I have seen the name of this place called Al City but I didn't meet Al or see a city but I did see a few Owls so I will stick with what I have always called it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------When school started for the 1948-49 school year at Owl City, Arkansas, I was one of the very proud and very nervous new first grade students. The long years of waiting around and watching and trying to imitate my brothers as they read books and wrote out their homework was over. Heck, my brother Delbert was only 2 years older than I was and he recited his ABC's forward and backwards. The walk to school was an adventure in its self, but very long. Mom had made me a new shirt from a flower sack and a new pair of over-all from material she had salvaged from an old pair of dad's pants. My shoes were polished and I had a new straw hat. I thought I was stepping high and ready to take on the world. I had been to the combination school and church house every Sunday for as long as we had lived there so it was not a new place for me, just the school part. Our little group grew as we passed the neighbors houses and they joined in the procession. As the schoolhouse loomed near and we entered the yard I realized I was the only one with a straw hat.
The teacher rang his hand bell and told everyone it was time to come in by calling out very loud “Books”. There I was standing behind a tree and holding onto my straw hat that only a few minutes ago I had been so proud of. Now it was the very thing that made me different and I was torn between running home and hiding, going inside was not even an option. I could hear someone calling out names and people answering, then I heard my name repeated over and over, I could hear people talking and footsteps, I was found. Before I entered the school I stashed the straw hat under the porch and retrieved it after school. I still loved it I just didn’t want to be different.
Attending a one-room school was something I am glad I had the opportunity to do. We set on the same wooden benches we used for church. We had one teacher and he divided us into our age groups or grades. As he worked with one class the older students worked with the younger ones. Recess was a good time with so many kids to play with, of course the students gathered in their little class or age groups and you had to grow into them. Everything else was about the same as home, my big brothers were always close and Donald was really in charge, at least I thought so. The water was a bucket and dipper that all drank from and the toilets were outside, the difference being the school had two.
The school store was a bus called a “Rolling Store” that made the rounds, I don’t remember how often it came around but it was just an old school bus you entered in the front and shopped for your school supplies and candy and things and exited the back. Money was always short and I didn’t see much of it, I do remember buying a Red Chief Notebook.
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