I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to fill up with gas and to get a few groceries. When I pulled up in front of the pumps, Jake jumped up from the bench that sits beside the front door and came over with an expectant grin on his face. I told him to fill ‘er up and he reached for the gas pump. The Reverend Johnson had been sitting on the other bench. He got up and said he had to be going. The Reverend calls himself retired from doing the Lord’s work, but he has picked up a part time gig preaching at a small church just south of Chewalla. He said he needed to get started preparing for the sermon he is to deliver come Sunday morning. The Reverend ambled around the side of Charlie’s and toward the old house where he lives now behind the store. Miss Nelda Ramer lived in that house all her life, but she passed away almost three years ago and the Reverend bought the place and moved in. He takes right good care of the house, repairing and fixing up where Miss Nelda had been unable to keep pace with things in her later years. The Reverend has even taken to tending Miss Nelda’s rose bushes and they are covered with roses more than they have displayed in years. It does us good in Soagie to see that old house cared for so.
Jake finished filling the tank and put the cap back on. Then he turned to me and asked if the old Austin school house was still standing out near where I live. It seems he and the Reverend had been talking about the old school when I drove up. It happened that Jimmy Hardly, a good friend of the Reverend and his brother, had gone to school in the old building. The time was back before World War II when segregation was in force. The Johnson brothers were not allowed to tend school with the white children back then, but they had come around after hours to play school yard baseball with some of the other kids. There had been a few boys who had objected to playing with the blacks, but Jimmy Hardly had put a stop to that. So far as Jimmy was concerned, the Johnson brothers were his friends and that was all that mattered.
I told Jake the old school building had long since gone and there was nothing left but a few brick foundation blocks. Fact is the school stood just a few yards north of the present day location of my studio. It was just in the fork of the road and I remember walking past it in the dark when I was a small child. At that time I lived in a small four room house with my mother and father in a location that is just a stone’s throw from where my house is now. My grandparents lived down the road within walking distance past the old Austin school. I often walked past that school on my way back and forth between my parents and my grandparents. This was in daylight, mind you, and the old abandoned house was not an issue. I remember being inside the old house more than once at the time. My father was a farmer and he stored fertilizer and seed in the abandoned building. It had not been used as a school for several years.
While the old school was not at issue in the open daylight, night was a different matter. My childish imagination could dream up all manner of strange and ghostly creatures to inhabit the abandoned building in the dark. As I grew older, I discovered the joys of broadcast television and I took to hanging out with my aunt to watch the images on the set she owned. My family had moved to Selmer where my father had found work with the Farm Bureau. As I was still much in love of life outside the city, I passed as much time as my parents would allow in the company of my grandparents. This was the time when I allowed my fascination with television to over ride my fear of the creatures my imagination told me inhabited the old school house in the hours after the sun went down. While I was in mortal terror of the old building at night, I was even more afraid of admitting my apprehension to any of the grown-ups about. I knew in truth they would only laugh at me. As it came time to leave from watching the television with my aunt, I saw I has lingered past the onset of darkness and the abandoned school house awaited me on my journey to my Grandparents’ house.
Taking my small courage in hand, I began my perilous journey in the dark. My heart was thumping in my chest as I approached the school house. With my feet firmly planted on the gravel road and my eyes glued to the black windows that yawned from the side of the dark structure, I made my way along beside the ghostly building. Measuring my steps carefully, I was ready to break our running for my life at the first indication of supernatural movement from the Austin school house. Eventually I passed the haunted building without incident. As I left the old school behind, I realized I had also left my terror with it. Never again did that old building at night threaten me with horrors beyond imagination. Ghosts no longer inspired fear in my young soul.
As I grew older, I often explored the old house. It consisted of one large room with a smaller room inset to the left of the front entrance. Along the back was a raised stage and, to the right of the stage was a second doorway. My cousins and I passed many an hour sifting through the dusty items that had been abandoned in that old school. Years later, while I was in high school, my grandfather tore the old school down. The property had reverted to the original land owner after the school was no longer in use. Grandfather used the lumber from the school to build a new chicken house. That chicken house still stands today, though I believe it is used mainly for storage of farm implements. Jake shook his head. There is a lot of complaining today about the problems of teaching kids in crowded class rooms with inefficient air conditioning and inferior computers. Over a hundred children attended Austin School in a given year with eight grades in one room and no air conditioning except the open windows and no thought of computers and they acquired an education to serve a life time. How the world has changed since those far off times!
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