Celebrating the Fourth of July in the country
When I was “knee high to a grasshopper,” as my Uncle JT used to call me, I lived with my mother and two brothers in a small farming town in Middle Tennessee. Mom taught at the only school there.
It was a three-story dark brick building that sat on this side of Catheys Creek and across a dirt road from Widow Thompson’s cornfield. Children of the county’s farming families went there, first through 12th grades all under one roof. Poor, but proud.
Dedicated Christian women, dressed like Louisa May Alcott, taught them their three R’s as best they could. In the mornings, just after the bell rang, everybody stood up, faced the flag that hung just above the chalkboard and with great clarity pledged allegiance to it. They had prayer sessions and faithbased discussions in the classrooms twice a day. Those kids may not have conquered algebra, but they knew their Bible and were proud to be Americans.
There was really no talk or hope of college for most of them. It was pretty much understood that right after graduation, it was back to the farm, or get married and start having babies, or enlist in the military.
In those years, college was still mostly for the students who came from affluent families. Or at least from families that didn’t have to pinch every penny to make sure there was a roof over their heads and beans in the pot. Most of the local farmers just barely made a living.