Remembering School Days......

The first words we heard on school mornings was Daddy saying:
"Up and at 'em boys and girls
 Rise and Shine
 Time to hit the bus line!"
Not one of us has ever forgotten those words. And if you didn't get out of bed Daddy was right there either pulling the covers off or turning our cots over.

Before we went to school; Mama always had some little something for us to eat before we caught the bus. My favorite memory was her taking the cinnamon rolls in that little tin package and setting them in the oven on warm for us all to have atleast a bite of them before we left for school. Some days she would take a slice of bread and put a table knife through it from corner to corner and hold it over the stove burner to brown and then butter it for us.

I used to really hate hearing the words while I was growing up "kids don't realize how easy they have it today". Now I find myself saying the same thing as an adult. I can remember the first day I was to catch the bus with all of my siblings in the morning. We had to walk down the long dirt driveway to the end and stand by the side of the highway and wait for the bus. Sometimes on winter days where the driveway was so muddy that you couldn't walk down it; Daddy would bring the cow trailer around and load us all up on it to take us to the end of the road to catch the bus. (my four sisters and older brother and me. The youngest brother was not old enough yet to go to school).

I remember feeling so excited that first time to be going with the others. Back then we all rode the same bus to school. It was very scary going up those steps and seeing all those other kids already sitting down. I never had an assigned seat. It seemed like I was always getting shuffled around somewhere. Usually as far to the back of the bus as possible. The high school kids looked like giants to me and once we were on the bus my siblings never talked to me on the ride to school. The bus driver Mr. Knapps wasn't a very nice fellow either. He was always hollering at someone. And to think I was so excited to be going with all my sisters and brother to catch that bus. Of course the novelty wore off after a while.

Everyone had to be at school by 8:00 AM or they would be counted as tardy. And I remember watching the clock for 3:45PM to come around so that we would once again be loaded onto buses to come home. We were not all on the same bus coming home. This pattern went on and on until we moved from the farm into town. Then some of us walked the two blocks to school while the older girls would get rides to school with their friends. No more school buses for us. Atleast not the older ones. I can remember later the population grew so much that we had to ride different buses to the school that was picked for us because it was so far away.