Sometimes the memories are better than the experience

I remember the old gray clapboard siding. The original white paint, now peeling and flaking, had fought its way through years of neglect and poverty, bravely clinging to the shadow of its once-bright and proud gleam. The dusty wooden floorboards were scuffed and worn from countless little feet … some bare … some shod … but all leaving their mark while passing through.

The entryway had a closet on each side of the door, which was exactly in the center of the wall. One closet was for the girls’ coats and lunch boxes, while the boys claimed the other as their own. I loved those piggy-back desks; they had a chair on the front and a desk on the back. The front row ended up being just a chair, and the back row just a desk. That front chair was where the kids who’d been ‘bad’ had to sit until the teacher dealt with them. Why did I love those desks? I never had to sit in the bad-kid chair!

A coal-burning stove, blackened, flat-topped, and round-bellied, sat in the middle of the room at the front, keeping us warm on those raw, cold winter mornings. Behind and to the left of the stove sat the teacher’s enormous wooden desk (at least it appeared enormous to a nine-year-old), with the blackboard dominating the wall behind the desk. I often longed to peek inside all the drawers on that desk, to see what treasures the teacher so jealously guarded. They must have been wondrous, because he never walked away from that desk very far when the kids were in the vicinity.

The door leading to the backyard of the school was to the left of the teacher’s desk – that door was a haven for me. It led to the playground, such as it was. It was really just a small yard flanked on two sides by woods, with just a seesaw to play on, but it was my Adventure land. In the far corner of that playground was my castle; I was a princess there, the trees were my trusty soldiers and the yard my castle grounds. Other times I was the teacher and my dolls were my pupils, sitting obediently at my feet as they drank in the wisdom pouring forth from my lips. But sometimes, I was the bedraggled daisy amongst the little roses and their thorns.

Sharing the dirt & gravel parking area was a little country store with all sorts of old metal advertising signs in the windows, and a narrow porch across the front. It was a rare treat to be given a nickel by my dad, which I promptly spent on candy or a pop or some little doodad from the treasures piled in dusty splendor, covering barrel tops and wooden crates and other available surfaces. That store was a wonder to me. I loved the dark ceiling, the dusty-dank smell and the creak of the musty wooden floors, and those narrow, dimly lit aisles between the rows of canned and boxed goods. I was mesmerized by the display of candy and pop and gum at the front of the store, right by the big glass-front counter where they kept the cash register. There were pipes and tobacco and snuff boxes and other stinky things behind that counter, out of the reach of my brothers’ greedy hands.

We walked the mile or so to school more often than we rode the bus, but sometimes in the winter we had to ride the bus. That was an experience best left in the past, except for the one bright spot of meeting the girl I learned was my first cousin. She and I became close friends for the few months that we lived there. She wore a brace on her leg, a result of polio. She once showed me her wheelchair – the high-backed type that had to be pushed by someone. She recounted the progress of the disease, from the months in bed, to being able to sit up, then to being pushed in that wheelchair, then sporting a cast (what she had when we met), and finally being able to walk with a brace. She never complained about her ordeal, she just told the story as though telling about how she got the measles. She was my only friend, and I missed her terribly when we moved.

I used to have dreams about returning there. In those dreams, I could fix everything that went wrong in my life, if only I could get back to that schoolhouse and little store. Those dreams continued for many years after moving from Elk Valley, even into my teenage years. When I learned that the school and the store had burned to the ground in one immense fire, and that our little house on the hill had suffered the same fate at a different time, I felt a part of my past severed – snuffed out, along with the fires.

Even so, I’m thankful for several things. I’m thankful that I got to experience that little one-room schoolhouse, that old tarpaper-sided house on the hill, that wonderfully dark and dank store, and having a first cousin for my best friend – even if only for a few months. I’m thankful for all the memories associated with that phase of my life, even though the actual happenings weren’t always quite as wonderful as I recall them. Sometimes the memories are better than the experience! And finally, I’m thankful that this world is not my home. I look forward to a home where nothing burns up in fire, or gets torn down, or rots, or dissolves from termite infestation. In that place, the experience will be forever – no memories necessary!

This was written in response to the Daily Post Challenge, “Ode to a Playground.” This is a true story, by the way.  There don’t seem to be any surviving pictures of the old school, but I did find the above picture that is very much like the school I remember. Sadly, I could find nothing that resembled the old store.