hall and right between the girls' bathrooms and the boys' bathrooms.   Grades 1-4 were on the first floor and 5-8 were on the second floor. The Principals office was located on the second floor.  The principal at the time was Mr. Somebody who was in charge of running the whole school and making sure there was harmony and a conducive atmosphere for learning.

Now, the first thing you should know is that back in those days, 70 years ago life was different.  There was a thing that existed called "discipline."  It existed in homes and schools across our fair land.  It was usually dispensed at home, so schools ran on an even keel and if an incident happened at school (which was a rarity) it was handled in the principal's office.  

At the time of this particular incident, I must have been in about the fifth grade.  Dewite was probably an eighth grader.  Mr. Somebody stormed onto the playground and grabbed Dewite by the ear and marched him into the school, up the stairs and into the Principals office.  I have no idea what offence he had committed, but we all knew it was bad!  Now we all knew that Dewite was just a little short in the social skills department.  Back in those days it was referred to as "odd", and today it would be recognized as a social problem, but that was before the days of "awareness."  Back to the story.

Mr. Somebody was a skinny fellow who always wore a suit and tie.  Physically he was a skinny man who, in retrospect, would not survive an altercation with anyone else his size.  And Dewite was bigger than him.  We all stood on the playground looking at the office window which was open.  We watched in further amazement as the black rubber hose that was used for disciplining errant students   came sailing out the window and landed on the ground.  It was followed very shortly with Dewite emerging from the back door of the school and walking across the playground to his home right across the street.

We never saw Dewite again.  I think his mother just kept him home because back in those days there were not schools that could handle "special needs".  Soon we forgot about him.  The music teacher married Mr. Somebody's son, although she loved the coach.  I knew many things back then, but few of them have survived the passing of 70 years.  

I am rather glad that schools have changed, and students now have rights, which brings me to another point.  With rights also comes responsibility.  We learned that early in life.  Seventy years ago, was a different world.  We were taught respect for our elders at home about the same time we learned to walk.  We never questioned adult authority and that was not always good.  Some adults were not respectable, but we survived.  We survived to live another day and to raise kids that respected elders but could also question authority if it did not seem right.

Several years ago, Dona Marie and I went back to Nickerson.  They have built a new school and there are homes where the old school stood.  Main Street is mostly deserted.  Engles Candy and Book store is gone.  Warn Appliance.  The drug store.  IGA moved and Flemings is gone.  It is hard for me to realize that all this was seventy years ago!  I can still see it in my mind's eye like it was yesterday.

The one thing I have learned is that no matter how things change, the more they stay the same!  The schools have changed and discipline is no longer handled behind closed doors with a rubber hose.  I think that is good, although I have seen quite a few instances where the old saying "Spare the rod and spoil the child" comes to mind.

Well, for the most part, I think I turned out pretty well, but I do wonder about Dewite and a lot of my classmates.  Reminds me of something my oldest daughter is fond of saying, "What don't kill you will make you strong."

And so it goes!

Peace!


Saturday, June 30, 2018

I guess we all figure it out!

Does anyone remember back when Bret was in South Mesa, or Pleasant View, or Parkhill, or the place on the highway, and he could not bring home a grade over an F-?  I used to threaten, take away video games, bribe, beg, plead for him to just bring home any grade over a D-?  I finally gave up in utter frustration and let him drop out of school at the age of 16.  I knew a losing battle when I had fought it for all those years.

Remember how I fought the battle of growing pot in his room?  I would rip them up and he would grow more.  I finally resigned to the fact that I was a failure as a mother and prayed for the day he would run away.  And it finally came.  He got his growers license and I then began to tell people that he was not a "stoner" but was indeed a Horticulturist.  In motherhood we need to pick our battles and look at life from whatever angle makes these little turds we call our children appear to be actually functioning adults.

So, he grew to adulthood, took a mate and moved out.  There is indeed a God!  And then they had a baby.  You must realize that Kenneth and I had adopted him when we were ready to retire, which puts a whole new spin on "new mother."  At an age when I should have been playing Bingo and eating at the SRDA, I was attending PTA and teachers conferences.  So at the advanced age of 73 I became a grandmother.  To put this in perspective, I now had a grandson who was younger then my youngest great grand child.  But all this is not relevant to my this morning blog or rant, whichever you choose to call it.

The point here is I had raised a kid who did not have an education and seemed doomed to a life of menial labor.  I wanted him to get his GED at the very least, but that entailed study, which by now I knew was never going to happen.  And then one day he walked into PCC and came out with his GED and it had very high scores.  That almost gave me a stroke!  Try to remember, I am very old, and not used to much good in my life!

Now comes the best part.  This same little tyrant is in the same job for over a year now.  Hell it might be two years, because when you are over the hill, you pick up speed and my days, months and years are not nearly as long as they were when I was in my 20's.  So here is the situation as it now stands.  He started school at PCC at some point and has already gotten his welding certificate.  He is now going for his structural welding and working on some sort of degree.  He works a full 40 hours a week and goes to school 25 hours a week, and still maintains a home with a wife and son, but here is the best part...He is on the Presidents list at school, which I am assuming is equivalent  to the Deans List and has received a letter congratulating him for this feat.  He maintains a 4.0 GPA and I am wondering just what they have done with my little boy I raised.

So here is what I have come up with for explanation to this phenomena.  Some kids learn differently.  Some take knowledge from books.  Some from the teacher.  Some from life.   Maybe some are not ready to start school at the age of 4 or 5, but rather in their teens.  Maybe I did a better job of raising him then I thought I did.  I do know that I look at him a whole lot differently then we he was getting stoned out behind the garage.  I have never smoked the stuff and have no intentions of doing so, but he does furnish me with weed so I can make salve and lotion for my poor old aching back and sometimes I share with my friends.

So as I gaze out across my desk and out the window, I just gotta' say  God gives us a big basket and sometimes we do not know what to do with the stuff in it, but it all works out in the end now, doesn't it?
Baby, Grandma Lou, and Bret (left to right.)



Tuesday, February 13, 2018

So now what?

I am very naïve.  I have insurance on my car.  Full coverage to be exact.  I never use it.  I just have it.  My son bought an older car second car for 2 reasons.  First they needed an automatic because they needed a car for Amanda to drive since she does not drive a stick.  And his car gets like 13 miles to the gallon.  They live in Florence and he works in Pueblo and goes to the PCC here.

This was all working well and life was looking good until he was leaving work and some yoyo ran a stop sign, broadsided him and spun him head on into a third car.  Bret's car was totaled.  Of course Mr. Yoyo got a ticket.  His insurance called Bret that night and told him they would get him a rental car until they could replace his car.  Medical bills would be taken car of.  Well, here we are on the third week.  No, they do not pay medical.  No rental car has been forth coming and no one seems to want to talk to Bret.

So some one out there should be able to tell us what the next step is.  We called our lawyer, but he is not interested unless there is a big medical bill.  Since the kid HAS to work, and he HAS to go to school he really does not have time to be doctoring.  Life does go on.  And he needs another car that is dependable and gets good gas mileage like the one he had before someone totally ruined it.  I guess I am looking for a voice of experience to tell us what course to take rather then just set here and wish we knew what to do.

Any ideas?

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Yep, I am one of Gooch's best!

These are the two that started it all!  This was their wedding picture.  Mom and Dad.  Christine and Reuben Bartholomew, January 19, 1935.  Or thereabouts.  The family record may be a bit screwed up.  The point is not that, the point is this is the woman who gave birth to me and the man who caused that to happen.  

My dad was pretty much a share cropper and did day labor for farmers in the area.  He had been in World War 1 in the Calvary.  I know this because he had a scar on his upper arm close to his shoulder where he had been bitten by a horse.  I am very careful around horses because I do not want one to bite me.  They must have been happy because they had a baby every two years right up until Dorothy was born and then they stopped that nonsense. 

Back in those days, the best anyone could hope to do was eke out a living and that is what they did.  There were 6 little mouths to be fed and 6 little bodies to be clothed.  Mom cleaned houses for the ladies around town and us kids kind of just existed.  There were two times during the year we knew we would get something new.  It goes without saying that one of those was Christmas.  Santa Claus could always be counted on to deliver to our house.  I think that might have been helped by our dear Aunt Helen and Uncle Skinny.  They sometimes came by about that time of year. But maybe not because my mother was very resourceful and hard working.  She raised chickens and rabbits and I learned  very early  how to gut a rabbit and I could then and still can now, wring the neck on a chicken and scald it and pick it faster then anyone else.  I digress.

The other time something new could be had was when school started.  We knew we would get a new pair of shoes and a new dress.  This is how the shoe thing worked; we got a new pair of shoes from the Sears and Roebuck catalog.  Our feet were carefully measured and they would be brown.  They would be lace ups and they would be leather.  And they would fit.  And they would last.  My shoes would be handed down to Donna when I outgrew them.  Donna's would go to Mary and Mary's to Dorothy.  There the cycle ended.  The shoes then left our house and went to God only knows where, but there must have been someone poorer than us!

Ah, but the new dresses were planned for the whole year preceding.  Mom went to the feed store in town for the chicken feed and rabbit pellets.  Gooch feed packaged their wares in a cotton bag with Gooch clearly marked on the bag.  Flour and sugar also came in those bags. Yeah,and corn meal.  About everything because the world had not yet become a disposeable entity.  Mother would buy matching bags so she had enough for one dress.  Then she would choose another color and pattern for the next go round.  She very carefully cut out one dress and sewed it for each of us.  That was our new dress for school.  Of course they were handed down.  

Of course there were also times when the Gooch trademark was placed not quite where it should have been and the "ch" or  "Go" might appear on the hem of the skirt, but Momma always tried to keep that in the back so we did not see it.   Now I gotta go on record here as saying that Gooch always had the best and that was their  logo "Gooch's Best."  That also went for the bags.  I sell on ebay and several years back I sold a big pile of the bags.  The bags were 36" x 36" and the least I got for one was $8.99 + shipping and I sold one to a lady in Korea for $49.00 + shipping.  I would love to luck into a bunch more of those.

Anyway, until I was grown and gone I was known as "One of the Gooch girls."  Until I was 8 I thought my name was Louella Gooch.  I did not give a rat's ass. My mother worked hard making clothes for us kids.  When I hear Dolly Partin sing her "Coat of Many Colors"  I remember my mother bringing home some leftover slip cover material from some place and making me a brand new coat.  It was corduroy and it was light teal.  I loved that coat and when I could no longer fit in it my heart was broken.

I also remember my mother and her "box of rags."  When our clothes reached the point where they could no longer be repaired they went to the rag box.  Mother would then carefully cut out the "good parts"  which were like the skirt and parts of the sleeves that had no wear.  These were used for quilts.  I have curtains hanging in my kitchen that I can point to and know that my mother had a blouse with that fabric in her later life.  Old habits die hard.  

The parts that were still kind of good were torn into strips.  A slit was cut in each end and they were linked together and rolled into a ball.  This was then taken to the "weaver lady down by the doctor's office, "  where they were woven into a rug of whatever length we had scraps to make.  We could come home with a nice rug for a couple dollars.  

When mother got something wool she was in hog heaven.  Wool was cut into strips about 3/4" wide and sewn together.  She then took her crochet hook and cotton twine and somehow crocheted the strips into a thick rug.  Wish I could remember how she did that.  

Sometimes she was Momma, sometimes she was Mother.  She was also Mom.  And later grandma.  She was the driving force behind the woman I am today.  Not because she made me who I am, but she emolated who I should become.  I wonder if someday one of my kids will sit at a computer and remember me with the same all consuming love that I still have for her?  We will see.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Yes, yes! I was a 60's flower child.

Woke up early this morning to think about things and decided that I grew up in the best of all times.  People who know me find it hard to believe that I never used drugs of any kind.  Unless of course we consider alcohol and tobacco, and I think those are both considered in that genre.  I was born in the 40's which was a time of war.  There was talk that I was actually fallout from Hiroshima or Pearl Harbor, but I think not since I was such a cute baby!
We went from peace after World War II to peace keeping missions in Korea, Vietnam, to war in   Iraq and are still a very warring faction and I am not sure where all we have troops now.  We went from a phone on the wall to a phone we wear in our ear.  We went from Frank Sinatra, through Elvis, the Beatles, Garth Brooks and now Miley Cirus and Justin Bieber are the current losers. We went from a black Model T through a lavender Corvette.  Poodle skirts gave way to mini skirts which were traded for culottes and now there are no fashion rules at all.  Baby boomers, John Lennon and Yoko Ono.   Birth control pills, floppy discs, Rubik's cube, a man on the moon and a woman in the space station.  Kent State, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and President Bush hates broccoli!  Do I need to go on with history?  No.
I just want you to grasp the picture.  Some times I like to think back and picture the first Indian who looked up and saw an airplane soaring overhead.  There is an old saying, "Time marches on!"  and one "Time and tide wait for no man."  I can attest to all of this.  We used to go buy a car from the lot on the corner for $250.00, put 19 cent gas in the tank and drive 150 miles to see grandma who inevitably lived on a farm usually in Western (insert name of state here).    Now we take out a loan for $25,000.00, put $4.25 gas in the tank, park our cheap little car in the garage of our house in the suburbs, and crawl on a plane for $650 and fly 2000 miles to see grandma who does not have time for us because it is bingo night at the condo center and she is in charge, but we can stay here at the house and pet her Labradoodle which is her latest designer dog.
The creek where we used to fish is no longer there.  It has been rerouted and is now a kayak course, but take your pole anyway.  You can set there and remember when you used to catch a cat fish and you could actually eat it.  Damn things glow now with radiation and I ain't eating that!  We can walk downtown to the "Historic area" which is now antique shops where I can buy a remenant of history for a price which is more than I used to pay for my car.  If I am really lucky I can find a friend my age and we can play "Oh, God, remember when we had to wear those awful shoes?"  And "Remember when mother used to gather up the pans because the 'tinker man' was due and he would patch the holes in them?"
I know you have a hard time thinking that was a good time, but it was.   It was back before any divorces and before I worked 3 jobs to survive and before I found out cigarettes were cool and a shot of whiskey sure took the edge off the lonliness and an aspirin was the strongest drug in my medicine cabinet..
 Back when we could walk out back, catch a chicken, "wring it's neck", pluck out the feathers and innards and have the biggest and best  pot of chicken and noodle soup in the world 2 hours later. Scraps of food were thrown out in the back yard for the chickens and the chicken would then lay an egg and the cycle continued.
 Back when school supplies included pencils and paper and a new pair of shoes for the winter ahead.  Back when the teacher was Miss Lauver or Mr. Bollinger, because teachers were respected and revered.  Clothes were handed down and when they were thread bare they went into the "rag basket".  In due time they were torn into strips, rolled into a ball and taken to the weaver lady who made them into rugs.  Wool clothes were cut into strips and mother crocheted them into rugs. Those were best cause they were thicker and softer.
Back when we walked to church every Sunday to save the car for an emergency or for when we went to see grandma and great grandma who lived in Plevena, a town of 102 people 24 miles away.
I would just ask that all of you out there stay in touch with your roots.  They are what makes you who you are today and they are unique to you.  You can look back and see all the things your parents did wrong while raising you, but try to remember that they were once young also and they were raised by a parent raising them who probably had no idea what they were doing either!  We all live and learn and some of us actually get to a point in our lives where we can say,
I did the best I could with the knowledge and the tools I had at the time so I forgive me!

Saturday, March 15, 2014

cooking and cleaning can wait for the morrow, for babies grow up, we learn to our sorrow

And that is what I woke up with, stuck in my head, this morning!  I did the online search and nothing turned up.  Does anyone else remember this poem?  Oh, crap!  I am the oldest one here and this is all I remember, so what are the odds that you can tell me the name of this?  Probably two; slim and none.  I can remember cross stitching this, but that is about as far as the memory goes.  I think I probably did it when Debbie was a wee one, but it could have been last week.  No, not last weeks since the fingers no longer curl around those teensy, tinesy needles which would make no difference since I can't see to thread the damn needle anyway!

Life certainly does throw us a hardball towards the end of the whole mess, doesn't it?  When we finally get our crap together and know what we want out of life and have a pretty good idea of how to get it, we are too late and the need to do the "bucket list" thing takes over.  While my mind is remembering winning dance contests at the sock hops back in high school, my reality is searching for something to loosen my joints up enough so I can tie my shoes!  While my mind is grooving to Gene Vincent, Fats Domino and Elvis Presley, my reality is singing "Shall we gather at the river?"

I am becoming better at checking expiration dates because I do so want to outlive the gallon of milk in the refrigerator.  Back in the mind, we called them "ice boxes" because that is what they were.  They did not get plugged into a socket some where.  We had a card that had 25 on the top and 10 on the bottom.  It was designed so that if we wanted 25 pounds of ice Mother placed it in the window which reflected the 25 right side up and the 10 would be upside down.  The ice man pulled up on the chosen day, looked at the sign, got his ice picker upper (which I have of course forgotten the correct name for [TONGS!!!!! I remembered when I reread this!]) and picked up the block of ice and brought it into the house, through the door which was never locked, and put it in the ice box, picked up his money from the top of the ice box, and went back out the door which did not lock behind him, and left.

The reason the door was not locked was because if some poor soul was in need of a drink of water, or shelter from the rain, or cold out of the heat, or was very tired and needed to rest they could  get in  the house.  If they could find something to eat, they were welcome to it.  See, back in those days, people trusted each other and crime was almost non-existent.  Horses were protected more that personal property.  And guess what happened if you stole a horse?  The towns folk would catch you and hang you, or so I heard.  Never really saw it happen.  Horse thieves were the most horrible kind of despot!  Wonder what my grandma would think about what goes on today?

The fact that the pump was out on the porch gave them access to a drink of water.  There was also a pump at the stock tank, so they really did not need to go in the house for water, but it was being hospitable, and that is what we did back then.

Bet you are wondering why I never said "use the facilities"  aren't you?  Well there were none in the house.  They were "out back."  Stands to reason that if we had no running water, we had no use for a toilet that flushed.  The school and the people in town had them and they were really nice.
 
Try to remember that we were the poor people outside of town, growing up.  I preferred to think of us as just like every one else, dirt poor.   I learned later that I was "white trash", but no one ever called me that.  It was after all, just a term they used.  I often wondered at the term and I am sure it was racist.  That was another thing;  Nickerson, Kansas, to my recollection, never had anyone except very white people.  Oh, there was the family that lived in the boxcar up on the curve, but they were Indians.  I loved to go to thier house.  The mother was very clean and even swept the dirt in front of the door.  Since we had a step and 2 feet of sidewalk, we were considered rich.

But I have once more digressed from my purpose.  If you remember this poem share this post on facebook and I will see it.  Or contact me over there on the left.  I will probably not remember what I asked, but that, friends, is how it goes in my world!

People who forget the past tend to repeat it.  ;)

Another year down the tubes!

Counting today, there are only 5 days left in this year.    Momma nailed it when she said "When you are over the hill you pick up speed...