Back then, most children did not go to daycare or kindergarten. What we now call daycare was unknown and only rich kids went to kindergarten. For most of us, the first grade was our first experience at school and away from home without our parents.

Garden City Elementary School first opened in September of 1952, the year I turned six. Before then all the kids in my area from elementary through high school went to Oceanway. My parents were glad when Garden City opened since they did not want me to have to go to Oceanway because they thought it had a "bad reputation."

So I became one of the first students at Garden City Elementary.

I don't remember registration - only walking back home later that morning. My father always had to go to work way before sunrise; and, he needed the truck to get there. So the only way my mother and I had to get to the school, and back, was to walk! Somehow that didn't seem as bad back then as it does today even if the distance was well over a mile from the school on Dunn Avenue to about where Newcomb Road is today.

I remember walking back home along Lem Turner Road past "the old turpentine still" on the west side of Lem Turner. It was about a mile north of Dunn Avenue, I am told. The still had been in operation since before 1926 when, in that year, J. D. Barker became the owner and named it "J. D. Barker and Sons Turpentine Corporation." In 1936 the "Dinsmore Turpentine Corporation" began operations of the still; but, J. D. Barker's son, Jimmie Lee Barker, stayed on as manager until 1941 when he sold out to the company.

In its day, they tell me, it was a "very successful operation." I just remember little shacks with tin roofs and little black children in dirty clothes and with no shoes. They lived there. Their parents were turpentine workers.

My mother's father had been a turpentine worker; but, by the 1950's almost all turpentine workers were black. It was not a fit way to live for anyone of any color; but, that is the way it was.

On my first full day of regular school, my mother and I walked to the school that morning; and, sat in the auditorium while each teacher would come up and read the names of her students. A pretty sandy haired, young woman called my name and my mother and I followed her to my new classroom.

Soon after, my mother left to walk home alone; and, I was on my own for the first time in my life.

It wasn't really a problem for me. Many a sunday in church had taught me to sit still; and, even to listen; and, I knew how to follow directions as well. When the bell rang I went outside and found the bus with the number someone had written down on a piece of paper for me. It was bus 30. It was also a help that June Pace was the driver. I knew June. She went to the same church that we went to. She still goes to that church. So began my first long bus ride home.

Bus 30 served more than one school. After picking us elementary kids up at Garden City, the bus would go out to Oceanway to pick up the high school students that went there; then it would wind its way home, going all the way to the county line, then turn back south on Lem Turner. I was next to the last stop every afternoon. It was always a long ride; and, sometimes I fell asleep! It was all right though. June knew where I was supposed to get off. She knew where everyone was supposed to get off. So if we missed our stop, she didn't!

Every morning, I was the second stop; and, since back then school started at 8:00 in the morning, that meant I had to get up and go out to wait for the bus real early. In winter it was before sunrise. I would wait by our mailbox which was on the other side of the road from our house. I would wait all alone and sometimes in the dark. That would seem awfully dangerous today; but, things didn't seem as dangerous back then even though it was a bit of an illusion; and, I realize now that my mother was keeping an eye on me; but, at a distance, and in such a way as to make me feel like I was on my own and independent. Finally the bus would come and we would wind our way all the way to the county line and then to Oceanway to let off the students there before we would at last arrive at Garden City Elementary.

Then we would always have a while, I am not sure how long, to wait before the school doors finally opened.

We would all rush in at one time, into the little "lobby" of sorts; then up three little steps which were there for who knows what reason, and past the office. Then we separated. Grades 4 through 6 went to the left wing of the school, grades 1 through 3 to the right.

This was before the Supreme Court said otherwise so first thing in the morning we said "The Lord's Prayer." Then we said the "Pledge of Allegiance" to the American flag. These were just words that I was required to say. They meant nothing to me. I was a little agnostic who realized what the smart thing to do was. If I had refused to pray, I might have been punished; I don't know. I do know that if I had been allowed to leave the room or anything, the other kids would have made fun of me! So I said the words knowing that was all they were, just words.

If I had wanted to pray, no one could have stopped me. I could have prayed in silence, as the Bible suggests, and they would have never known!"

In the first and second grades we all sat at little tables and chairs; and, each classroom had its own restroom; but, beginning in the third grade we sat in regular desks and we had to go to the big restroom which was in the left wing. This made it an especially long trip for third graders who were just learning that sort of thing.

It was the height of the "cold war." The very idea of such a thing as an atomic bomb was still pretty new; and, maybe even more frightening by its very newness!

We saw movies about the bomb and what it could do; and, we were taught how to "protect" ourselves. This "protection" was based upon what had been used during most of World War ll when the bombs were not nuclear. It all seems very quaint, even bizarre, today; but, they were doing what they knew how to do.

We were taught to "duck and "cover." To get under something, like our desk, if we could, and if there was enough time. They taught us there was enough time if we heard an air raid siren; but, if we saw a bright flash we were to immediately fall down on our stomachs with one hand covering our necks and the other covering our backs about at the waist.

All through the day, at any time, the teacher might say, "Duck and Cover." We were supposed to immediately fall down and cover ourselves. If we did not, we were declared "dead."

I was declared "dead" once in the second grade when I did not hear the teacher. No one could speak to me for the rest of the day because I was "dead."

We talk about the fears children have today about violence; but, back then we really did think that we might be killed by an atomic bomb! We were afraid!

Drugs were something that were never discussed. It was just assumed that we understood how bad they were and would have the sense to avoid them. In my case, they were correct. I have never experimented with any kind of drug.

One of the saddest things that I have seen, in my life, is how many of my generation have had their lives destroyed by something I cannot understand other than, what is to me the obvious fact, that drugs are something to leave along.

I can understand addiction; but, why mess with the stuff in the first place? It does not make sense!

We did have sex education of sorts starting in the fifth grade; but, it was mostly about the changes in our bodies as we entered puberty, things like that.

Garden City Elementary School 1999