Dave Wood

“School Days, Cool Days/ Good old Golden Rule days/ Readin’ and Ritin’ and ‘Rithmatic/Taught by the use of a leafy stick….”

School’s open and at my age I’m stuck with merely watching nervous UWRF frosh parking illegally on my WALNUT ST. DRIVEWAY as they head for the new segment of their lives’ educational adventures. It was this that reminds me of my first immersion into the Groves of Academe in Rat Coulee, Preston township after a move from Eau Claire, when I would enter first grade at Larkin Valley grade school, 2 miles over hill and dale, guided by two farm neighbors, eighth-grader Irene Stensby and fourth-grader Lester Luken, a parentless ward of the Stensby family.

It was a steep climb over dusty shale roads, through a small glade of birch that opened on a horizon of billowing cow pastures and a valley where my first school reposed, a one-story rectangular building of yellowish brick, a clapboard woodshed attached, plus a duplex wooden outhouse for “Boys” and “Girls.” Daddy had already informed my use of our contraption on our farm, so I regarded it with some confidence.

Miss Hanson, our teacher, greeted us and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance, one line at a time to aid the first timers to Larkin, followed by “The Star-Spangled Banner,” led by Miss Hanson’s rich contralto, the rest of us stumbling along through this almost unsingable piece.

Next she led us into the school, which featured a kitchen, a cloakroom and eight rows of desks, one for each student who would face Miss Hanson. The blackboard was topped by a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, and another watercolor of Rosa Bonheur’s “Horse Fair.”  A modest library reposed on the east wall abutted by the ominous presence of a wood-burning potbellied stove enclosed by fencing to preclude a reckless kid sizzling on the stove’s red-hot belly.

Miss Hanson addressed the first grade first: Barbara Plunket, a foot taller than I, her thick black shiny mop contrasting with my snow-white wispy locks that presaged my encroaching baldness.  Miss Hanson explained signals for going to our outdoor conveniences, told us we should continue to bring our lunch pails, but that for the first time in Badger History, students would ingest hot soup cooked by their teachers, split pea cooked on something called a hot plate. We were also cautioned to stay away from the green cabinet, which contained supplies, including paste (underfed kids devoured it by the thumbful). And I was soon to discover the temptation of the oatmeal sized box full of chocolate goiter pills, which students would eat by the handful before getting caught and sentenced to hours and hours of snow shoveling or blackboard cleaning.

We adjourned to our seats for lunch. My raven-haired partner devoured the green sludge. I passed because I’d never heard of split pea soup. Most kids brought their lunches of lard and white sugar sandwiches in Karo Syrup pails. But not me. I brought my tuna salad and Toll House cookies in a colorful Walt Disney lunch box, a gift from my rich Aunt Myrt in Eau Claire.  The other six kids simply stared at me. Thanks a lot Mom and Myrt for helping me fit in!

The afternoon fled by, with seat assignments and for Babs and me, glossy new Dick and Jane monosyllabic sagas. Miss Hanson finally dismissed us and we headed back to Rat Coulee. Halfway home atop the hill I began to falter. 

“Getting tired Davey?” inquired Irene.

“No, but I gotta go pa-dus!” [meaning go to the toilet]

“Yah, I guess.”

Donnie Borreson, sixth grader to the rescue: “Davey, go into the woods and do it there.”

“Do what?”

“Dreitsac! For God’s sake. OK, I’ll come with. Lester come, too!”

We stumbled into the birch glade. “Take down your overalls starting at the bib.”

I was about to cry. “Now SQUAT!”

“What’s that?”

Donnie demonstrated, holding me up. Lester Luken watched with mild interest.

Lester ordered Donnie to get a leafy branch. When he returned Donnie took a handful of leaves and scraped me off. He hitched up my suspenders and we returned to the dusty road where Irene waited, demurely. I finished my first trip to academe walking rather stiff- legged in the Frankenstein monster mode and Irene presented me to mom who was, appropriately, washing clothes on the porch. Irene left, Mom stripped me and hosed me off and wrapped me in swaddling clothes. No she didn’t lay me in a manger. Our farm didn’t even HAVE a manger!

CODA: A few years ago, I came home for my stepbrother’s birthday and ran into Irene Stensby, demure as ever. “What fun we had as kids,” she marveled.

I marveled, too.