An Every Day Life. Walking With Cousins

I've been thinking about the term "everyday life", and what it means. As kids, I think it meant waking up each day and doing whatever life threw at you to do. Not whatever you wanted to, otherwise none of us would have ever gone to school. And a lot more candy would have been eaten, and no vegetables at all. Except for playing under the hose in summers, or playing in the creek, most boys would never touch water.

This, my second blog on the topic, is titled "Walking With Cousins", because my cousin, Wanda, was like my sister when we were little girls. I never had a sister, but Wanda did. Nan, if you are reading this, I love you, and I want to officially apologize for some of the mean tricks Wanda and I played on you back then.


Duncan Elementary sat on this little hill, behind D.R. Hill Jr High, in Duncan, SC. I started there my second year of school. A lot of kids walked home from school back then, my cousin Wanda and I did too most days. The problem was that she lived in one direction and I lived in the opposite direction from the school.


On some days the pull to go home with each other was too much to resist. It overpowered our fear of getting in trouble for not asking permission first. What kid can think of Everything in the fast paced mornings of school days? OK, I'm willing to admit, it was probably more my doings that Wanda's. But it was such fun to walk from the school with Wanda, and some of our friends. It's just that the walk wasn't long enough to get all that girl talk out of our systems.



School was a whole lot different back then. There was absolutely no talking in class unless you were called upon by the teacher, and she had a signed affidavit stating that you could in fact open your mouth. Kids were actually afraid to get in trouble at school in the 50's and 60's. It would not have entered our little Southern, mostly Baptist minds to disobey a teacher. And forget a quick whisper in the hallways. Teachers had eyes in the back of their heads, and radar hearing. We were like children of the Zombie's until we stepped outside on the playground. Then, there was jump rope or the merry-go-round, or swings to frantically do before the dreaded Recess Bell rang. And boys (yuk) chasing us. So the talking and dreaming had to be done after school.



The problem was that about an eighth of a mile down the sidewalk from the school, Wanda needed to go left, and I needed to turn right to continue towards home. And you know a girl can't get any serious talking done in that little space of time. Our friend, Marsha, lived across the street from the school, so we had like a nano-second with her. Another thing kids did not do was dawdle on the way home. You really didn't want your parents to come looking for you if you weren't home when you should have been, or if a sibling had already made it.



My mother always told my five brothers and me to "stay together" as we walked home. Fat chance. We all had friends to walk with. So we would meet up in a field a short distance from our house and walk the rest of the way together. That field is where we would usually lose Ronnie. He was a nature lover before it became popular to be one.



I could talk to Wanda about anything and everything. Just as I imagined you would a sister. She was a great listener too. And I have always loved to talk. Those of you reading this who know me, know that is the understatement of the history of the Earth.



On those days when the pull was too much as we reached the turning point in our journey home, I usually would make the left turn with Wanda, and cross the railroad tracks that sliced the road and led to places we never thought about.



Walking with my cousin, as young girls, I only thought about wherever she was. And maybe this place called OZ, but that was somewhere over the rainbow, not the railroad tracks.



Pammy Jo

An Every Day Life

I was thinking about the way we lived our lives as children, and the way life seemed to be lived back in the 50's and 60's, and the term "everyday life" came to mind. So I thought I would blog a few times around that concept. So, enjoy this first one, The Recess Bell.




In a time when my world was as small as I was, and my thoughts as limited as the streets and yards of my hometown, and Saturday night television, I pretty much thought I was the center of that small world. It seemed as though nothing could function without my own personal involvement.


"Pam, get up! You can't be late for school!" This from my mother pierced my morning slumber for nine months out of twelve. Maybe it was a little payback for nine months of pregnancy, I don't know. I should note that my mother never, ever called me 'Pammy'. And she was always Mother. She did the best she could with six kids and five dollars, but she just wasn't the mommy type of mother. She was more the Queen Bee type. But that's another blog.


Obviously school couldn't start without me. Otherwise, why the rush? And the ordeal continued at school. If I didn't turn in my homework (how did That work with the child labor laws?) no one got go out for recess! If I didn't line up for lunch, no one got to go to the cafeteria to eat. Fortunately, I was a trooper, and Duncan Elementary never lost a student to starvation. And speaking of school lunches, what about truth in advertising? Except for the hot dogs and chocolate cake we had every Friday, I'm not sure what food category that stuff would fall into.

Speaking of recess, I sincerely believe that the recess bell is the reason kids back then had nightmares. That shrill, shrieking, clanging, point 10 on the Richter scale bell struck terror in everyone, including the teachers. I saw with my own eyes kids jump out of a swing in mid air, from 1000 feet up, when the Recess Bell rang. No one knew what would actually happen if you didn't get back to the classroom and in your Seat by the time it stopped ringing, but, knowing my role in the universe, I was often one of those kids jumping out the swing!

By the sixth grade my world had expanded a little bit, and the burdens of the world were less frightening, except for that Recess Bell. I watched, briefly, one morning from the steps of the school as a frantic mother tried to pull her first grader from the car. The child was kicking and screaming and had a death grip on the car door. I could only smile knowingly, and with sympathy of course. I knew how hard it was to be the center of your known world.

Dirt Roads, the First Frontier

I have always had a fascination with dirt roads. If space is the final frontier, then these old rutted paths can be called the first frontier, where many men have gone before. Maybe it's really a love of the past that attracts me to the winding roads, now disappearing from most landscapes.

I titled my blog, Musings From A Dirt Road Girl, partly because I lived on a dirt road a long time ago. But, also, because to muse one must think and reflect; to redirect one's attention inward, backward, down old paths. Down some old dirt road winding through your memories.

So, many of my posts will be from a time when I was Pammy Jo to my grandparents, a barefoot girl on most summer days, and one of six kids, the only girl at that. A time when imagination was my best friend, well, along with my dog, Bobo.

Hello, Blog World, glad I found you!

Well, finally! I had my blog at Yahoo, and for the usual reasons (procrastination) I did not "migrate" or whatever I was supposed to do when Yahoo decided to blog no more. I have lost all my brilliant musings from previous posts , but I will forge ahead and look at this as a new adventure!

After all, us dirt road girls are used to over coming!

PammyJo