Ridge Stories Read online

  The Friday afternoons when we lined up for the teacher to distribute goiter pills were especially engaging events. Some of us hated the big chalky tablets that contained iodine for prevention of goiters, but others liked their malt-chocolaty flavor and ate them like candy. Those who didn’t care for goiter pills surreptitiously slipped them to those who did, and all of the tablets disappeared down gullets.

  Playground supervision was a nonissue at one-room schools. As the entire school staff consisted of one teacher, who desperately needed a break, no one had recess duty. And unlike urban schools, no tall impenetrable fences marked our school boundaries.

  Students easily slipped through farmers’ line fences onto neighboring fields with our teacher’s tacit approval. The instructor took advantage of the peace and quiet as she tried to keep up with schoolwork, trusting that the older kids would look out for the younger, and generally they did, much as bigger siblings did at home.

  We sledded on the adjacent fields, played in the woods down in the valley, and built forts in the ravine. Luckily the belfry bell of the schoolhouse had the resonance of one in a church steeple and could be heard for a mile. At the sound of its tolling, we scurried back like Pavlovian puppies.

  Today some of our teachers might have been brought before a disciplinary board and charged with criminal negligence for lack of student supervision. But no one pressed charges at the Pleasant Ridge School, as everyone knew the teacher had all she could do with that bunch of kids.

  “I sure don’t have the patience to deal with all those kids!” parents told one another. “I couldn’t do it!” they agreed, shaking their heads.

  Most of the time we returned from the wild safe and sound, rosy cheeked and out of breath, and to the teacher’s relief, not quite as full of piss and vinegar as when we had scrambled out the door for recess.

  One-room grade schools were already in a period of transition when I was a boy, consolidation well underway. Society was becoming more multicultural, more aware of the separation of church and state, more technology conscious, more concerned about special needs, more cognizant of safety and medical issues, and more litigious.

  No longer were Gideon Bible folks allowed to distribute New Testaments to schoolchildren, nor teachers to dispense medication, nor kids to explore woods and creeks on their own during recess. Teachers gained colleagues and weren’t expected to assume the roles of nurse, janitor, playground supervisor, groundskeeper, principal, social worker, and school psychologist.

  One-room country grade schools were a colorful part of our past, and those of us who attended them cherish our memories. But like hornbooks and belfries, they had served their purpose, and yellow school buses transport today’s rural children into the future.

  Reading, Writing, and Sledding

  Winters were different back on the ridge. The first snowfall was almost as welcome as the first day of summer vacation. On that day, all of us children loaded our sleds into the station wagon that picked us up from our farms and delivered us to the one-room Pleasant Ridge School. Except for Christmas break, most of the sleds would remain at school until the snow began to melt in the spring.

  Oh, those wonderful rural recesses! We rushed out the door of the schoolhouse, galloped down the cement steps, and grabbed our sleds from where they leaned against the side of the building.

  In no time we had scrambled over the woven wire fence that marked the official boundaries of the schoolyard and were zipping down the slopes of Otto Fry’s pasture on our Flexible Flyers.

  Mr. Fairbrother, our teacher, had been my mother’s student when he was in first grade. An earnest young man with thick glasses and an unruly cowlick, he often joined us during the long recess that followed lunch. He enjoyed those snowy ridge hills as much as we did, often letting us enjoy a few extra minutes of recess. Under his supervision, we constructed sled jumps, ramps of packed snow halfway down a hill. Surprisingly, none of my classmates were ever injured flying on a sled over a jump.

  When we weren’t sledding, the fresh snow provided a canvas for other pastimes, such as a game of fox and geese. One of the older children led us in tracing the outlines of a huge wheel shape with center spokes that we called the “pie.” The child who assumed the role of fox attempted to tag one of the other children, the geese. The tagged child then became the fox, as did anyone who in haste accidentally “cut the pie” by stepping outside the paths into the snow.

  A partial thaw inspired the construction of snow forts. We divided ourselves into two armies that created snow walls out of huge balls of snow, perhaps two to three feet in diameter. Next, we filled in the open spaces with handfuls of soft snow.

  Once both sides were prepared, the battle began. Mr. Fair-brother never objected to a snowball fight if all the participants were willingly involved. And schoolboy honor forbade the throwing of ice-balls.

  A cold snap meant ice-skating. Because no ponds were to be found on the ridge, none of us owned ice skates. But we did rather well without them, pumping bucketfuls of water and dumping them down the path that led up the hill to the school. While the consequence of this undertaking meant that we had to walk on either side of the path as we trudged up to the school, it also meant that we could slide down the ice path as if we were wearing silver skates.

  Everyone enjoyed the ice path. The big boys defied their mothers’ strict injunctions by removing their boots and going down in their school shoes; leather soles fly much faster on ice than do rubber boots. The especially agile executed impressive turns as they flew down the trail.

  Smaller children assumed squatting postures as they slid down the ice bed, ensuring a shorter falling distance and less chance of hurting themselves. The girls in particular delighted in duck trains. A group of children, each grasping the waist of the one before her, raced for the ice and then squatted in unison, coursing down the hill in a train formation.

  When the bell atop the schoolhouse rang, we all—all ten of us or so—went slowly trooping inside to resume our studies. Before classes would begin, we had to struggle out of coats, scarves, stocking caps, and boots. Then we went to the front of the room to lay our sopping wet mittens atop the oil-burning space heater. When our clothing was wet as well, the teacher allowed us to slide our desks in a semicircle around the stove to dry in its warmth.

  We were expected to work as hard as we played. As soon as we were in our desks, the room was quiet, with children penciling arithmetic solutions or geography answers into their Roy Rogers or Gene Autry tablets.

  Through the windows decorated with paper snowflakes we had cut, I might see real snow falling to freshen the fields for our next recess. Then the silence was broken as Mr. Fairbrother announced, “First grade, stand . . . and pass,” and clutching my Dick and Jane reader, I would take my place at the oak table in the front corner of the room.

  But in the back of my mind, I was already anticipating the next recess and the return to our winter wonderland.

  A Cold Lunch Program

  No anonymous casseroles, turkey on a bun, or cook’s choice awaited us in the one-room grade school back on Pleasant Ridge. We had a cold lunch program.

  Every morning, I carried off to school the meal my mother had packed for me and stored it on the shelf in the cloakroom until noon. But even though some of us reached the point where we would rather have eaten a mystery casserole than another sandwich, I have good memories of the hundreds and hundreds of cold lunches I ate during those eight years.

  I began first grade with a battered old black metal lunchbox (a dinner pail, to ridge folk) my mother had used during her teaching years before I was born. Since a school milk program had not yet been conceived, Ma filled a vacuum bottle with cold unpasteurized milk from our cows. As I had been warned repeatedly how easily the thermos would break, I carried my dinner pail as if it were full of eggs.

  At times the sandwiches I consumed seemed like an endless procession of big bologna, but in reality, they were made of everything my mother could imagi
ne to put between slices of bread as she attempted to create novel and palatable lunches. Cold hot dog sandwiches, for example, were a special treat. Some resourceful kids had their mothers heat wieners in the morning, tie strings around them for retrieval, and then pop them into their vacuum bottles so they would still be hot at lunchtime. And one family of children actually persuaded their mother to make them ketchup sandwiches.

  Fruit, cookies, or cake and a candy bar rounded out the lunch. If another child had an item that looked more appealing, it became a trading commodity: “I’ll give you my apple for your Hershey bar.” And if someone forgot to bring lunch, the teacher expected us to contribute to a makeshift meal for that unfortunate scholar.

  I was told the story of one mother before my time who routinely “forgot” to pack lunches for her children. When the situation became apparent, my grandmother started packing them lunches as well, discreetly slipped to them when they joined my father and uncle on their way to school. Other Depression era families made do, mothers packing sandwiches of homemade bread spread with lard. Hearing these tales, my own lunch seemed a banquet by comparison.

  Usually, we kids were hungry by morning recess. To placate our appetites until lunch, we selected an item from our lunch-boxes (often a cookie) for a snack. My father’s generation had a similar tradition. He once told a story about his brother’s first day at the Pleasant Ridge School. Pupils then also snacked during the morning recess. But my Uncle Vern, unaware of the custom, carried his dinner pail under a tree where, sitting by himself, he devoured the entire meal. At noon he cried, “My lunch is all gone!” and my irritated father had to share with his howling little brother.

  Waiting for lunch meant a ritual of preparation. One older child’s duty was to put a teakettle of water on the hot plate each morning at eleven thirty. At noon, cold water was added to the steaming hot water to cool it to lukewarm.

  In the cloakroom, we lined up to wash our hands at an oilcloth-skirted washstand that had been improvised from orange crates. As the children held their hands over the dishpan, they each received a squirt of yellow soap from an oilcan and then a dipper of warm rinse water from the two students who had hand-wash duty. Once everyone had washed their hands, fetched their lunchboxes, and were seated at their desks, we were allowed to begin eating.

  If the weather was nice, lunch became a picnic, and we raced outside to be first at the best spots. On cool but sunny days, the best location was along the south side of the schoolhouse. Otherwise, the teeter-totter was the most sought-out picnic spot. And sometimes friends would share a tree trunk as a backrest.

  But whatever the setting, a cold lunch tasted best outside. Whether in the fall with warm leaves crackling a counterpoint to my waxed paper, or in spring with the sun warm overhead but the new grass damp and cool under my butt, the humblest peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the most ordinary apple became food fit for a prince.

  Do Ghosts Eat Cake?

  On the way home from the Halloween program at Pleasant Ridge School, I was euphorically rhapsodizing over my supporting role as a fourth-grade actor in a featured comic drama, Do Ghosts Eat Cake? In reality, the play was a scripted skit with an improvised set that included a sofa, creatively suggested by a blanket thrown over three chairs aligned in a row, and a small table that ordinarily held the school’s radio.

  The plot was simple. Three girls were having a Halloween party with cake as their refreshment. Our teacher, Mrs. Myra Reagles, had baked and frosted a small box-mix square cake for the play. Three boys cleverly hid themselves behind the sofa, and when the girls were not looking, snitched pieces of cake and wolfed them down to the amusement of the audience. The girls, puzzled by the disappearance of pieces of cake, suspected ghosts as the culprits.

  After listening to me bask in nonstop self-praise, my father finally sighed and announced quietly, “I was in that play when I was in grade school.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me in my self-congratulatory state, but of course my father had attended that same school as a boy. And no doubt every year since universal public education was a gleam in Horace Mann’s eye, one-room grade school teachers had been recycling the same material for creating all-school programs.

  Those spectacles were a mandatory part of the rural elementary curriculum, the teacher’s only choice being whether the program would celebrate Halloween or Christmas. As a retired teacher myself, I can imagine the hurdle the production presented to an instructor who was also the administrator, janitor, playground and lunchroom supervisor—all while working not only single-handedly but without a telephone in the building. And I can understand the tension, too, as the school would be on display for a significant segment of the community. I can almost hear the teacher saying privately, “If I can just get this program behind me, I can make it through the year.” (Some years the teacher delayed the responsibility, mounting a Christmas production instead.)

  As a virtuous form of experiential learning, the school program had become a celebrated fixture in the curriculum. However, those of us who have spent lifetimes teaching know that the experience often makes a bigger impression on students than do any insights gained through that learning process. And the all-school program was a lengthy undertaking, at least a month devoted to preparation for the big event, putting aside more and more of the time usually allotted to reading, writing, and arithmetic as the production date approached. Students learned to work cooperatively, enjoyed the break from schoolwork, and involved their parents and community in the school, but perhaps at the cost of academic instruction.

  Planning included a business component as well, with profits used to fund recreation equipment. Students sold raffle tickets for modest prizes, such as a bed lamp or a scatter rug. To theoretically circumvent Wisconsin’s lottery laws of that time, we were instructed to give purchasers of a ticket a stick (not package!) of gum, so that they received something for their money other than a chance in a drawing.

  In addition, mothers were expected to make candy for the event. Students would put the homemade confections in small paper bags and then hawk the candy before and after the program. Not surprisingly, the biggest customers of the raffle tickets and bags of candy were parents. In retrospect, I realize that the commercial ventures in a sense served as a sneaky referendum for additional school funding.

  The rehearsals began early, learning the songs we would sing as a chorus, memorizing individual poems, and practicing the plays. I remember each year when we lined up in rows for the choral numbers, hoping I would find a place close to center of the back row, as we were always lined up by height. I recall the year I had been saving money in the hopes of buying engineer boots, footwear popular at the time and appealing to me not only because of the tough leather shafts but especially because of the height-enhancing stacked heels. I assured my teacher that with the purchase of my boots, I would be more than an inch taller and, in anticipation of those shoes, should be moved farther back and center.

  The most exciting part of the production process was the transformation of our schoolroom into an auditorium. First, the desks were pushed back to clear a space for the stage. Years prior, some farmer-carpenter had made low wooden sawhorses to support two-by-twelve-foot planks. The boards made the floor of a temporary stage about a foot off the ground. The teeter-totter was detached from its mount, brought into the classroom, overturned, and placed beside the others to complete the stage floor.

  A couple of fathers usually set up the stage and then strung wires on which to hang the front and side curtains; they were old sheets that a mother had dyed navy blue and then sewn plastic chicken leg rings to, allowing them to hang from the wires.

  With the potential theater magic of the stage staring students in the face, none of us could concentrate on our schoolwork. That distraction was not much of a problem, though, as by this time, our studies had pretty much come to a halt, especially as we were putting the finishing touches on the production. We begged our moms for permission to bring throw r
ugs to school to put on the stage, to minimize irregularities in plank thickness, and a few small lamps for improvised footlights.

  Our productions played to full houses, as parents, siblings, grandparents, relatives, friends, and even neighbors without children squeezed into student desks, took seats on random chairs and table edges, or leaned against walls. Of course, the audience of maybe thirty or forty people looked much larger because of the limited space.

  As performers, we shone in the unconditional love that radiated from our spectators. We were too young to realize that our youth and potential, not our talent per se, earned the praise lavished on us. If someone forgot lines or sang off key, that shortcoming only endeared us to our elders all the more. The school was the center of the community, as many adults in the audience had sat in those same desks as children, and parents-to-be knew their children would someday as well, even if the furniture was moved to a different schoolhouse. And who knows, they might even perform the parts of cake-eating ghosts!

  Farmers took turns serving as school board members, the elections only a formality, the office considered a part of the responsibility of raising one’s children, of making certain that the circle would be unbroken.

  The Pleasant Ridge School loomed large in my life as a boy, as our modest community’s public institutions—the school, the church, and the town hall—fulfilled our neighborhood needs. As an adult, when I returned to any of those buildings, I was always amazed at how small they were, how few the desks, the pews, the folding chairs.

  When later on I was cast in university productions, I learned not only stagecraft but my limitations as an actor. And that was okay by me. Because while I still enjoy the theater, all other plays seem to lack the magic of those I first experienced as a farm kid on Pleasant Ridge.