Hanging out in the Eighth Grade Letters to my Grandchildren

May 15, 2020
Dear Grands,

In the summer of 1950 I became a teenager, although I don't believe teenagers were the dreaded lot that they have become in the eyes of some.   Upon entering the eighth grade I was pleased to learn that Miss Sarah Blanton who was my sixth-grade teacher had become Mrs. Sarah Dedmon and she was now teaching the eighth grade.  And our room was in the basement of the high school just as it had been in the sixth grade.

As I recall she continued to take our class to the old tin can gym to play basketball whenever we had recess in rainy or cold weather.  Remember I told you how she had been the one that got me interested in basketball, and by the time I was in the eighth grade I had improved quite a bit from my sixth grade days.  By this time I had an official basketball goal and basketball with which to practice at home.

In Mrs. Dedmon's class, we had art classes.  The one project we had was making a puppet out of papier-mache, actually, we made just the head of a puppet.  I remember we used strips of newspaper that we would dip in water and then cover with starch or maybe it was dilute Elmer's glue.   Then we painted eyes, lips, maybe added hair, I don't remember.  I do remember that we had devised a little stage where we could sit behind and put on a play with our puppets.  My friend Libby and I were apparently pretty good playmakers because we were asked by the other students to put on another play after the required one. (Looking back, I bet our classmates were just trying to get out of having other less fun classes.) We would sit down and hold our puppets up and just make up a dialog as we would go.  I'll have to ask Libby, who is still my friend if she remembers this.

I also learned to type in the eighth grade.  Mrs. Rudasill came to our school to teach typing, and we had to pay to take the class.  Eighth graders were allowed to sign up, and I think my friend Shirley and I were the only eighth-graders to take the class.  We were allowed to leave our class during what was the last period for the high school classes and go up to the room that was adjacent to the stage in the auditorium where the class was taught.  I was a little apprehensive being in a class with high school students, especially since my first cousin Douglas was a senior that year.  I was determined to do as well as he did.  I can remember typing, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."  It had all the letters of the alphabet.  I learned to type fast and accurately and did as well as most of the high school students.

I had no typewriter, but our book had a template of the qwerty keyboard, and I would practice on the template in the book.  But "Santa Claus" brought me a reconditioned Underwood Typewriter for Christmas and I could really practice after that.  I loved the class, and it has been one of the most useful classes I had during my twelve years of elementary and high school.  I'm still doing a lot of typing, guess it is called keyboarding now.  I find that I don't type as fast nor as accurately as I once did as I get older.  But I manage.  I never was good with numbers.  I still have to look at the keyboard when typing numbers, and I never learned to use the number pad on the keyboard.

An Underwood Typewriter similar to the one I learned to type on. (Still have one like this in Shelby.)

Not only do I credit Sarah Blanton Dedmon with my interest in playing basketball, but she arranged in the spring of that year (1951) for us to have what would be my first boy-girl party.  She arranged for us to have a party over in the elementary school one evening in the room that had been my third-grade room.  Perhaps that room was no longer used as a classroom.  Up until the eighth grade I had considered boys a nuisance at best, but that changed when a cute little blond-haired boy moved into our school district in the eighth grade.  I'll call him Joey (not his real name).  I had a"crush" on him, but I tried to be very cool and nonchalant about it.  Some of my friends had said, "Joey likes you."

Anyway, at this party, we were playing some kind of game, maybe Spin the Bottle.  Bet you have never heard of that game.   A boy would spin the bottle and the girl that the bottle was facing when it stopped spinning was the one that he could go with for a walk outside.  So on one spin, Joey's spin landed on me, and he and I went out with other pairs to have a walk.  As we walked on that spring night, he reached over and put his arm around my shoulder, and no he didn't kiss me.  I never thought of boys as a nuisance after that.  Thank you, Mrs. Dedmon, you were a wonderful teacher!

I'm sure you grandchildren will find this letter particularly amusing.

Love, GrandPat

Washing Windows Then and Now

My squeaky clean windows, inside and out. 

With this beautiful weather, I have washed my bedroom windows inside and out this morning.  These days I use Windex and paper towels.  Usually, I get a professional company to wash them outside, and I probably will call them for doing all the other windows, but I thought washing these few windows would be a change of pace for me and might relieve the monotony of these days.

Growing up my sister Martha and I would help Mama wash windows inside and out.  One of us would be on the inside while the other would be on the outside and we could see if either of us left a spot.  Bon Ami was what we used on a wet cloth, and when it dried we would wipe it all off with pieces of newspaper.  No paper towels for us back then.

Bon Ami was my friend when I washed windows growing up. 

As I remember the kitchen windows required that we get on a ladder.  Although I'm afraid of heights, I didn't mind getting on a ladder, but I was terrified of getting on the roof.  Sometimes I would want up on the roof if Daddy was working on the roof, but then I was afraid to get down the ladder.  Soon I learned to just stay off the roof altogether.  Now I have learned to stay off the ladder altogether. I'm sure you are happy to hear that.

Clothespins my grandmother probably used. 

Clothespins I used and still use when I am in Cape Breton. 

We did lots of chores around the house.  Dusting, sweeping, mopping, I didn't mind.  Mama always did the washing, but I  or Martha would often hang the clothes on the line and take them off as well.  I miss having a clothesline, but we do have one in Marble Mountain and the clothes smell so good after drying in the sun. As a kid growing up, sometimes the wet clothes would freeze on the line and then dry by sublimation.  I thought that gave the clothes a delightful aroma.

Growing up Martha and I did most of the ironing I recall.  The dried clothes would be sprinkled with water and rolled up tightly until there was a bundle ready to iron. The damp clothes would iron out with no wrinkles if you did the ironing properly.  No steam iron back in the day.  These days I don't iron clothes.  They usually come out of the dryer pretty wrinkle-free.  Only occasionally might I need to press something.

Ironing in the 50s. (Photo from an image on the internet.)

It is rather amusing that I really dislike house cleaning now, whereas growing up I didn't mind it at all.  The one thing I didn't like was to wash dishes.  Mama always did the cooking, she just didn't want us in the kitchen so I didn't learn to cook until I was grown.  But Martha and I had to do the dishes. We would often argue about whose turn it was to wash the dishes. Looking back I believe I did more than my share because she was younger.

Now I have squeaky clean windows in my bedroom, and I can open the shutters and have a nice view of my climbing fig and other plants outside my window. And today I can even leave the windows open it is so nice and fresh and cool outside.

I wonder what chores you have done during this lockdown my dear grandchildren?

Love, Grandpat

Jump Down Turn Around Pick a Bale of Cotton

Cotton plant with the bolls open and ready to be picked.  

Farming and textiles were the main sources of income in Cleveland County, NC during the 40s and 50s and cotton was the main crop of the farmers. I think I was perhaps the only person in the county who really enjoyed picking cotton.  Although we lived in the country surrounded by farmers, my father was a machinist at the Dover Industries Cotton Mills so I did not have to pick cotton as many of my friends did.  But I couldn't wait to get in the cotton fields. I actually got PAID for picking cotton for neighbor farmers.

My older cousins were picking for a neighbor farmer when I was quite young, preschool age, probably five.  They took me with them to the field that was near my house and I picked for a short time, and I got paid with a check for $5.00.  This would have been in the early 1940s, and I certainly didn't pick enough for that big paycheck.  Perhaps the farmer thought that as a child if I picked any amount of cotton it was worth $5.00.  Taking that check home was one of the proudest moments in my young life.  So proud that I didn't want to cash the check, but finally Daddy convinced me to go with him to the bank, and we cashed the check. I had to stand on tip-toes to hand the check to the teller, and I wasn't too happy about cashing the check.  For some reason, the check represented more money than the cash did in my little mind.

I was probably ten or eleven when I started picking cotton on a regular basis.  I could hardly wait for school to be dismissed for six weeks of cotton-picking season.  In the summer, we were in school for six weeks to make up for the time we would miss in the fall while picking cotton.  Most of my classmates were children of farmers and they had to help their families with cotton-picking, for me, it was a way to make money.

We were surrounded by cotton fields.  The closest neighbor had a daughter (BJ) who was about the same age as I and she was my best childhood friend.  So that was the family that I and my sister Martha mostly picked for. My grandmother would make me a cotton-picking sack every season using a burlap sack to which she attached a soft strap that went over my shoulder.  (I don't know why I didn't keep them from year to year.) We would go down a row picking until our sack was full.  Our sack of cotton was dumped onto our own personal "sheet" which was also made of burlap sacks sewn together.

By afternoon there would be a large pile of cotton on the sheet, and with the sun beating down it made a pleasant place to have a little rest, or maybe even a nap.  One could bury her nose in the cotton and the distinctive fragrance emanating from the warm cotton was comforting.  So comforting that when I was in my early 50s undergoing chemo for breast cancer and was told to think of something pleasant as the toxic chemicals coursed through my veins, I would pretend I was lying on a big pile of cotton warmed by the sun and imagine the soothing aroma of warm cotton.

One of the hazards of picking cotton was the stinging Pack Saddle a caterpillar that fed on cotton leaves.  A sting from this little creature was very painful.  There was often a telltale sign that a Pack Saddle was in a stalk of cotton because there would be little black drops of poop left on the leaves or on the ground.  This forewarning would usually prevent one from being stung because you could locate the caterpillar and remove it from the stalk. But I was stung nevertheless many times.

Pack Saddle on a cotton leaf. 

At the end of the day, the sheets full of cotton were tied up and weighed and the farmer would write down the weight of cotton for each person for the day.  At the end of the week, the daily weights were added and it was payday!  The sheets of cotton were emptied into a wagon and taken to the barn. I think the pay was usually something like $2.00 for each hundred pounds or fraction thereof up to $4.00 per hundred.  So I could easily make $15.00 per week, which was good money I thought for a hard-working kid.

Once a farmer had accumulated around 600 to 800 pounds of cotton, it would be time to take the cotton to the local cotton gin to be baled.  The first time I went to the cotton gin in Lattimore, BJ's father allowed us to ride in the wagon full of cotton that was pulled by a mule.  At the gin, the wagon was vacuumed up under a big suction apparatus, and I was a bit scared that maybe we would be sucked up too.  It was safe.  The cotton was baled, weighed, and I suppose the farmer was then paid for the bale.  Soon the mule was replaced with a Farmall Tractor and that made a much faster trip to the cotton gin. I'm sure it made plowing of the fields much easier as well.

A Farmall tractor very similar to the one BJ's father had.  

The cotton-picking season began in early September about two weeks before the James Strates Cleveland County Fair would come to Shelby. This fair was the biggest in the state excepting the State Fair in Raleigh.  The money I made during those two weeks I saved to spend at the Fair.

After the Fair, I would save my money to buy new school clothes for the winter. 

I suppose I picked cotton until I was 16 years old.  I was a fast picker, and I remember the most I ever picked was 210 pounds in one day. Once I was sixteen and could drive I saught other jobs.  But I still have the fondest memories of my years in the cotton patch. 

As we were picking in the fields we would often sing this song among others.  There would be BJ, my sister and me, BJ parents, sometimes her Grandmother, and sometimes her aunts.  It was great fun.

Hanging out in the Seventh Grade

Dear Grands,

May 1, 2020

Back to my school days.  In the school year, 1949-50, I had turned 12 and was in the seventh grade at Lattimore School and our room was in the basement of the high school building just as when we were in the sixth grade.  Mrs. Hugh Harrill, a preacher’s wife, was our teacher. 

One thing that stands out in my mind is how we would have reading class.  Students would have to take turns reading in the order of how we were seated, and the teacher would call our name when it was our turn to read.  It seems that my row was the last row and I had to listen while most of the others read in their turn. I would read much faster and would go ahead and read further along, but I also had to be sure I knew where we were as a class so that when it became my turn I would be in the correct place. Today this seems more frustrating to me than it did at the time.  If we were called on to read and didn’t know where in the story we should begin reading, the teacher was not happy.  I wonder if I remembered anything about the reading lesson of the day. Despite that awkward way of reading, I never gave up my love of reading. 

Back in the day, perhaps it is still the case, 12 and 13 year-old girls formed little cliques.  There were five of us that usually hung out together and would go spend the nights with each other on occasion.  For some reason, our clique often had someone in our little group that we would decide to shun.  I was occasionally the odd man out in our group, but there was one girl that we regularly shunned.  I will call her “J”.  J would get very upset and hurt and would cry so that once when we were shunning J, our teacher called the others in the clique in during recess, one by one,  and scolded us and Mrs. Harrill would sometimes cry she was so upset about how were acting.  I think maybe she would read a passage from the Bible to us.  Looking back, I think that was the only time I can remember being mean to someone, and I so regret it.  By the time we were in high school, we were no longer forming cliques and J was one of the more popular girls in the class. 

Martha Mason, my friend who had polio, returned home that year spending most of her time in an iron lung.  She had missed the sixth grade while she was hospitalized, so after she was back the teachers would go to her house (she lived near the school) and teach her.  Sometimes I and some others would go visit her and she could be out of the iron lung and be on her bed for a short time as we visited.  I recall she was always cheerful and interested in what we were doing. 

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.