Friday It Tis.....December 18, 2009

STOP! And Think About Where This Year Has Gone.
When I was just a mere child in Greenview, Illinois, the year would pass so slowly. It seemed it took a lifetime for the day to pass while I sat in the old elementary school, learning lessons to take me through life. For relatively new residents of Greenview, the old elementary school occupied the entire block between VanBuren and Douglas Streets, and I don't know the east-west cross streets, but it's the two roads which run along the east and west sides of the park. I lived in the big house kiddy korner from the schoolyard, and my house sat in the middle of the road where you can go no further south of the elevator. This old elementary school building had a date of 1913 on the top facade, so I'm guessing that's around the date it was built. I'm too lazy to research the actual dates, although my brother has a cow when a date isn't exactly stated.....I'm close enough so that's good enough for me.

When I started school in the 1950's, my first classroom was up the stairs and when you reached the huge next floor, the classroom was on the northeast side. Miss Flo's to be exact. I have always wondered if this was the first floor or the second floor since to get to there, one had to go up the stairs. There really wasn't a first floor, but both the north and the south sides had staircases, with a small landing room half-way up the stairs. On the south side, the Principal had his office and on the north side was what I will call an infirmary because I remember it having a cot like thing in it, but my memory fails at that point on the rest of the contents. These stair landing rooms were really pretty tiny. When I graduated to the second grade, I moved to the other side of the floor to attend Mrs. DeHart's class. While here, I remember thinking I can't wait until I get to the third grade so I can be on the top floor where the spiral fire escape was. I didn't want to burn up in this building and not be near the that glorious spiral fire escape which we all climbed up in the evenings and on weekends, holding our prized piece of wax paper to make the slide downwards a lot faster. I bet that fire escape had 8 inches of wax on its sliding floor, because almost every kid in town climbed up and slid down that fire escape for about 50 years, with wax paper in hand.

At the end of the second grade, I got the bad news. Oh yes, I passed, but my dream of going to the top was interrupted for a year. My next year's classroom would be Mrs. Tholen's room, which was located in the basement, just across from the girls' stinky bathroom. The first day I attended class in this basement classroom, daunted my spirits. I looked at the big dead bolt on the classroom door, then I eyeballed the closet at the back with the huge thick paddle hanging on the hook and then got a whiff of the sewer gas coming from the girls bathroom backup.....I knew I was in trouble. And when I got a look at Mrs. Tholen's physique, I knew her short squatty body probably couldn't chase us far, but her bulging biceps were probably from years of practice with that huge thick paddle. And yes, she proved herself when she took a couple of boys back in the closet and beat their butts....and broke that paddle on one I might add. (You know who you are if you are reading this!) Those were the days! Most of kids us minded after that.....and I mean we were quiet as church mice.

The year passed slower than molasses poured from a pitcher. The days inched by and each day was torture in that basement classroom which always stunk of the nearby sewer gas. The last day of class came and finally I'd managed to move to the top floor for what I thought was my remaining tenure at good ole Greenview elementary school (in otherwords I thought I was a top floor resident from now on). My top floor room was on the northwest side, and the teacher was Mrs. Eva Wilson. She was such a nice lady and the entire year was so great, I wouldn't have minded staying on another year, but that wasn't to come as I was now going to be a big shot 5th grader, almost ready to go to the high school for the middle school grades. But what I didn't know was, next year I was now going to be housed in the little building to the southeast of the building in Mrs. Buelah Smothers' class. This building had no covered walkway to the gym or the main building, so going to recess in the gym meant putting on coats, boots, hats and mittens just to have to take them off again in a couple of minutes. The kids in the main building were so lucky....they got to run through the underground tunnel around the furnaces and under the school yard to get to the gym. That darn underground tunnel was so warm because of the furnaces, but I remember one time I was in the tunnel when the lights went out and I had the poop scared out of me. I remember crying and crying until Paul Davis, the head custodian, came with a flashlight.

Finally fifth grade came to a close and I got to go back to the main building on the top floor, on the southeast side. Mrs. Agnes Ingham had just inherited the class of 1967 and our wayward antics. But, she took it in stride and had us kids make paper maiche planets which we hung by wire from the ceiling. I remember her making weird food all the time and her bringing it in to us was to taste test it I'm sure. One time I remember some weird concoction that had juicy fruit gum and cottage cheese. Oh icky! But she sure made good Amish cookies and later in life I had the occasion to ask her for her recipe....I wonder where that recipe is now!!

Finally, after all of this time passing me by, I was going to the high school to attend the remaining years of classes. Mind you, this period of time was long before the elementary section was built as an addition to the present day school. High schoolers and middle schoolers all attended classes in the same building (minus the non-existent elementary section). And for lunch, we all had to don our coats and hats and walk to the grade school cafeteria, where the lunch ladies did their magic. The food back then was actually good. Chili came with peanut butter and honey sammiches and until this day, I still eat these peanut butter and honey sammiches with chili. Goulash was my second favorite meal, with beef and noodles a close third. I really can't think of anything I didn't like back then. But when I look at the menus from current day school, I just shake my head....plastic meals nowdays....which must meet government standards and which was just discussed on ABC news a few days ago......fast food/chain food is more healthy than government approved standards for school lunches.....less fat, more vitamins and more charm and pizzaz I'm sure.

The passing of time still came pretty slow while in middle and high school. Especially until I was age 16 so I could drive legally, although I had been hauling corn in a huge grain truck since I was about 11 or 12 years of age....I could barely reach the pedals with a pillow behind my back. Stick shift gear box with dual low and the occasional double clutching mind you. Those were the days.

Christmas back then was celebrated at our house with presents and prayers and thoughts of Jesus and of course church at midnight on Christmas Eve. The Christmas meal was always at noon sharp and was at Grandma's or at my Great-Grandma's who lived with her daughter, my Aunt Marie. We stayed all day, while the men-folk and sometimes grandma, would play cut-throat pinochle. I learned how to play this game by sitting and passing the slow moving time and watching the menfolk play their wicked game. We always had an evening meal of reheated food and packed up the "Evening in Paris" toilet water we always got from great-grandma and the fold-up boxes of lifesavers from Aunt Marie and went home to play with our toys which we had left at home hours ago. The rest of the evening passed more quickly than I expected because it was fun time..... and then it was time for bed and visions of playing with our new toys passed time in our heads.

Time actually was still passing slowly back then because I was young and hadn't experienced the real world yet. But, I finally grew up and graduated from school, to be thrown to the real world, where time passed quickly and rough times began. The lessons of life were experienced in real time and in real person. Christmas time was still important to me, even after getting married but at first I didn't have children to buy for and Santa didn't make an appearance at my married life home. I waited several years before having children, but once the children came, Christmas seemed to be more commercialized....I guess because I was buying presents rather than concentrating on the real reason for the season. Life was bustling around and I had to make sure everything was bought and wrapped or hidden so Santa could put it under the tree. With the passing of each year, the kids got older and time began passing more quickly..... I guess because each year I was getting older and wiser.

The children grew until they were of an age where they went to school and for me time was passing pretty quickly. For them I'm sure it didn't pass quick enough, but my children's youth was passing me by. I couldn't stop it.....I couldn't slow it down. Time flew by and before I knew it, the children had graduated from high school and gone on to college and then their own lives and I was left with an empty nest with time passing very quickly. I reached my 40th birthday, then my 50th birthday and then the ultimate 60th birthday this past year. Time doesn't slow down, but I do. Christmas has become more important to me because of the real reason. It's just not the same as it used to be. No kids in the house on Christmas morning. It's get up, get dressed, get the breakfast/brunch related food ready to go to one of the kids' house. Then quickly the time passes....we watch the kids open their presents, eat and we are hurried out the door so they can go to the other parent's house to celebrate with the in-laws.

We go to the car and ask ourselves "what do we do now?" We have just eaten breakfast or a brunch so we don't want to go eat turkey and all the trimmings. And we don't have anywhere to go eat turkey if we stop and think about it. We really don't want to go home. So where does one go on Christmas morning, at about an hour before noon? We can't shop. We'll be lucky if we find a gas station open if we want to go somewhere......but where do we go? The time will pass by on this day of Jesus' birth so I guess we just need to stop and think about that. We will say our prayers and love that we had the opportunity to see our children's children smile and ooh and ahh over the commercial presents which were gaily wrapped and destroyed in a matter of minutes. Grandma and Grandpa will steer their car towards home and will later open a can of soup for a late lunch or an early dinner. Or, maybe we will check out some restuarants which have advertised "OPEN on Christmas Day". We might need to pass the time with some other Grandmas and Grandpas who have similar lifestyles as ours and are sitting in a restuarant thinking about time passing them by too quickly and probably wondering about what to do with themselves. . Time will pass. And quickly to boot because we have grown old and as I like to term it....put out to pasture. But for today and this week of celebration, I'm still alive and I have Jesus to thank for that. Amen.

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Have a Safe Weekend. And believe in the spirit of

Christmas.