News, Grassroots, The First Day of School, April 5, 2000, LaSalle Parish, La. GRASS ROOTS AND COCKLE BURRS- The First Day of School By Jack Willis Transcribed by Pat Ezell, PatEzell@worldnet.att.net Submitted by: Kathy LeMay Kelly, P.O. Box 219, Trout, La. 71371 From the Jena Times - Olla Tullos Signal, Wed., April 5, 2000, Section B, Page 10 Thank You to the Times -Signal for allowing the following to be added to the Archives. ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** The First Day of School… The sun shone brightly on the first day of school of the 1947-48 school year as I made my way down what would one day become Sycamore Street. I stopped on the Hemp's Creek wooden bridge and chunked a coupla rocks at a pair of topwater minnows floating lazily near the surface of the clear water in the stream. I crossed on over the bridge and started down the trail that led along the east bank of the creek. This was another avenue for the residents who walked to town to access Highway 84 and its paved sidewalks leading to downtown proper. I veered left about halfway to the highway and started a steady climb to the rear of the grease rack on the back side of Truett Doughty's service station. One had to gingerly pick his way through the oil and grease puddles behind the rack, tiptoe around the confines of the bag, climb up the stairway and lo, you were on the level with the front of the service station. The assembly of students was going to be held in the sanctuary of the old Nolley Methodist church. (Circuit ride preacher Nolley's remains hadn't been moved from the original burial site on the far west bank of Hair's Creek where he had perished from exposure and hypothermia. He was later re-interred in front of the present church structure.) This was a more than usual beginning of school, in that Milton Posey had resigned as principal of the high school and was being replaced by Raphael Teagle. He would not, in effect, be my principal because that year I would be in the seventh grade that was housed in the brand new elementary school building. W.D. Tullos would be my principal--later to be replaced by Joe Mixon a year of so afterwards. I immediately ran into some of my old school chums from last year and we started winding our way towards the front of the church auditorium. On the way, there we had to nimbly sidestep school buses off-loading their passengers attired in their new first day finery. Lots of the younger girls were already walking around hand-in-hand talking and giggling. A series of clanger type gongs had been installed around the perimenter of the church and at 8:00 sharp, they began to chime. We all tropped in and took our respective seats and it was standing room only. For the first time in three years, students would not have to be housed in the Nolley Methodist church or the First Baptist Church. The new grade school would house grades 1-7 and the high school students, grades 8-12, would have to contend themselves with another year in the "black beauties." The only consolation to the high school teachers was that there was no noise in the halls. There weren't any halls. It is still a wonder to me how dedicated the teachers were during these unbelievable times of shortages and hardships. Blessings to them and their families. They won battles of their own on the homefront during WWII. The opening address and welcome was given by the Superintendent of LaSalle Parish schools, Mrs. Fred H. Shields. This was followed by the welcome of the current school principals Raphael Teagle and W.D. Tullos. Then we had a trombone solo by a new student who had moved to Summerville to the Davis residence where his mother, who was a school teacher, Annie Davis Stafford, was reared. She had married J.J. "Jack" Stafford, who had been band director at Olla-Standard at one time. Mr. Stafford had been a member of John Phillip Sousa's Marching concert Band after the "March King" had died but the band had continued touring around the world. He had also played first-chair trombone in the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus Band. He was able to play several different instruments and he taught his sons, Jimmy and John, to perform on several instruments also. The only musical instruments anyone in the audience had ever seen were guitars, fiddles, or mandolins, so this was a treat! Jimmy was something of a showman and he did a wonderful, heart-wrench edition of "Danny Boy," that had people squalling all over the sanctuary, especially the teachers. I was glad when they finally dismissed with a long winded formal prayer that blessed everything but the flowers and the bees. I knew if I wanted to get in the seventh grade room I wanted under Mrs. Corrine Lindsey, I was going to have to bolt out of the Nolley Church, go around the corner of Judge Oliver Smith's yard and race to Mrs. Lindsey's room and grab a seat. It was a first come, first serve basis. Since I Knew I was going to have to run like a spotted ape to get over to the new school, me and my best buddy that year, Donald Claunch, took off as soon as we broke free of the rest of the pack. In the west end of the building, down the hall to the first stairwell, up the stairs, turn right, the first room door on the right. Sure enough, I got to the door which was wide open, grabbed the knob and pulled the door around where I could see the name on the door. I had made it, it was the correct room. I dashed in and took a set about four desks back on the fourth row over. I felt I could hear everything I needed to hear and then some, but I'd be out of the line of fire too. I was gasping for breath, but happy. The other seventh grade teacher I was dodging was Mrs. Nita Garrett. Since my mother was also a teacher, I knew Mrs. Garrett was a sister to Mrs. Mabel Hanes. These two ladies were from the old school of strict discipline -- no nonsense, no "sassy-mouthed" younguns and I didn't want anymore of that type instructor. Mrs. Hanes had been enough. One of the best things about the new school that I actually enjoyed was our being able to eat a hot lunch. We had eaten a steady diet of some type of meat sandwiches, ranging from beef roast and pork chops to potted meat and Vienna sauce. I had eaten peanut butter and jelly till it ran out my ears. I won't eat it now because I'm still burnt out on it. The hot meals were a real Godsend to a lot of folks because times were still very hard with no welfare assistance of food stamps. During the lean years during the war, my Mother used to take up all the scraps from her pupils lunches, and some of the ones that weren't able to bring a lunch, she'd sneak them in the cloak room and feed them. This would be the only mean some of them would get in a given day. I remember one child she noticed one day had opened up a lunch wrapped in newspaper, looked at it and put it back up. She called him up to her desk at noon time recess and asked him what was in the lunch. He replied, "Pepper sauce sandwiches." The child had slept in his clothes because the school bus came by his house before daylight and all his Mother had to send as a lunch was two leftover biscuits with pepper sauce poured over them. Later on that year in the lunchroom, I would notice him eating lunch and it didn't make any difference what the menu was, he always cleaned his plate of every food item on it. Like I've said before, kids today can't grasp our hard it was to gain a decent education in years gone by. All this, and more too, was growing up around Jena and LaSalle Parish. (Note from the transcriber, Pat Ezell… The teachers referred to by Mr. Willis as Mrs. Nita Garrett (1892-1985) and Mrs. Mabel Hanes, were Nita Lucille Ezell, wife of William L. Garrett (1883-1960) and Mabel C. Ezell (1899-1992), wife of S. Dave Hanes (1901-1980). The Ezell sisters were daughters of John Monroe Ezell and Mary A. "Mamie" Heard. John Monroe Ezell was the nephew of Dr. Jefferson Ezell of old Catahoula Parish, LA. Mamie Heard was the dgt. of Azariah Bailey Heard and Eleanor Elizabeth Hair.)