Ok, this is likely going to read to the younger generation like one of those old flashes from the past where we old folks had to walk ten miles in the snow uphill to get to school. I remember feeling the same way when I would listen to stories from those generations past; although, Grandma's tales about sitting on a bus with children all on a middle bench with no seatbelts was a bit harrowing. And the stories of the old one room school house in Opossum Holler definitely goes beyond today's ideas of roughing it.
I remember Ms Maudene Crawford, our 2nd grade teacher and cousin to my grandmother, tell us about her school days as she would sing the song titled above. "School Days, School Days, Dear old Golden Rule days! Reading and writing and arithmetic, taught to the tune of a teachers stick…." To this day she was one of my favorite teachers.
Cut to, some years later when I would traipse off to college in North Louisiana.
I had in the back of my car some clothes and toiletries given to me as graduation gifts. I had a twin size comforter and a pillow off of my bed. I literally had a couple of blank signed checks to fill out and call home on a land line to report the amount I had to spend on books and fees. And then the chaos began of going into this large room of freshmen to "pull cards" in order to grab what classes were left after the upper classmen had grabbed what they needed to wrap up their education.
Looking back, this was nothing short of abuse. I always say that if we had the experience and boldness at 18 we have once we get into our 50's we would have been super heroes. Or moments like these would have resulted into cat fights and a blood bath. But we were too young and naïve to even know what we were doing let alone argue over it. So, we would end up with 7:00 a.m. classes five days a week and 5:00 pm classes five days a week. And we would end up with the professor that every older, experienced student knew not to get which is why those cards were the only ones left to grab. Was this not a setup for failure?
And then we would trudge back to our dingy dorm room all the way across campus with the new comforter and old pillows and the toiletries and monogrammed towels we were given as graduation gifts and try to figure out how to set the new alarm clock that had taken the place of a mother's voice saying, "Get out of bed or I'm going to go get your father."
Years later when I went back to school to wrap up a degree and then even later a master's degree online, I was amazed at how much easier things had become. Literally the click of some fingers and credit card numbers punched in and boom. A whole schedule laid out.
And then I scroll on social media and see these beaming smiles on the young girls posing with Mom and Dad in a dorm that looks like Vera Bradley exploded on top of 50 Amazon orders. And both girls have match patchy everything down to the fake fur rugs and strung lights or neon lighted names. I find it to be precious, but thinking back on the days of old, we might as well have walked ten miles uphill in the snow without a cute backpack or cell phone.
I wonder what my 2nd grade teacher would think of all this now. We would likely share a good laugh together and be thankful that regardless of how it happened we gals were eventually educated and through the glitzy glam we are still building tomorrow's leaders.
