I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to fill up with gas and to check on the latest news with the Charlie’s Regulars. The rain was coming down pretty good as I pulled up in front of the gas pumps. Jake came out in a pull over rain coat. It was a plastic affair in a bright orange yellow color. I had never before seen Jake wear a raincoat and I said as much. I told Jake the color reflected off the gray in his thinning hair. Jake told me the rain coat was a Christmas present from his daughter. She calls up about once a week from Jersey and never fails to ask if Jake is wearing the new rain coat. Jake has kept the coat in the box it came in since he opened it on Christmas morning. He has been lying to his daughter and insisting he wears what he calls that silly looking thing every time it comes up a cloud. Jake’s wife, Maureen, doesn’t like for Jake to lie to their daughter like that. She finally laid the law down to Jake last Sunday and told him she was not going to back him up in his lies any longer. The next time Chrissy asks about that rain coat, Maureen promised she was going to tell the truth and admit it was still in the box it came in. Faced with rebellion in his own house, Jake had decided to bite the bullet and wear the silly thing just enough Maureen can tell their daughter with honesty that her Christmas gift is seeing good use.
Jake finished off the tank of gas and put the cap back on. He wondered when I was planning to get a new car as the one I drive is getting on toward fifteen years. I told Jake this car still runs good with only a few occasional problems and, so long as it gets me to where I need to be, I don’t see any reason to trade her in. Jake admitted the car still looks pretty good for an old heap as I followed him into the store. I paid for the gas and told Jake I was going to look around for a few more things I needed. Jake said I should help myself. Everything in the store is for sale he reminded me.
I wandered over to the pot belly stove where Hermann Spencer and Hurshel Ledbedder were talking with the Reverend Johnson. They were discussing the old school building as I walked up. The building is just a bit North of the store and sits on the road that branches off the main road and runs up North of Soagie. Though I come through Soagie several times per week and stop by Charlie’s at least once in the week, I have not been over to the old abandoned school house in years. In fact, last time I was over that way, the gym had been converted into a part time garage where one of the Soagie handy men worked on automobiles. I went by once and stopped in to have my oil changed. It’s a shame really how that old building has come to ruin. Time was when most of the kids in the area went to school there. I attended school there myself through the fall portion of the first grade. Then my father found a job in Selmer and I began to attend school in town.
The Soagie school had classes for students in grades one through eight. There must have been in the range of a hundred students scattered through the grades there. After the eighth grade, kids began to attend the high school in Ramer. I remember the school with some fondness. There were three class rooms and a gym. There was one teacher per room and she divided her time among the several grades for which she was responsible. My mother drove me to school each morning and, after school I rode the school bus home. The bus that came by the Soagie school left from Ramer at about three in the afternoon and required most of thirty minutes to make the trip to Soagie. The students would play outside in the school yard until the bus arrived. While the other kids were playing, I would often remain inside and draw on the chalk board. I remember filling the board with scratchings of railroads and trains. Trains fascinated me at that young age.
The bus came down the road from the West and stopped to pick up the kids. We all climbed aboard and rode to Charlie’s where the bus stopped for about ten minutes to allow some of the kids to run in for a snack. Old Charlie Biggers was always glad to see that bus come up to the store. I rode several miles to where the bus stopped to let me off along with a couple other kids who lived along the road with me. In those days, the bus driver did not drop kids off right at their front door. Some of us had to walk a little to get home. I would walk along the road with my neighbors, then the remainder of the way home alone. My grandfather would be waiting for me with a snack of some sort and I had the remainder of the afternoon and evening to play. Those were good times. Though my parents moved to town and later farther away, my heart was always in this part of the country where I first began to grow up. When I came of age and could decide for myself where I would live, it was to the old home place I returned.
Hurshel Ledbedder was saying some company from out of Jackson has bought the old school with the intention of setting up a business there. No one seems to know exactly what kind of business it will be, but there are an awful lot of wires and electronic gadgets being set up in the old school and the best guess is the company is going to be strong into computers and such. If the rumors are true to form, it is going to seem real strange having a high tech electronics business taking up residence in downtown Soagie. In fact, there isn’t hardly enough of Soagie for there to be a downtown.
Hermann Spencer shook his head in disgust. You would have thought an out of the way place like Soagie would be safe for many years to come from an invasion from the modern world, but it begins to look as though no place on Earth is long safe from the invasion of modern technology. Hermann got up off the old nail keg on which he was sitting and decided he was going home where he could sit by his fireplace and forget all about computers and electronics and the invasion from the high tech world. I thought it best not to mention I have been making my living with computers for some years now. It seemed best not to disturb Hermann’s comfort in the Good Old Days before computers came along and ruined the world.
END
