So Long School Year!

I tend to keep time time by the passing of the school bus on the Dingman Run Road during the 180-day school year.

On winter mornings you hear it climbing the hill in the cold, still air, lights cutting through the darkness as it lumbers past. 

The big yellow and black bus that collects students on this run is still marked with the number 1. Say "Bus 1" to my kids, and you'll hear the stories about the interminably long ride to and from school - one of the first ones on and one of the last ones off.

The one time I rode a school bus up the Dingman Run Road was the second grade end-of-school field trip and picnic to Mrs. Carley's chicken farm. I was so excited to wear shorts to school and had a new outfit from Carey's Dry Goods. 

Outside working in the flower beds early to avoid the heat, I heard the bus on this its final trip of the spring, right on time a little before 7:00 a.m. this morning. I waved cheerily at the bus driver on the return trip this afternoon - early dismissal on the last day of school. 

I share Golly's memories of his school days penned in 1964.

Six or eight big yellow school buses go by and they recall days of a long time ago when Golly was seven or eight years old.

The point is  – there were no school buses.

Our family lived in the country. The school house, a one-room temple of knowledge, was two miles distant. During the school year the road was a sea of mud much of the time. It was difficult to avoid the quagmire even trying to walk at the side of the wagon tracks.

Always there was the dinner pail to carry and some times the primer, a marvelous book that taught us to read and spell "cat," "rat" and "dog."

The cafeteria – a creation not even dreamed. 

The dinner pail toted along might contain a slice or two of bread with a sparing coat of buter, a hard boiled egg, a pickle and a piece of cake. The writer can recall some boys and girls who had only buckwheat pancakes.

The drinking fountain consisted of a tin pail and a tin dipper and they became rusty quick! The toilets were two back houses and what dirty messes they were!

The word "sanitation" was not used frequently in that day, probably not in the vocabulary of many of the parents of the students, and surely not of the youngsters. It is strange but true that many of us survived.

When school was dismissed at 4:00 o'clock there were those very long two miles to walk homeward. November days were short with perhaps a light fall of snow that retarded homeward progress around and through the mud holes. Next morning the routine was repeated.

If the youngster finally had learned to read and write, spell "Mississippi" and repeat the multiplication table, he or she was pretty well equipped to face the world.

Again the big yellow buses roll by, conveying youngsters to school buildings that cost millions of dollars, wonderfully equipped and staffed by scores of well qualified instructors.

But this is 1964, not 1884.