Hiawatha School Days & Bus Ride

       HIAWATHA SCHOOL DAYS 
   As we get older our short term memory seems to slip a little. At least it has been that way for me here of late. However it has not bothered my long term. It seems my friends and family can talk for hours about things we did when we were A LOT younger.

   Before I get into this blog very deeply I must comment on the pictures at the top of the page. Of course one is a picture of our school in Hiawatha. It really was a beautiful school and I am not sure that we as kids really appreciated what we had. (If you click on the school picture you can see it in more detail.) People usually imagine a country school as a wooden building with four walls and a roof. It is usually divided into two or four rooms with some windows on each side. NOT SO-HIAWATHA. The outside was beautiful red brick with white trim. It was always kept clean and the white on the outside was painted whenever it needed it. The windows were not just a piece of glass. They were 18 pane, double hung windows. The front entry was more like a grand entry than an entrance to a country school house. It would not be an exaggeration to say it was a grand building compared to most school houses in small town USA.

   The other picture is not OUR bus, but it is close enough to remind us what it looked like. I will first talk about memories of the School and then toward the end I will reminisce about the bus.

   We were fortunate to have such a beautiful building that was well taken care of. We were also very fortunate to have had dedicated teachers (for the most part) to get us started off on our road to a good education.

   It did not matter if learning came easy, as it did for some, or if we had to learn in the school of “hard knocks” as some of us did. It may not have been idyllic, but we all had the chance for the beginning of a good education.

   I suppose every student that went through the Hiawatha School program did not have smooth sailing, but I am pretty sure that the majority of us did.

   The comments from people who sent me information on their memories of this time in their lives seemed to have a common silver thread weaving through their memories.  It seems almost everyone at least mentioned the teachers and several mentioned acts of kindness from a teacher. Of course there were some mentions of the opposite also but they were few and far between.

+Mrs. Parmely once went to California on a trip and brought back an autograph because she   knew one of her students would cherish it. He still has it – and yes he still cherishes it.

+A student got soaking wet during recess at one time and Mrs. Parmley got him some dry clothes to wear until his were dry. The only bad thing he seems to remembers is the dry clothes were a dress.

+One who contributed to help me, recalls that most of the teachers in Hiawatha were female and when Keith Bolt was hired as a teacher; all the girls really thought he was a “hunk.”

+Another who responded to my call for help remembers how strong some of feelings between students and teachers were even after many years?  She said she met Mrs. Garber at a Hiawatha Day get together and Mrs. Garber, who was up in years, did not remember her. Her words about the experience were, “I was crushed because she did not remember me.”

+ When Mr. Williams was Principal he would let some of the kids ring the big brass bell when recess or lunch was over. It was quite heavy but the kids that got to do it thought it was a real privilege.

    Here are some of the teachers mentioned by those who responded to help me:

                Mrs. Leonard

                Mrs. Parmely

                Mrs. Garber

                Keith Bolt—Principal

                Mrs. Hampshire

                Wayne Bott

                Mrs. Heaton

        Mrs. Stevenson

       Mr. Dahlstrud--- Principal

       Russell Williams—Principal

      Mrs. Tanner

      Mrs. Crogan

      Mrs. Burmeister

Of course these are nowhere near all the teachers at Hiawatha School. They are the ones that people especially remembered when they contacted me.

   The next silver thread that weaved through all of the comments I received seemed to be about the hot lunch served at the school.  There were only good memories about it. The thing that was mentioned most was they were amazed how those ladies could fix a meal from scratch, every day, day after day, serve it on time, serve it hot and it was GOOD. The names that most people remembered from the lunch room were Belle Reaveley, Birdie Baldwin and Mrs. Nixon. One guy in particular said that Mrs. Nixon’s rolls “were to die for,” I also had forgotten that the older kids helped in the lunchroom, serving and cleaning up.

   I never used the sick room. In fact I did not know there was one. However one person told me about it. She thought it was up by the Principals office. The person who told me about it says she knows there was one because sometimes the person using it was not really sick but just wanted to get out of class for a little while.

   When I was attending school there I think the only lawn was in front of the school building. The rest of the playground was dirt. My sister who was several years younger than me tells me that when she was in the 7^th grade her class planted some more grass on the property as a Civics Project.

   I do not remember it, but I have been told that there was a basketball standard on the playground. That makes sense. Who could imagine a playground or a building in Hiawatha without a place to shoot some hoops. The town was crazy about Basket Ball and Base Ball.

   The next thing the boys were always playing was marbles. There seemed to be two types of games that were the most popular. One was to draw a circle about 10 feet wide and then everyone put marbles in the middle and everyone got a turn to try and knock them out of the circle with a marble called a TAW which you shot with your knuckle. The other one had to do with digging about 9 or 10 holes in a line about 5 or 6 feet apart a and everyone would try to get from the first hole to the last by shooting your TAW. At least that is how at least one person remembers it.

   There were a lot of things I do not recall that other people do. I decided to list them as random memories  and perhaps they will bring back some thoughts to you.

+Hiawatha had a band. The uniforms were Black & Orange and were made of wool. I can vouch that they were really hot to wear. I was only in the band one year and we went to Price for some celebration parade. When the parade was over we just took our tunics off and “crashed” on the lawn in the park until we cooled off.

+One girl vividly remembers riding her sleigh to school in the winter every day she could.

+Sometimes the bus could not get to Price because of too much snow on the road. For a while the bus driver lived in Price and he could not get to Hiawatha, so we got a snow day. We were sorry it did not happen very often.

+Mrs. Hampshire was always practicing for the kids to have a play or a dance. She was very talented in those things. I did not like to dance and would not participate in them.  I suppose it was the stubborn English Baldwin trait in me?

+We got to listen to the World Series games over the school’s intercom system. I don’t know if that happened at a lot of schools in our day and we liked it. We did not have to do lessons when the games were on.

   Another thing that a lot of people remembered was that a lot of the students rode their bikes to school, and though they never had to lock them, no one could remember one being stolen. I am not sure if that was a fact or if all of us had misplaced that in our memory bank. I doubt that would happen today.

   The Company built a tennis court on the back of the school playground, probably in the 1940’s. I was told they flooded it in the winter and made a skating rink out of it. I do not remember it ever being a skating ring but I did play some tennis on it in my early teen years.

   The girl’s activities on the school ground during recess and lunch hour seemed to be JACKS and Jump Rope. They used to say or sing little “jingles” when they jumped rope. I seem to recall there were a lot of different ones but all I recall was one that ended in “red hot pepper” and they would turn the rope as fast as they could. Some others were “Blue Bells, Cockle shells – Not Last Night, But The Night Before – Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief” 

   Of course in the winter a goodly part of the kids brought sleighs to school. And some even rode downhill on them to get to school. A lot of the boys, including me, always wished for a “Flexible Flyer” but I never did get one. Some of the kids who did not have a sleigh or did not want to bring it to school would get a big piece of cardboard and slide down the hill, behind the school, on that.

   The school was heated with radiators. Each room had several and when the kids came in from recess or lunch, or even in the morning, from walking to school, their leather boots and gloves were soaking wet. So they took them off and put them on the hot radiators to dry. Of course when they went to put them on they were stiff as a board and in the shape that they were left laying on the radiator. Sometimes you had to work a while to get your boots back into a shape that you could get them on your feet.

   Almost everyone in Hiawatha walked to school. In fact I thought real hard to see if I knew someone who did not walk to school. (Of course there were some exceptions if someone happened to be going out in a car at that time). But it was a big exception for that to happen. Some kids lived right behind the school and could just walk across the street and be there. Then there were some who lived in East Hiawatha or Greek Town or the Project (flat-tops) that had a lot further to trudge through the snow in the winter time. After I got married and had kids I always told them it would not have been so bad if it had not been uphill both ways.   

   Some things in this Blog are not earth-shattering, and really not meant to be. It was done just to be a fun thing to clean the cobwebs out of my memory bank and laugh with my family about, “The good old days.”

   Some things that happened at school in “The Day” were punishment. You would have to chew up a stick of gum and put it on the end of your nose, then parade to each of the classes in school so they could see what happens if you chew gum in class. If you acted up in class you had to stay in at recess time. You would think the teachers would figure out why more kids acted up in the winter than in the summer?

   The Kids now days would have a hard time in “The Day” as there was no talking in class without permission—NONE!

   Another interesting thing that did not happen in the school, however it did start and end there. When it was time for us to get our seasonal medical shots, we would all line up one class at a time and march over to Dr. Merrill’s office and get whatever shot it was, at that time of year, and then go back to school in a line, and the next class would come. I can’t remember who it was but there was one guy that passed out every time. We always teased him and told him the needle was a foot long and as big around as a pencil, and that you had to stand there for a LONG time. Even though he knew none of that was true he was about ready to pass out before we even got to the Doctor’s Office.

   There is a lot of discussion today as to whether or not students should learn cursive writing. This brought back a memory of learning cursive in Hiawatha. I can still picture our teacher in front of the class and slowly moving her arms and hands in big circles, curves, and lines, slowly and neatly and to not be in a hurry. That was how we did cursive, with an emphasis on slow and careful. I recall we even had contests to see who had the most beautiful cursive handwriting. Needless to say it was never me. Thank the good Lord for word processors and key boards today!

   One girl mentions that in 1958 (I did not live there then) that a mountain lion got in the basement of the school. They locked everyone in the classrooms and the restrooms until some men came and got him to leave. This is one story I had never heard before. That would be more than a little scary, especially for a bunch of kids.

                            AND THE BUS RIDE

   It was only 17.8 miles down hill and 17.8 miles back to get to Price and back home. So how come it took A LOT longer to get home in the afternoon than it did to go down in the morning? Of course the answer must be gravity.” No matter what it was it seemed a lot more boring coming home up through the cedars, than it did going down.

   The last year of Jr. High School and then High School, the students from Hiawatha went to Price to Mount Harmon Jr. High and Carbon High School. 

   The ride to Price and back home was the topic of a lot of conversations in those days. It was a time to catch up on gossip, laugh, do some lessons or sleep.  I also received several comments that responded to my asking for help to do this blog. Most of the comments were positive. Of course some of them talked about getting “booted off” the bus for bad behavior, but I suppose they only got what they deserved. A few commented on how nice “Tony” was, and that he was very conscientious about making sure everyone was on the bus, both going to Price and coming back home.

   I am adding  the Bus Ride section, because they were a part of our school years. All were interesting and might even be a little embellished.  Some I know are right and did happen, and some from other people, we will have to take their word for it, that it is factual.

    We can start with the annual Halloween gathering in front of the Bus Garage. Every Halloween night the boys (and perhaps some girls), gathered in a designated place and brought garbage cans, pieces of metal, old wagon wheels and parts, pieces of wood, tree stumps and anything else we could find and pile it in front of the bus garage so the bus could not get out to take us to school the next morning. It never did work!! The next morning there was always some men there to move the stuff. Sometimes they had the Turn-a-dozer there and it only took one scoop to move the stuff from in front of the garage. I don’t know why the boys did it every year, and the adults let it happen, unless it was just a “Them /vs/ Us type of thing?”

   One comment from my Sister, was that she and some friends did not have a large “clothing budget”, so when they started going to Jr. High School they would trade clothes so they could wear a different set of clothes every day. By the way in our day the girls all wore skirts or dresses to school. I liked that and still do. But of course I am very old fashioned, and I know it, because all of the younger generations in my family remind me of that OFTEN.

   One of the things that got us in trouble really fast was also not really very smart. We would all sway to one side of the bus and then back to the other and as we did it faster and faster it only took a few minutes for the bus to start swaying. As I said as I look back now, it was really a dumb thing to do, but we thought it was fun at the time.

    I and a group of my friends would sometimes hitchhike home after school, instead of riding the bus. When we did that we beat the bus home almost all the time. There were the times we did not get picked up and got home Late, but we liked the odds so we did it quite often.      

   I lot of people asked if we made friends or associated with kids from other towns while going to school in Price? I cannot speak for others, and no one mentioned it to add to this Blog, but I run around with the guys from Hiawatha most of the time. I did meet some guys from other towns but I never become close to any of them. We did some things together but I did not build any lasting friendships with them while going to Carbon, like I did with the kids from Hiawatha.

   This is not a bus incident but happened when I was in Jr. High School, so in a way they are connected. It is amazing how a Special Teacher can influence a student’s life. I had one in Jr. High that I have been thankful for most of my life. I wrote a blog about her. (You can find the blog if you are interested by going to Google  –Wally’s Musings  and then clicking on BOOKS & TEACHERS.) Or this link may work. http://touche-1.blogspot.com/

   Well this has become much longer than I expected and some of it has wandered away from Hiawatha School and the Bus Ride, but I had A LOT of people sent me comments. As I said originally, I have not used any names except some of the teachers. Some people requested that their names not be used so I decided to not use any.

   One more comment and I hope I am done? As I mentioned somewhere in the blog Mrs. Hampshire was very talented and she wrote the words and music to what we used to call The Hiawatha Song. I have the music but not all of the words. If anyone knows ALL THE WORDS please send them to me.

                Hiawatha, Hiawatha, we are ever true to the school we all love the best.

                When we work we always work, we play when we play.

                Try to beat us if you can, but we will always say,

                Hiawatha, Hiawatha, we are ever true to the school we all love the best.

All names mentioned were printed as I got them from various people. I did not try to correct them.

W.R. Baldwin

June 2016