When I was five years old, my father made a decision that, until this day, I�m not sure I fully understand�he purchased (for $500) a vacant building in downtown Winfield, Texas, and moved our family into it. Now you must understand that downtown Winfield consisted of roughly twenty buildings, of which only three had occupants, only two until we moved in. The other two buildings housed a grocery store and a post office. The other stores held only ghosts of their past.
For a time in the 1920�s and 1930�s, Winfield had boomed with a healthy cotton and coal mining economy, boasting of three cotton gins, two banks, and even a candy factory, not to mention the usual assortment of dry goods stores, doctors� offices, service stations, and blacksmiths� shops. By the time I was five in 1947, the cotton prices had dropped and the vein of coal had petered out. With them went the town.
As a five-year-old, I had ambivalent feelings about living in a cold, drafty building with a fifteen-foot, scrolled-tin ceiling. Our only light came from two naked bulbs descending from the ceiling on frayed cords, and our heat came from an open gas heater. Though a bit frightened by the ghosts of former occupants and the rats that still visited periodically, I also found the experience exciting. No other kid I ever knew could boast of living in a ghost town, or almost one, of playing in the empty shells of a former world.
My mother opened a caf� in the front third of the building and served food that only she could make taste that good to a pipeline construction crew that stayed in the area for about six months. It was during that time in the musty old building with the cold drafts and concrete floors that I had the whooping cough. Narrowly escaping it with everything still intact, I received three surprises�a puppy named Boots, a Captain Marvel sweatshirt, and an American Flyer red wagon. The pain of the whooping cough, however, paled in comparison to the grief I was soon to bear when Captain Marvel�s face faded all over the front of my new shirt, Boots died a wretching death from rat poisoning, and some sorry s.o.b. made off with my new wagon.
Just before I turned six, we moved again from the old building and rented what Daddy called �two rooms and a path� from Miss Ida Smith, a widow whose children were grown. Because my sixth birthday came three weeks after school started, I had to wait a whole year to start first grade. Kindergarten was still just a German word that nobody in Winfield had ever heard of.
I remember leaning against the magnolia tree in Miss Ida�s yard, longing to go to school. During recess, I was allowed to go to the schoolyard and play until the bell rang to call everyone back to class. I doubt any kid ever wanted to go to school as much as I did when I watched everybody scamper off to class and I was left to sadly saunter back to the yard to wait for the next bell.
By midterm, Miss Alma King, the first and second-grade teacher, had taken note of my plight and asked Mama if I could come visit her classroom. Mama made me take a bath in her number-three washtub and then put on a starched shirt and Sunday shoes. She even dabbed some of Daddy�s shaving lotion on me and inspected me carefully before sending me on my first visit to Miss Alma�s classroom.
I was awed by the pictures which adorned the walls, the words and numbers that covered the blackboard, and the giant map of the world tacked to the back wall. And books. I�d never seen so many books in one place before.
I got into trouble once for laughing when Tommy Dean, the first grader with whom I shared a seat, drew rather crude but explicit sexual traits on Dick and Jane in his reader so that I�d be sure to know the difference. But, all in all, it was a good visit. In fact, I spent much of the second term in Miss Alma�s room. I learned to count and to read, and, most importantly, she even let me dust the erasers on the hickory nut tree just outside her room.
By the time I finally started first grade officially, Miss Alma had retired. A new teacher welcomed us the first day. Miss Cody was her name, and several things immediately got my attention � she was a distant relative of Buffalo Bill Cody, she was very young, very pretty, and she was very unimpressed when I told her that I already knew all there was to know about first grade.
The fall went by quickly, and Miss Cody realized that I did, indeed, have the first grade mastered. After talking to Mama and Daddy about my progress, she moved me to the second grade after Christmas. I didn�t have the nerve to tell her that I knew everything there was to know about the second grade as well. I figured I�d better not press my luck.
| Back to The View From The Chinaberry Tree |
|---|
