Boomer's Journal - How'd we ever manage?

By Rachel Barduson of Alexandria

As I take a sip of water out of my refillable water bottle I pause to think about the good old days. You know, when we went to school without a water bottle. How’d we ever manage to get through a day?

I will venture to guess that every one of us drank water out of the water fountain at school. I would approach that fountain with great anticipation, hoping for the high arch of water spewing out of the spicket – cold and refreshing. The vision was real. The outcome uncertain. This was an especially critical moment in the school day – after playing dodge ball in the old gym and working up a sweat during recess.

Alas, many times that fountain only provided a weak dribble of warmish water. It might have been full of iron – or not. Maybe it was laced with other things that had built up on the inside of those old pipes, but nevertheless... it was all we had. And we drank it. With grateful hearts, our lips touched the fountain spicket after we had stood in line with our classmates, and we drank it – no matter if it was a beautiful arch of pure water or a dribble that barely came out of the fountain. On a side note – Mrs. Nelson in the fourth grade “taught” us that our lips should never touch the fountain spicket because of the germs we would get – which would, of course, lead to our unfortunate and untimely death at an early age. “Only get your lips wet, but do not touch the fountain (of youth) spicket,” she said. This was often impossible, given that the water pressure was so low. There was really no way to drink water other than to basically suck the water out of the fountain and hope for the best. It wasn’t as good as the garden hose, but we couldn’t bring the garden hose to school.

Elementary hallway at Evansville school today looks similar (but not the same) as it did when I went to school. Contributed photo

As I take another sip from my trusty water bottle, I think of “back then” when we went school shopping for our early years of elementary education. One penmanship tablet, a pencil, hopefully a #2, maybe our pencil box, and a box of crayons. We needed nothing else in order to learn cursive and arithmetic. No list was ever given to our parents as a guide to what we were required to bring. Ben Franklin, Woolworth’s, or Nelson’s Store in Evansville was where we would go for school shopping. Mom sewed my “first day of school” dress or maybe I wore a dress from Montgomery Ward. We seemed to manage.

On that first day of school I always hoped we could sit wherever we wanted in the classroom. That, of course, depended on the teacher. Some of our teachers made us sit in alphabetical order instead of next to our best friend (the nerve!). And since our brothers and sisters most likely had the same teachers that we would have, we may have gone to school on that first day with pre-disposed opinions of what our school year would be like, based solely on what our older siblings had told us from their own experiences. I know I went with those predisposed opinions. I went in with confidence that I already knew whether the teacher was mean or if she was nice; and whether they gave homework and hard tests and pop quizzes and all the things and information we obviously needed in order to succeed in whatever grade we were in. I believed everything my older sisters told me. It was almost like I had an upper hand to all things, only because I had an older sister who “knew things.” I give my sisters credit for helping me “manage” in a world of uncertainties.

Mrs. Bakke, Mrs. Palmquist, Mrs. Swenson, Mrs. Nelson, Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Lang, and Miss Oberg. These wonderful ladies were mine. And, if you had them you know. And they were all disciplined and wonderful educators in every way. Oh sure, I may have been scolded at some point for various reasons I thought unfair at the time.  But – for good reason – if we were scolded, we needed to be scolded. Thank goodness they kept us in line.

When we prepared for junior and senior high school, we suddenly needed six notebooks because we would have six or so different teachers, in different classrooms, with different subjects to learn. Each subject seemed to require its own notebook. I guess. Add to the stress of the first days, we needed to learn which notebook (and book) to carry between classes because getting to our assigned locker was not always going to be a possibility. Even though we had probably been to every corner of the school building before that first day, our first day was all about figuring out where we needed to be and when, without turning up on the tardy list that would result with a trip to the principal’s office. You know... managing those first few days. We did not want to make that trek to the top floor of the school where Mr. Kaess’ office was.

The two old drinking fountains (where we stood in line for a drink of water) have been replaced by updated fountains, complete with water bottle filling stations. Contributed photo

And then there was lunch. We didn’t have time to take our car out for a joy ride to McDonald’s. There was no car and there weren’t any McDonald’s. We had no choice but to eat the school lunch provided. Mrs. Strand did her best. My favorite was the turkey and gravy dinner. I even liked the chili on Mondays – and the baked beans on Fridays. Depending on band, choir, or study hall, how much time we had for lunch break was determined for us – and most of the time we didn’t have much of it. It was much like what I would envision to being in the military. Remarkably, in high school I managed it well enough to go to Morley’s across the street from the school for a quick trip with my friends to get “Black Jack” black licorice salt water taffy for three cents apiece. Sweet priorities.

Gazing out the window of any classroom also took time management. Dreaming of the next big thing in my life, while Mr. Pederson talked about fractions and geometry. And Mrs. Drevlow taught us how to cook; and Mr. Janke taught bookkeeping; and Mr. Rohne who taught us speed in typing before, then teaching us about history; and Mr. Kaess who talked about World War II in Chemistry class. And, of course Mr. Shea, who made speech class so much fun. No cell phones and no laptops or iPad. Just a simple notebook, a Bic pen, and passing notes between our best friend with the hope of not getting caught. Every once in a while, a paper airplane might soar through the air. Some of the time, time stood still until we were brought back to reality to what was really going on in class – at the time. Every day, we seemed to manage – with a simple paper notebook and a water fountain in the hallway.