School Days

Larry - September 1954
Nice part Rog.

 What child doesn't remember their first school days.  I must confess that when I look back they were pleasant days interspersed with days of absolute dread.  But they were quite honestly mostly pleasant days.

I remember, ever so fondly being woken each morning by my mother.  Okay, maybe not fondly.  I would stagger blurry eyed from the bedroom, which was just off the kitchen, out to the kitchen table and climb on my stack of encyclopedias where I perched for breakfast. (Just shows you that the resourceful family finds a use for everything.)  Then a not so short time later my brother Jay, who was notorious for moving at the speed of snail, would come creeping out to join me.  This only after endless cajoling by my mother and he would plop down in his chair with chin in both hands and elbows on the table and a thousand mile stare in his eyes.  I have to add that if it was a cold morning he would detour by the gas heater on his way to the table to warm his...well you know what I mean.  Also remind me later to tell you about the time he burned "his you know what I mean" on that same gas heater.  Anyway.  After a usually not so boisterous but nutritious breakfast of fried or scrambled eggs, toast, bacon and grits or oatmeal we would trundle off to the bedroom to dress for school.  The activity of dressing for school was usually under the watchful eye of our older brother Roger.  This was a chore that he took most seriously and with great enthusiasm and if you believe that, well lets just say he got the job done.

After getting dressed one of my fond and often not so fond morning rituals was when Roger combed my hair for school.  We would stand in front of the bathroom mirror, me on a stool and Roger behind me and in spite of the stool still generally towering over me.  He would apply a liberal amount of Vitalis hair tonic on my hair and then carefully and generally not so gently part and comb it.  I remember years later asking him how in the world he managed to always part it in the exact same spot.  He informed me that it was conveniently marked with a freckle.  Could have lived without that little piece of information.

After dressing and getting our lunch money we staggered out the front door and headed down what is now 6th Street to our bus stop on State Road 200.  You must remember that State Road 200 back then was a narrow two lane road and not quite the major thoroughfare it is today.  Our bus stop was under and old oak tree in front of what was then Mulkey Tile.  

I think that here a little background might add some texture to this perhaps otherwise mundane story.  I attended Greenville Elementary School which was on the West side of Ocala and which by the way no longer exist.  It would have been located approximately on the South West corner of where State Road 200 and SW 7th Road now intersect.  Greenville to me was somewhat unique because it was located on the site of, and in the wood frame buildings formerly used by, the Greenville Aviation School.  The Greenville Aviation School was a school that had been contracted by the United States Army Air Corps to run a Flight School during World War II on the site of the old Taylor Field.  Interestingly, I learned later that the school board adopted the elementary schools name from the former Greenville Aviation School. 

Our classrooms at Greenville were located in the classrooms of the old flight school and our cafeteria was located in the old military "dining facility".  Though a little chilly in the winter and hot in the summer it was a well lit and bright set of classrooms.  Greenville Elementary was located exactly one half mile from our house on West 12th Street.  One thing that I find somewhat amazing in regards to this fact is that the trip from home to school normally took my brother and I exactly twenty five minutes.  That was twenty minutes to walk the two blocks to the bus stop and five minutes to ride the bus over the bridge to the school.  I'm sure mom always thought she got us off in plenty of time but we were always and forever sprinting the last few yards to just catch the bus.  Our exaggerated slowness in walking to the bus stop was precipitated by the fact that several neighborhood bullies waited at the same bus stop and by going slow we allowed them less time to pick a fight with us.  It was a pretty effective strategy and not much of a complement to their intelligence because they never seemed to catch on to what we were doing.

Bus stops and bullies not withstanding, I must say that I did actually like and enjoy my first and second grade classes at Greenville.  I still fondly remember my first grade teacher, Mrs. Heart.  Is that not an appropriate name for a first grade teacher?  Some things in the world are just right.  And I remember my first grade heart throb who's name was Linda.  Last name never to be revealed. I still remember visiting her at her house one warm summer day and hanging off a tree limb until I was dizzy, but that's a story for another day.

So that's one more installment and soon you'll hear about the adventure in the big woods between our house and the school.  It's certainly one for the books.

Taylor Field 1949

Note:  For you history buffs here's a picture taken the year I was born.