In The Little Red School House

Great! It's Friday and I'm sorta back on track. 

That's the road home or one of them. The glowing white mailbox on the right left is right beside the driveway to my little red school house.

Kindergarten, first and second grade were all accomplished within its brick walls. (Please forgive the blur...I am always passing by when I think to take a picture and John seems to think he needs some speed to make the hill.)

Because there are no buildings between my back lawn and the schoolhouse, if I were to walk out my patio doors here at the haven and down across my back lawn into the ravine and up the other side and do it all over again...I'm not sure how many times...I would eventually arrive on the playground you see at the right side of the building there. It's a parking lot now because it's an apartment house these days. (Once I even thought that I would like to move into an apartment there because I hoped that it would feel like home. Once I visited, not so much. The apartments are so very small.)

(Again, sorry for the blur — seems that life and memories can also be a bit of a blur.) See the windows? They've been modified making them much smaller and thus more energy efficient. Back in the day, they were large and a little scholar could look up and out to the treetops and sky. This was most conducive for daydreaming, something for which I was often admonished.

The bathrooms were in the basement and oh how I dreaded them. It was a horror to descend into the dungeon where the coal furnace lived rumbling and belching and where the janitor sometimes was seen before the flames shoveling coal. Because he was a kindly grandfatherly sort, I found it discomfiting that he was feeding that fire. We had an oil furnace at home. Still and all, we were toasty warm in that schoolhouse through the long, cold Maine winters. 

Though I loved school, my days were much too long since I arrived on the first bus run (our town owned only one bus in those days) and was delivered home at supper time on the last bus run. It was not very good planning on someone's part. I am told that my mother never complained on our behalf. Frankly, I still find that shocking. 

I remember having daydreams about little beds that children could climb into for naps. They floated up toward the ceiling in the large foyer between the classrooms. Cozy little things they were, too, for a daydream.

I really have far many more pleasant memories of schooldays in the little red school house than not. I remember all the teachers, the games we played at recess through the seasons of the year, the music, the stories, and the poems. My first grade teacher taught us Psalm 23 and told us that if we were ever in trouble that we would find it a good thing that we had committed it to memory. 

She may well have thought that we were in trouble since we had so many drills where we had to climb under our desks and huddle there with our hands over our heads. It was all about seeing a brilliant flash of light. Some of us of a certain age remember those experiences very clearly. 

Enough of Memory Lane for today...

~*~

We have recently gathered the winterberries and so I'll be able to make up my Christmas baskets in November. I do it early so I don't have to mess about in snow. If you haven't gathered yours, try to do it before too much longer or the birds and deer will have them all. October is the month!

  My ivy and geranium are safely inside these days. We had snow in our forecast; it didn't come. Have you seen all the bloggers who have had snow already? Happyone lives in Maryland! Yup, it's just a matter of time...
Do you have a snow prediction for your corner this year? (I predict a warmish, short winter for mine. =D )