Banging erasers.

This is for my South Dakota friends and family...or the ones who are old enough to recall a simpler life and time.

My first school was Kennedy #2. A one-room schoolhouse (all eight grades are taught in one room) 3/4 mile north of our farm north of Wagner, SD. Our school did not have indoor plumbing. We drank water from cone-shaped paper cups filled from a large crock. The bathrooms were two-hole outhouses (one for each sex) just north of the school building. Everybody brought their own lunch in brightly colored tin boxes advertising the most popular Saturday morning cartoons. I recall being jealous of my cousins who sometimes had hot dogs from a Thermos. Another family had perfected the art of grilled cheese sandwiches using toast and American cheese wrapped in tinfoil that languished on top of the furnace all morning and smelled DELICIOUS by 11am every day.

Mostly, I had baloney sandwiches on Wonder bread (building strong bodies 12 ways).

Kindergarten was six weeks in the spring prior to the year a child was eligible for first grade...so for me, I think it was 1962 when I got my first taste of Sally, Dick and Jane.

I really loved those three kids. And their friends. And their pets, Spot and Puff. Couldn't get enough, couldn't wait to learn to read. Of course, the books are now the subject of some ridicule for their simplistic view of life (too many white folks, plenty of money, no troubles) but for this farm child, they were The Perfect Family. I remember asking Mom if she could please adopt an older brother so our family would be more like Dick, Jane and Sally.

I had two classmates at Kennedy #2. Neighbor David Kokesh and my cousin, Kendall Wiechmann. There were no other larger groups than ours so we received more attention (I think) than the classes with just one or two.

Our teachers were Miss Uecker (kindergarten and first grade), Mrs. Glanz (second grade) and Mrs. Cuka (third and fourth grades). It was Miss Uecker who sent us home in the middle of the afternoon when I was a first grader after President Kennedy was assassinated.

A seismic shift occurred at some point and although I don't recall Mom and Dad telling us much about it, my fifth grade year began in "town school." Kennedy #2 closed, there was an auction, all of the books, etc were sold including the building which was moved from it's acre and we rode a bus to East Charles Mix #102.

We lived six miles north of town but drew the short straw when the bus routes were determined. Ours was the first stop at about 7:10am. Rollie Jespersen was the driver that first year and he was patient. He beeped the horn a few times and waited for us (four that year) to run out of the house to the end of the drive. The family farms I remember from the route--Kokesh, Seiner, Broz, Soulek, Petrik, Hawley, Hrdlicka, Morrow, Doty. Of course there were many more and I wish my 54-year-old brain could remember but I hope you'll nudge me!

Our bus ride lasted until 8:30am (I'm pretty sure an hour and twenty minutes would be illegal now) and then the school day began for real. In the fifth grade, Mrs. Eitemiller was my home room teacher. A tiny thing, she kept order by being the master of the quick retort for anyone who tried to act up in her class. She was a great leader and I really adored her.

Back to the title of this entry. In country school, we had blackboards and chalk, naturally. Not being very math-proficient, I dreaded the invitation to solve a problem "on the board" but loved to practice my penmanship there.

The chore of banging erasers together to rid them of chalk dust was considered an honor. Something earned.

At some point, I earned that honor during my fifth grade year. In my memory, Nancy Smith (now Fernandez) was the partner Mrs. Eitemiller assigned to the eraser-dust-eradication task but I could be wrong. It was not another farm kid. To my amazement, there was a MACHINE that sucked chalk dust from erasers at "town school."

That was the first time I thought that city life might not be so bad after all.