Hanging Out in the Sixth Grade

Letters to my Grands

April 26, 2020

Still Quarantined because of the Covid 19, so I will continue writing letters to you.  Last night Grace missed her Senior Prom and I was so sad about that, but I sent her a little nosegay of flowers which I think boosted her spirits.  Brooks is home from Austin, and I am waiting for him to come over for a social distance visit. 

Nosegay I sent to Grace on the night she missed her Senior Prom because of Covid 19.

I thought I would continue to write about elementary school.  Sixth grade in 1948-49 was a very new experience for me because our class was a combined class with the seventh grade and our classroom was in the basement of the Lattimore High School just across the way from the Elementary School.  One of the sixth grades remained at the Elementary School. I do remember there was no summer Session that year because of the Polio Epidemic.

Our teacher was Miss Sarah Blanton from Lattimore, and I remember during that year she became engaged to Hal Dedmon. I knew most of the seventh graders that were in my room but being in the same class with them was different.  When they were having their classes I would listen in, and by the time I entered the seventh grade much of the material was not new to me.  And I was bored.

Sarah Blanton was the one that got me interested in basketball.  She would take our class over to the Tin Can, that's what the gym was called, on the grounds of the Elementary School to play basketball during recess. Actually, the gym was made of tin except for the frame and the floor.  The gym was heated with two wood-burning potbelly stoves at each end of the building,  and it was where the high school basketball team played. It was not heated when we were there for recess. 

I became to love basketball, and I went home and found a metal ring (hoop) from an old barrel and asked my Dad to nail it up for me.  He nailed it up to my Grandma's barn,  and I played basketball with Martha and Betty Jo or many times I just went out and kept shooting by myself.  I can’t remember if we had a real basketball or perhaps we played with whatever ball we had around the house.  I got where I could hit that “basket” with no trouble at all.  

The first basketball goal I had when I was 11 was a very stiff metal ring from a barrel, called a hoop. 

So Daddy bought a real basketball goal and mounted it on a post at the proper distance from the ground out in the space between our house and Grandma’s.  Now I had a basketball, a goal and a dirt court.  I could then play to my heart’s content, and I did with a passion.  When I reached the ninth grade I was ready to make the basketball team, and I did.

When we weren’t playing basketball during recess, we played Kick the Can or later softball.  I liked Kick the Can, but never really caught on to softball.  For the life of me, I can’t remember the rules for Kick the Can.  But I know it involved running very fast which I could do.

My memory of what we were doing academically that year fails me. Basketball was what I remember most.  

Hanging Out in the Summer of 1956

My Summer as a Waitress. 

After I finished my freshman year in college at Gardner-Webb, I was looking for a summer job, and there were no jobs in Shelby.  By that time I wanted to do something other than pick cotton.  My uncle's wife in Statesville said they were looking for a waitress at Gray's Restaurant in Statesville where she worked and that I could live with them or with my Grandmother.  I guess Daddy must have taken me to Statesville and I applied and became a waitress at Gray's Restaurant.  At the time this was one of the best restaurants in Statesville.

Waitresses were required to wear a white uniform so I went out and bought ONE uniform.  To save money I was planning on wearing it each day and washing it each night and have it ready to wear the next day.  That's what I did.  As soon as I got home, at my Grandmother's house where I was staying, I would change clothes and wash the uniform.  By morning it was dry because it was hot in Grandma's house with no air conditioning.

I usually worked the morning shift which began at 6:00am if I remember correctly.  Of course, I had no car and would walk the mile from Connor Street down Front Street to South Center Street to the restaurant.  Two free meals came with the job, so I would leave at 5:00am and walk in the early dawn hours to have breakfast before I began my morning shift.  I got off work at 3:00pm and then I could eat another meal before I left.

In those days, waitresses didn't have a large tray to carry the dishes to the tables of the diners.  We had to learn to carry four plates at one time if we had a large order.  I can't believe I learned to do that. But I did and I didn't once drop a plate.

This is how I felt. Though as I recall I never had to carry a plate on my head. 

The early morning shift was usually easy, and Jay Huskins, who was then editor of the Statesville Record and Landmark came in every weekday morning to get just a cup of coffee.  I was serving him, we chatted, and when he learned that I was working to make money for college, he began tipping me $1.00 every single day.  That was a big tip for a 20 cent cup of coffee. For most orders of just coffee, I didn't even get a tip. I missed him on weekends.

I had a lot of freckles on my face, and the owner whose name I can't recall. I thought I would never forget that, the way he teased me all the time.  He would say, "She's got freckles on her, BUT,  (he paused here) I love her just the same." and I would always blush.  I could feel my face get red hot.  I never got used to it.  He was a good boss though, and he and his family would come in on Sundays after church to eat, and sometimes I would be the one to serve them. 

Gray's Restaurant was the stop for the Greyhound Bus Schedule in Statesville, and a bus came in around noontime when we were already rather busy with customers.  People would get off the bus, come in to order in a hurry, I think they had only about 30 minutes before the bus would depart.  I dreaded that, it was so hectic, and the bus customers usually did not leave a tip.  Regarding tips, I just want to say that since I experienced life as a waitress, I ALWAYS tip generously whenever I eat out. Brooks now you know why I tip the way I do.

Each day when I got back to Grandma's I would empty out my pockets on her kitchen table and count my money.  She was always so happy when I made a lot of tips.  I offered to share my tips with her since I was boarding at her place, but she would not hear of it. Bless her heart.  It was great for me to spend time with my Grandma.

I don't think I made much money that summer, but it was a great experience.  An experience that would benefit any young person growing up.  Grace, maybe you would like to try it sometime before you finish college.  Waitresses in some of the Chapel Hill restaurants probably make pretty good money these days.

I saved almost all that I made that summer, but I did splurge on getting a photograph made at a professional photography studio.  The same studio that my mother had had a photo made when she was about 19, the age I was at the time. Mama had grown up in Statesville.   Not the same photographer I am certain.

Me at 19 in the summer of 1956.

Mama, your Great Grandmother at 19, 1920

When summer was over, I had matured a lot and returned home eager to begin my second year at Gardner-Webb College.


Love, love, love, GrandPat
April 24, 2020

Hanging Out At Gardner-Webb My Freshman Year

The Gardner-Webb Yearbook my Freshman Year. 

Dear Grands:     I’ve decided to write to you about my first year in college, and as you will see it was quite different from what yours have been and Grace what yours will be come September.

When I graduated from high school in 1955, I knew I didn’t want to go very far away to college, yet I did want to stay on campus.  Gardner-Webb Junior College (it was a two-year college then) was perfect, only twelve miles from home.  Shirley McSwain a Lattimore classmate and I were going to room together.  So at least I would know one person. Looking back, I think I had led a rather sheltered life and was perhaps shy. 

My photo from the Anchor my freshman year. 

Although I had some scholarship money, I knew I needed to work on campus while I was there to help defray my expenses.  My first work assignment was serving in the cafeteria which meant I had to eat early with other students working there before the cafeteria opened for the student body.  My best friends that I had made ate later, and I missed eating with them.  Homesickness had already set in.  I remember President Elliott saying in Chapel that it spoke well of us if we were homesick. I thought “that really speaks well of me then.”   So I called home on the one payphone that was in HAPY Dorm.  I tried to be brave when I talked to my parents and then I burst out crying saying I didn’t want to work in the cafeteria.  They told me I could quit, but I knew I needed to work.   

Mrs. Dorothy Hamrick, the Registrar, was someone I knew so I thought maybe she could perhaps find me another campus job.  Sure enough, I got switched to the Library, a job I loved.  I had to go in early and open the library before the Librarian came in and check out books, and shelve books.  Often we were not busy in the morning so I could actually study while I worked.  Now I could eat meals with my friends.  I was still homesick, but not so terribly.

But as time passed, I began to love college.  Our rules were very strict though compared to today.  We had to have lights out by 11:00 pm, we could only leave campus on Saturday nights and Sunday.  If we dated on Sunday nights we had to go to Sunday Night Service at Boiling Springs Baptist Church on campus.  Of course, we had to be back in our dorm by 11:00, and perhaps 10:00 on Sunday night.  We had to sign out on cards and then if our cards were still in the signout box after hours the Dean of Women would call us in and we would get demerits for being late. 

When we had to go across campus to the gym for our physical education classes, we would have to wear a raincoat over our gym outfit so that our legs wouldn’t show.  Now that is pretty strict. 

I had gone to college thinking I would major in English.  At the beginning of the year, we were given tests of different kinds, and I remember one of my tests indicated that Law would be a good choice for me to pursue.   I had never heard of a female lawyer, but looking back, I think I would have enjoyed law.  But after I took freshman biology with Dr. Paul Stacey, I knew then that biology was for me, and I did choose a major that proved the right one for me. 

I made the basketball team, because of my GPA I was selected as a Marshal, and in the Spring was elected President of Stroup Dorm for the Sophomore year and thus would serve on the Student Government for the upcoming year. The induction for members of the Student Government was held in Chapel (we had required Chapel and because we had assigned seats alphabetically, Dorothy Hamrick would come up the aisles checking off those absent.)  As we were inducted we had to “swear” that we as leaders, would follow the rules, would set a good example, and would uphold the values of the College.

 Now in the spring, the guys on campus would go swimming over at the Broad River where there was a sandy beach.  Of course, this was off-limits for female students.  Near the end of the year, on a pretty summer day, I happened to have my boyfriend’s car, and I and about four of my friends decided we would drive over and sunbathe at that beach.  We had a marvelous time as I remember. 

But the next day I and my partners in crime who were also elected to the Student Government were called in by the Dean of Students.  One of the maintenance workers had been out at the River and had seen us, females, out there, and turned us in for being off-limits.  I was so humiliated because we had to get back up in Chapel and renew our vows that we would uphold the rules and values of the College.  At least we didn’t get kicked off the Student Government.

I was a bit sad at graduation that year because some of the good friends that I had made were sophomores and were graduating.  I did enjoy serving as a Marshal at the graduation that morning though, and when I got home, I was pictured in the Shelby Daily Star with my white dress and sash as I was about to lead the Faculty in the processional. 

Photo from my scrapbook of picture in Shelby Daily Star. 

Love you very much, GrandPat

April 23, 2020

Hanging Out with My Grands During the Covid 19

A Letter to My Grandchildren

A Typical Day at Home during the “Stay at Home” Covid 19

I’m going to go through what would be a typical day during these days of Covid 19 so that I can remember when it’s all over, and so that you, my grandchildren,  and perhaps my great grands will know what it has been like.

I still like to get up at about the same time each day 7:00 to 8:30 depending upon when I when to bed.

Feed Maggie, take meds, let Maggie out, put in “ears” (hearing aids), drops in eye, get dressed.

Eat breakfast usually cereal, oatmeal, or yogurt or sometimes toast with peanut butter or guacamole

Run dishwasher (if full), wash clothes (if needed), straighten up kitchen, plug-in cell phone to charge it

Think about what I’ll prepare for dinner (lunch is just yogurt, or a sandwich, or soup, or something light) Sometimes this involves my checking to see what’s in the pantry and freezer and what needs to be used first.  Prepare anything that needs to be done in advance.

Check my email, answer mail, make telephone calls to family, especially my sister, and friends (I try to call PJ every other day) By this time it will be at least 10:30 or 11:00.

Work on some indoor or outdoor projects depending on weather and my inclinations for the day.  I much prefer doing something outside.  Weed my garden, trim shrubbery, sweep off patios, Because I have lymphedema in my left arm (breast cancer in 1990) I am not supposed to do heavy yard work and I have a yardman that comes about once a month.  Indoor projects will be housecleaning chores.  I miss Bea our wonderful person who kept our house immaculate. (Bea retired before this Covid 19 arrived, and my friend Boguska had been helping me with cleaning occasionally. I am in need of a regular cleaning service and that is one of the first things I shall do when this is all over.) Sometimes I get a real inspiration and tackle cleaning out a closet or straightening the pantry or the freezer, and of course, eventually, the fridge has to be cleaned. I have discovered that I really detest housework, except cooking.

I read what little there is in the N & O and then do some reading in general.  I find that I am now reading the New Yorker each week from cover to cover, and I usually have a book in progress that I am reading. I am currently rereading E.O. Wilson’s book Naturalist, his autobiography. Wilson was a friend of Dan’s when they both served on NSF panels in Washington. I remember Dan telling me about a joke that Wilson once told.  “A man is traveling and at the airport, he sees a hole in the wall with a sign that says ‘Your wife away from home’ The man decides to try it out, and ouch he gets a button sewn on his penis.”  Did I just share this joke? Why yes I did. Blush, blush.

Then I also do some writing either in the morning or in the afternoon.  Right now I am writing in the morning and it is 11:00.  Since I started writing letters to you, that keeps me doing something that I enjoy, in fact, writing you is really getting me through this cabin fever.  It’s fun for me to have to think hard and jog my memory about things.  There are certain things that have stuck in my mind for years, thankfully I can recall most of them. I am lucky that way and am glad that I have an opportunity to get some of them in print before I become demented.

Lunch will be something light between 12:00 and 2:00. 

I usually have a cup of hot tea either midmorning or early afternoon.  Dan introduced me to drinking hot tea, and I can have my tea and remember him.  It sure would be wonderful to have Dan with me during these days though.  I wonder if we would have begun bickering if we were cooped up together for days and days?  Maybe a little, but I’m sure not for long.

The afternoon consists of chores, doing my exercise, reading, or writing or sometimes playing WWF although I’ve taken a break from that for a while.  Maybe calling friends. I always take Maggie for a walk in the afternoon unless the weather is very bad, and she goes in and out during the day to play in the fenced backyard. By 4:00 I start getting things ready for supper, by 6:00 I will have supper ready.  These days I eat while I watch Judy Woodruff on PBS news for an hour.  This is the only news I try to watch or hear.  The news is so disheartening!!

 During the week Patrick comes over at 7:00 and we watch Jeopardy together and we play along.  He usually beats me because he is so well-read and he watches a lot of the History Channel, and he has a much better memory and is faster off the mark in answering that I am.  He is really good.  I told him he should take the test to try to get on Jeopardy himself, but he would be too shy to go. Interestingly I never was fond of Jeopardy until this “stay at home.” Then we may watch something else if there is something worthwhile like Vivian Howard.

I usually spend an hour or two in the evenings paying bills, updating my Quicken accounts, and trying to get my study in order.  My study is definitely not in order right now.  Maybe more reading or more writing or more calling friends.  Oh, I forgot, I do spend time on Facebook (too much time) and Instagram and usually take some photos of whatever during the day. 

Shower and bedtime between 10:00 and 12:00.  If 10:00 I usually have time to read in bed or sometimes I do watch Brian Williams from 11:00 to 12:00. 

This is kind of a stream of consciousness (I think. Omg that makes me think of James Joyce and Ulysses which I could never finish.  I should get that out and try again) or just what was going through my mind this morning.

Love you, GrandPat xoxoxo

April 15, 2020 (And I have already sent in my income taxes. Yeah.)

Fifth Grade at Lattimore Elementary for GrandPat

Fifth Grade Class Picture
This must have been in cool weather, we are wearing sweaters.  Front row, far right am I. 

Fifth Grade

Letters to My Grandchildren:

Grade 1947-48

Our classroom that year was on the second floor looking out to the east and over the playground.  Our fifth-grade teacher was new to Lattimore—it was Mrs. Nota Whatley, and she was from Alabama.  She was a very tall lady and a kind teacher with a marked southern accent.  I remember we were studying the Catawba Indians and she pronounced it Cat’a’baw with the accent on the Cat’, and I knew it was pronounced Ca-taw’-ba , and I almost laughed out loud at her pronunciation.  I went home and told my parents, but they said I should not correct her.  I was glad when we stopped studying about those Indians because I was having to mispronounce their names with the emphasis on the Cat’.  I was afraid she would correct me if I pronounced them correctly.   After that whenever we visited my Grandmother in Statesville and had to cross the Catawba River, I would say this is the Cat’-a-baw River, and we would all laugh. 

Martha Mason was supposed to be in our room that year, but she told me many years later why she wasn’t.  She went into the room with this new teacher with a funny last name and a funny accent so she decided she would go up to the third floor to the other fifth-grade class.  As she was bounding up the steps, along came Mr. Padgett, our principal.  He asked her where she was going and when she explained where and why he let her change to the other class.  Martha admitted to me that she had made a mistake because Mrs. Whatley was the better teacher as she found out later.

I had my appendix removed during this school year—in the spring of the year as I recall.  Anesthesia back then was Ether administered with a mask over your face.  I felt like I was suffocating!  As I was drifting off I could imagine a large saw as big as a Ferris wheel coming toward me.  I woke up in my room with my parents there, and my roommate was another little girl about my same age who had had an appendectomy too, but several days earlier than I.  As we chatted she told me the worst thing was when they removed the adhesive tape from your belly.  She had already endured that.  I recall my whole belly was covered in tape, and I kept dreading when they were ripped off.  Sure enough, it was extremely painful.  Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

The one bright spot of that appendectomy was when Mrs. Whatley came to see me in the hospital and brought me this beautiful purple flower.  I thought it was the prettiest flower I had ever seen.  It was a Fuchsia plant, and that plant and her visit was the highlight of that hospital stay. To this day a Fuchsia plant reminds me of Mrs. Whatley, a teacher I dearly loved.

While I was in the hospital, I missed the yearly achievement tests so I had to make up the tests during our recesses (play periods) when I returned to school. During one such recess, I was taking the spelling component part of the test of fifty words that Mrs. Whatley was calling out as I wrote them.  Spelling was so easy for me, and I was sailing right along writing down the words as she called them out, when suddenly she called out “who”.  My mind went blank, and I couldn’t for the life of me think of how to spell “who”.  I left it blank.  After the last word was called out, I asked her to go back and repeat the one that I had left blank.  She said “who” and I remembered how to spell it, and I thought how could I possibly have forgotten that word---she must have wondered too.

I began taking piano lessons this year from Mrs. Selma Withrow who taught in a small room on the third floor of our building.  I had permission to leave class for a half-hour each week to go take the piano lesson.  Piano was not my interest, in fact, music was not my forte.  More about me and music in another letter.

*Of these thirty students, there are only seven I recognize as being in my graduating class.  Of course, there were students in another fifth-grade class some of whom would have been in our senior class. Some children would have moved away, many others would have failed a grade or dropped out, and other children would have moved into our school district and entered our class after fifth grade. 

Easter Eggs and Easter

Letters to my Grandchildren: Easter When I was Young

As a young child, I remember we always dyed eggs using Paas Egg Colors.  We mixed the dye in with water and vinegar, I still sometimes think of Easter when I am using vinegar.  A dozen was the number we usually dyed.  I remember there was a wax pencil with the set of dyes that we could use to write on the eggs before we dyed them.  Since there were only two of us, I suppose I would hide them and my little sister Martha hunted for them, and vice versa.  Once Betty Jo was our neighbor, there would be three of us to hide/hunt for the eggs.  Hiding and hunting probably continued long past Easter until the eggs were probably a bit on the rank side. New Easter Baskets were out for us on Easter Morning usually filled with candy eggs filled with marshmallows (they were awful).

Even in my 80s I still enjoy dying eggs, but I haven't done so this year.  Once when we were in Shelby for Easter, I went over to Lattimore on Saturday night before Easter to Martha Mason's, set up a card table, and dyed eggs as Martha watched and gave me instructions on what colors to use.  That was one of my many fun visits over the years with Martha.

Easter Sunday I always had a new outfit to wear to church.  As a teenager, when I began wearing hats to church (That was the style back in the 50s.) I would always have a new hat, and I enjoyed seeing what others were wearing.  Once I remember when I was sitting in the Youth Choir and looking out over the congregation, Dr. and Mrs. Hunt from Lattimore, brought their five little girls all decked out in their Easter outfits. The seven of them took up almost an entire row.   I thought they were adorable.  Mrs. Hunt's family was from the Double Springs Church community so I guess she was visiting with her family because I don't remember the Hunts being members at Double Springs.

Easter 1955 was special for me.  I was a senior in high school and it was the first Easter I had a serious boyfriend.  Back then, girls who had serious boyfriends would get a corsage for Easter from their boyfriend.   So I proudly went to Church that Easter sporting my very first corsage from a boy,  but my mother had made corsages for me when I was in piano recitals as a child.

This Easter, April 2020, is sad for me because I am separated from my family, and usually, I would see them over the Easter Holidays.  The Covid 19 virus and the "stay at home" orders are making Easter unusual for a lot of people.  Let's hope we will be able to have a normal Easter in 2021.

p.s I  made little Easter treats for the children on our street, and I hid them in their yards last night for them to find this morning.  Fun, fun, fun for me playing Easter Bunny!

Hanging Out with Grandpat in the Fourth Grade

Letters to my Grands:  

Fourth Grade at Lattimore Elementary School

Miss Lyda Poston, a tall and lanky woman who had once played basketball in high school was the, shall I say, notorious fourth-grade teacher.  She was well-loved even though she was known as a rather strict disciplinarian. Over each of the two doors that one would enter or exit the room was a chinning bar, and each time a student passed through the door, she would have to chin.  Even going out for lunch or recess, we had to line up and each person would chin and then go through the door.  We could do it pretty fast after a few weeks of practice.

 

Miss Poston's coupe except it didn't have white-walled tires. 

Miss Poston drove a black coupe with a rumble seat in which she would arrive each morning.  I often wondered how she with her long legs could fit into that car.  How I hoped that one day I would miss my bus and Miss Poston would have to take me home.  “Please may I ride in the rumble seat, Miss Poston?” Never happened.

Geography was introduced as a subject in fourth grade and we had a book devoted just to geography.  The one thing I remember was we studied the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and Mesopotamia the Fertile Crescent that lay between those two rivers.  We even put on a program in the auditorium of the high school where we were dressed as Arabs and we ate dates.  I had never eaten dates before, and as a fourth-grader, I did NOT like them.  (I like them very much now.) When the Iraq war happened and I read about the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers it reminded me of my fourth-grade geography class.

Polio was running rampant during the 1940s, and President Roosevelt himself had polio.  He started a campaign to raise money for research into finding a vaccine for polio.  He figured that even during the depression anyone could afford a dime.  At school, we were given little cards, with slots for placing dimes, and we would collect as many as we could.  I would get a few from my Daddy, and maybe one from Grandma and maybe one or two from Aunt Emma. I would always try to fill up the card before I turned it into the teacher.  These would be mailed to the March of Dimes headquarters.

 My little sister, Martha, entered the first grade this year, and she was assigned to a teacher that I thought was not the best teacher. So every morning I would take her to the other classroom and would tell her to stay there in Miss Magness’s room.  Of course every morning she would be taken back to the room to which she was assigned.  For some reason, I thought Miss Magness was the better teacher and I wanted Martha to be in her classroom.  Finally, I saw that she would not be in Miss Magness’s room so I gave up.

 Martha was very unhappy with school during the first days and because her room was diagonal across from my fourth-grade class, frequently her teacher would come to get me to go sit with Martha when she was upset.  I hated that.  First of all, I did not want to miss what was going in my classroom.  Secondly, I had outgrown the small chairs that were used in the first grades and it was very uncomfortable for me to sit there.   Finally, she became accustomed to school and I was relieved of my duty as a big sister comforter.

Grandpat Misbehaved in Second Grade

Dear Grands,  The last letter I wrote about school I was finishing first grade.  Now here is what I can remember about my second and third grades. 

Aerobics with Miss Nina in the Second Grade

Second grade found me in the room of Mrs. Nina Toms, known affectionately as Miss Nina, although she was a Mrs. Nina.  What stands out most of my memory of second grade was what perfect posture Miss Nina had.  She always stood up very straight and urged us to do so as well.  In fact, every day we did a regimen of a sort of calisthenics where she had us stand up and go through different exercises.  One exercise required that we stand up on our toes and reach for the ceiling, and we would take deep breaths and exhale.  She was way ahead of her time in that respect.  Second graders doing aerobics in 1944-45, perhaps unprecedented!  This was in addition to our recess which was held outdoors.  There should be more of this in the classrooms of second graders today IMHO.

She was a rather strict teacher, and if someone misbehaved she would make them go to the blackboard and draw a circle a bit higher than their head on the board, and then the naughty child would have to stand on tiptoes and keep his nose in the circle.  Maybe that was why she had us doing exercises every day. I watched jealously as I saw my classmates, mainly boys, going to the board for this “activity”. I was usually a very obedient and polite child, but once I thought it might be fun to have to plant my nose in a circle on the blackboard.  So I deliberately did something for which I was chastised, and bingo I was up at the blackboard with my nose in a circle.  I would sometimes try to look around and face the class while still standing on tiptoes, but without my nose in the circle, obviously.  I giggled quietly and tried to get my classmates to giggle too.  I had to be quick, because as soon as I saw Miss Nina turning around towards me, back in the circle went my nose. I have to tell you standing on tiptoes and keeping your nose in a circle was not easy.  I didn’t misbehave again. 

Third Grade and Changing Classes: Not students but teachers

My first cousin, Virginia Greene, who was eighteen years older than I became one of my third-grade teachers.  I guess you would say she was my “homeroom teacher.”  She was a talented musician in voice and piano and had recently graduated from Meredith College and had studied at the Julliard School of Music in New York City.  Her father was my father’s oldest brother, and his family lived across the railroad tracks from our house, but in the summers when she was home I could sometimes hear Virginia going through her warm-ups for singing.  “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah”, and then a key higher “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah” and so on.  Then she would burst into song that carried beautifully through the air to where I was outside climbing trees or chasing butterflies.  Music was never a talent of mine. 

I had to call her Miss Greene, which seemed unnatural to me, since I had always called her Virginia.  She was actually hired as the music teacher for the school.  So off she would go to some other class to teach them music while their teacher would come to our room to teach us some subject.  I can’t remember all the teachers and what subjects they taught, but I remember the math teacher, I think a Mrs. Brown.  We were learning our multiplication tables and she would divide the class into two teams for arithmetic “baseball”.  The first person would go to “bat” and they would be given an arithmetic problem,  like 5 x 4.  If the student got it right she would move to first base, and this would continue until there were three misses (or outs) and the home scores would be tallied.  During that arithmetic class, we also learned to count money using play money we had made.  A “store” was set up in the room where we would be pretending to buy things.  Students had to take their turns as clerks and shoppers. 

In the spring of that year near the end of the school term, all the classes participated in a program out on the playground that parents could attend.  We third graders were Chinese and our Mamas made us little pajamas that resembled kimonos, and we had some kind of black   “rat” in our hair to resemble a Chinese hairstyle.  We performed some kind of dance and song.  

Love, GrandPat

April 7, 2020

Cleaning the Back Porch/Patio in Early April

To My Grands  
From Grandpat

Saturday, April 4, 2020

I’m trying to stay busy during the “stay at home” orders, because of the COVID, and I am certainly obeying orders.  As an 82-year-old I suppose I fall under the category ELDERLY, which makes me more susceptible than most to the virus.  You know our beloved long-time friend and biweekly housekeeper Bea has retired.  My friend, Boguska, who sometimes helps me is staying away per my request, so there are things I will have to do myself.  So be it. Now I have the time. 

With trees producing an unusually high amount of pollen this spring, the back porch and everything on it were covered in yellow. As you know our back porch is an open-air porch in a recessed area at the back door that is covered with a ceiling and the wide eave of the house. It is completely open to the outside. Every spring that porch needs a thorough cleaning! Rain early in the week washed away most of the pollen on the patio, but the porch remained covered in pollen. Since I prefer working outdoors to house cleaning indoors, I tackled the porch this week.

Cluttered back porch covered with pollen.

Move everything to the patio. 

Now isn't that spotless? That's Maggie's tail.

The weather prediction was for at least three sunny days with no rain.  That permitted me to transfer everything under the porch out on the patio so I would have three days to work on this project. How nice it would have been to have some or all of you helping.  I remember each of you helping around the yard from time to time when you were just young kids. Did I pay you? I can’t remember, but I always appreciated your help.

Open-air porch cleaned!!! Boguska and  I made each curtain from a painter's dropcloth some years ago, and should I have a backyard party, I can close them and hide things. The curtains need to be thrown in the washer.  On my bucket list. 

The area on the west of the patio where I stored the wood for the firepit which I no longer have, I also cleaned. I stored the tools where they belong. I gave all the wood away on Next Door Neighbor.  It was gone within 20 minutes of my posting. 

A messy pile of wood and tools on the west side of the back patio. 

Wood and tools gone. 

Tools stored like Dan would store them. 

The patio was next.  There were lots of male catkins from the Southern Red Oak in our backyard, so I swept and hosed that area off.  I also cleaned the Adirondack Chairs and put the bright green ones out in the side yard so I can sit under the dogwood tree there. Brunch under the umbrella is now possible since I've cleaned all the pollen off the table and chairs.

Oak catkins all over the back patio.  This is where much of the pollen came from. 

Chairs in my side yard where I can now sit under the dogwood tree. 

Table and chairs and umbrella up ready for an outside meal. I just noticed my outside speakers.  If I can remember how to turn them on to the stereo seat, I'll play some outside music, a little loud, and see if I get any response from my neighbors. 

I’ve attached a few pictures to show the before, after and a few of the steps in between.  Each day I devoted a couple or more thirty-minute sessions to the PROJECT!!!  Did I enjoy it?  Actually, I did and I think all the moving around has improved my balance.  I finished up today.  I estimate that I spent a total of 8 hours over the three day period.  Not bad for your 82-year-old Grandpat. I hope you will keep the photos so you can remember our backyard when you are old like me.  My grandmother had a lovely open-air front porch where I visited many, many times.  What I would give for a photo of that.  But I have a pretty clear memory in my mind of that porch. 

How I wish you could come to sit on the back porch with me now!!!  God willing you will be able to visit before it becomes covered with pollen again next season.  Love, love, love you, GrandPat

p.s. Dang, I worked hard!

Hanging Out with Grandpat in the 1948 Polio Epidemic

The front of the book that Martha authored with a photo of her and Gaston on the front. 

One of my friends asked if I would write about the polio epidemic of 1948, so here is the letter to my grands that describes what I remember about it.

 Letters to my Grandchildren:  

Summer of 1948 in Cleveland County, NC

In May of 1948, my classmates and I finished the fifth grade and were looking forward to a fun early summer before we returned to begin the sixth grade in mid-June.  However, the poliovirus changed that summer for us and changed one of my friend’s life forever.  My classmate, Martha Mason, contracted polio. *

I remember that summer we did not go to school, churches were closed and everyone was warned to pretty much stay at home.  For my sister, our friend Betty Jo, who lived next door, and me polio interrupted our summer very little.  We were out in the country where we played outside as we always had, but we did listen to a Sunday school lesson on Sunday mornings broadcast by WOHS, the local Shelby radio station, rather than going to Double Springs Baptist Church. My parents read the daily papers and commented on the many cases of polio that were occurring in the county, mainly children, and often there would be mention of a child dying. It really didn’t hit home to me, because these were children I did not know.   I don’t remember being frightened but I can imagine my parents and other parents were terrified of the epidemic (I don’t know if it was a pandemic then or not.)

Neither we nor my Grandma had telephones but received news through the newspapers or through the grapevine.  One Sunday my Aunt Frances who lived in the Pleasant Ridge community, closer to Lattimore, brought us very bad news via the grapevine. She had learned that my classmate, Martha Mason of Lattimore, had contracted polio and that her older brother Gaston had died from the disease. She knew that Martha was in a hospital, in Asheville I think, but she was not aware of how sick she was. Now that someone I knew, someone who was my friend had the disease, polio suddenly seemed real to me.  It was pretty sobering to eleven- year- old me.

Another event that occurred because of polio, perhaps the same summer of 1948, but it could have been during another outbreak, really scared my parents. We did not have a washing machine at the time, so whenever we had a load of dirty clothes (once or twice a week) Daddy on his way to work would drop these off with a lady who lived across from Eskridge Grove Baptist Church and who laundered our clothes.  The basket would be returned with the clothes clean, beautifully ironed and folded. Then one of her children contracted polio while a basket of our clothes was at her house.  When Daddy brought these home, although they were clean, ironed and folded, he built a big fire under a black wash pot that belonged to Grandma, filled the pot with water, and boiled them for a long time, before he would let us near them. (That washpot is now in my yard filled with pansies.) One of you will undoubtedly inherit it so please cherish it.)

The polio epidemic of 1948 is the only epidemic I experienced before this current 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.  I think many more people are going to die from this one.  Our state is now on lockdown where citizens are encouraged to “stay home”, and I am following those suggestions. 

Photo from the internet of some unknown patient, not Martha, but the iron lung is like the one she lived in.

*Martha not only survived, but she led a remarkable life despite being a quadriplegic and spending most of the rest of her life, she lived to her early 70s, in an iron lung.  She graduated from Lattimore High School, Gardner-Webb College, and Wake Forest University with honors (Phi Beta Kappa) and lived to write a book about her life.  I have several copies of her book so I think there will be one for each of you, and please read it. What an inspiration!

There will be more letters about my friendship with Martha.

Hanging Out With Grandpat in First Grade

Lattimore Elementary School in 1943 ( Copy of line drawing by Wilson Brooks). 

I've started writing letters to my grandchildren during this Covid 19 lockdown, and I find that I am actually enjoying looking back at my life.  I am writing somewhat chronologically, but if I think of something that's out of sequence that I simply must share I go ahead and write about it. This is the letter I sent them about my first grade.  Photographs of me at that age, I don't have here in Raleigh.

Patsy Goes to School

We lived out in the country, on Route 4, Shelby, NC to be exact.  Since most families in these parts were cotton farmers, school was a six weeks summer session to make up for the six weeks that school was out in October during the cotton-picking season where children provided much of the labor for gathering the cotton crop.  (More about picking cotton in a later letter.)

For some reason, Daddy had the task of taking me for orientation at the Lattimore Elementary School. Mama was probably home caring for my baby sister.  Lattimore was a village about six miles from our house whose school served a radius of several miles around the village including Route 4.   At the orientation,  I vaguely remember being in a room with other children (I was only five at the time, I would have been six the last of August and this was probably June.) and teachers were calling children up to the front for some purpose, maybe getting vaccinations.  According to Daddy, the teacher called out “Patricia”, and I just sat there.  I had never in my life been called Patricia, my nickname was Patsy and that was all I had ever been called. Daddy said he nudged me and said, “That’s you, Patsy.”  Daddy used to laugh and tell me that one of the teachers said, “Oh my goodness, there is one child that doesn’t even know her name.” 

I might not have known my name, but I knew a lot of things, as the teacher would soon learn. Our reading books were the Dick and Jane series.  Our teacher, Miss Dedmond, would flip over a large chart in the front of the room printed with big black letters “Dick” and then one that said “Jane”, “Sally”, “Spot”, “Puff” “See” “Run” ad finitum.  Then we would get little Dick and Jane books.  “See Dick.” next page “See Jane.” next page “See Dick Run” “See Jane run.” And eventually, there would be a short paragraph “Look Spot. Oh, look, look Spot. Look and see. Oh, see!” This was not the “look and see” method but “the look and say” method for learning to read back in the day, and I was bored. I apparently went through all the books she had so she sent me over to the right side of the room where I was to help some of my classmates who were having difficulty reading. (Guess I was destined to be a teacher from first grade.) 

Once I remember Miss Dedmond gave me a page out of a newspaper and I was to circle every word that I knew.  I was circling almost every word, and to show off, I walked up to the teacher and circled the word “agriculture” and asked, “Is this word agriculture?” We took two daily papers, The Shelby Daily Star and The Charlotte Observer, so I knew how to read newspapers.

Once my teacher loaned me a book that I could take home and read.  It was about a duck who gathered corn and who swam, and I was very proud of the opportunity to take the book home.  I read it to my parents, and then I remember running up to Grandpa Greene’s and reading him the book.  I adored my Grandpa Greene and I was so pleased to be able to read that book to him.

 At some point, each child was required to stand before the class and count to one hundred.  Of course, I knew how to count to one hundred, but I liked getting up before the class so when it would be my turn, I would count up to maybe forty-something and then deliberately miss, so I could get up the next day and count again.  Next day “fifty-six, fifty-eight?”  Sit back down. I did this for quite some time, but then I didn’t want to be the last one to accomplish this so one day I got up and rattled off the numbers just like I could have done all those times I missed.  I remember the prize for counting to a hundred without missing was a multicolored pencil.  One that looked as if it had been swirled around in a can of different color paints.

The lunchroom was on the basement floor of our three-story school.  I don’t remember eating in the lunchroom in the first grade, but I do remember taking my lunch in a metal lunch box with a thermos bottle for my drink.  My favorite sandwich was a tomato sandwich on white bread (the only kind we had) with mayonnaise and by lunch, it would be a bit soggy with that earthy aroma that only a soggy tomato sandwich gives off.  To this day, a soggy tomato sandwich still reminds me of first grade. In cold weather, Mama would mix sweetened coffee with milk about half and a half in my thermos, and I loved it. Guess that was my first latte.  But strangely enough, I never became a coffee drinker to this day.  (Beer, on the other hand, is a different story and a different letter.)

Before Christmas, Miss Dedmond challenged us to memorize the Bible verses Luke 2:8-14. “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch…..” The first student to master this would be given a Bible storybook.  I went home and told Mama and started practicing.  For days I would repeat the verses with Mama’s help and finally one day I went to school and told the teacher I had memorized the selection.  So I got up and said the whole thing with perhaps just a few mistakes.  I don’t remember any other student even trying.  I proudly went home with the Bible storybook.

At the arrival of cold weather, I got new shoes, brown oxford lace-ups with hard leather soles, especially the heel.  When I wore them to school and walked on the wooden floor of the classroom it sounded to me like the sound of my teacher’s or my mother’s high heel shoes.  I became very self-conscious about the sound of my shoes---I thought my classmates would think I was wearing high heeled shoes---so I learned to walk very carefully and softly so that my shoes would not make a clicking noise.  One day Mama picked me up from school before school was dismissed, and when I walked to the door to go out with her, I was walking as I usually did softly.  When we got out the door Mama asked, “Patsy what’s wrong with your legs or your feet?”  She later told me she thought I had developed a serious problem of some sort.  “Nothing,” I said.  “But you were walking funny*.” Then I told her I thought my shoes sounded like high heels.  She assured me that nobody would think I was wearing high heels.  After that, I stopped walking “funny.”

*walking funny:   someone who is walking in a way they normally don’t walk.

Actually, I remember first grade fondly, and I was especially fond of my teacher, Miss Dedmon. And that became the beginning of my life- long love of learning.