Thursday, December 18, 2008

Country school in the winter




Winter could be either a good time or a bad time. The good times were when snow came without the wind. The snow would lie like a blanket and it covered every thing. It was beautiful. My brother and sister and I could walk in the road with out any trouble. The bad time were when the wind would blow the snow and drift the roads shut. Many times we walked to school in a blizzard and the road would drift full so we would have to walk out in the fields. The wind was blowing from the north and we were walking west. By the time we got to school our face and body felt like they were frozen and our food in our lunch pail was frozen. When we got to school the first thing we would do is take off our over boots, coat, gloves and hat and head to the floor furnace. In the middle of the building was a large grate and below it in the basement was a large wood or coal furnace. The teacher would have to come early and start the fire so we would have heat. On real cold days when the wind would be blowing the only place there was heat was to stand over the furnace grate. The teacher would bring soup or hot chocolate on real cold days. By noon our lunch would still be frozen because we left our lunch pails in the hallway where it was cold. In later years the school bought a hot plate so we could bring canned soup and heat it up. The fun time came when we had recesses. We played fox and geese in the snow. When we had a lot of snow we would build forts and have snow ball fights. When the roads would drift with snow we would make tunnels and places where you could sit up in them. We always had a snowman. We would decorate him up good. Some of us kids trapped in the winter and would check our traps before school. You always knew when someone caught a skunk. The school was not near any hills so we would have to ride our sleds at home

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