PAXTON PEOPLE, III: MISS OMAR AND MISS HAYNES

The six teachers who resided at  Mrs. Wood’s Boarding House back when every-town-had-a-school were a homogeneous group, like sisters or cheerful nuns who had lived long together in such an estrogenic universe that they melded like wax.  They ranged in age and tenure by several decades, from gray upsweeps to waist-length curls, from bouncing salt-and-pepper page-boys to one silky-white permanent renewed at the Chat-n-Curl every six months.  They taught math, English-and-Latin-combined, Speech and Home Ec, as well as all-the-Rs-plus- H-and-G in the lower grades. 

 

  The two elementary teachers were oddly disparate---one sturdy and solidly planted, her plain-spoken character and her sense of command quite suited to the rowdy fourth-graders, most on that cusp between  innocence and naughty entendre, and needing a firm hand and incisive voice. 

 

Miss Omar strode into the classroom in a gabardine suit---shoes solidly laced, setting down her purse and taking up the day in both hands.  She had no need for call-to-order after about the first week, for a majority of her pupils had heard from older siblings that she was a tough old bird, and proved by stern example in those first few mornings. 

   When she woke up, she was AWAKE, and could not understand those who needed the brace of coffee and a bit of quiet to get going in the morning, though she matched them cup for cup at the percolators.   And she’d never set an alarm clock in her life---she just KNEW what time it was, never missing an appointment, knowing without turning her head that the Jenkins boy and Claude Ray Burns were setting their brogans for escape at seven-til-three, instead of waiting for one-minute-before like everyone else watching the clock.   And until she went off to college, she’d believed that everyone else could tell time like that, startling onlookers occasionally with “It’s four-fifty-two---I’d better get home,” with no clock in sight.  

 

rubylane photo

 

Miss Haynes’s waist-length curls were the envy of every girl in the entire school, and the Toni counter at Leon’s Drugstore would have grown dusty had it not been for Miss Hazel’s assiduous attention with the turkey-feathers, for it lacked for customers as all the girls began to let their hair grow out about the third week of school.  Then succeeded a run on the soft-curler rack and the TAME aisle, once word leaked as to how she kept her elegant coiffure.   She was thin and fine-boned in  her pale shirtwaist dresses and silky blouses tucked into somber skirts.  Her manner was quiet and soft-spoken to her class of first-graders, calling them “ladies” and “gentlemen” when she called them to order.  

 

The effect her calm, orderly person had on those brand-new scholars bursting in, fresh and still drunk with Summer in the first days, was a wonder of the school, for the grubby barefoot boys soon attained an almost neat aspect, with clean faces and fingernails, and the chattery, chirpy little girls stilled and ceased at the first soft words.

 

And after her very first note-sent-home, introducing herself and asking that each child bring a pencil, a tablet, and a handkerchief every day, there was a cloth in every pocket, though some were obviously cut from an old sheet or dishrag, unhemmed and ravelly, but folded into the small pocket every morning along with Barlows and aggies and chunkin’ rocks and yesterday’s night-hardened nugget of gum.   They knew better than to chew in school, though Miss Haynes was still new to the game, holding out a scrap of torn paper for the miscreants to spit the gum into, rather than the seldom-needed, sternly-proffered bare hand of Miss Omar, who had become inured to all sorts of grime and goo over the years, and who kept a tiny bottle of McKesson’s in the top drawer with the Jergens, for anointing her hands now and then.

 

Miss O had lived at Mrs. Wood’s for some seventeen years; Miss H was the baby-of-the-bunch in her second year of teaching, and they both fit in like family.   

 

 

 

 

PAXTON PEOPLE: LIVING AT MRS. WOOD'S PART II

Six teachers lived at Mrs. Wood’s---always phrased with an apostrophe, as was shopping at Kroger’s---one still in residence after twenty-one years, and the latest, for two.   Mrs. Wood was a widowed lady whose husband’s family had been “well off” in early days, and had built a house to fit their own six children and flurry of social activities.

Mr. Wood, having lived on with Mama and Daddy until their deaths when he was in his forties, inherited that big house, by dint of long custom and residence.  He made his living at the Railroad Depot, tapping out the mysterious messages in Morse, retrieving and hanging the bulging mail-bags which hung from the long gallows-arm like heavy fruit until magically grabbed-on-the-fly by the rattle-roar of the passing train.  He had gained a mantle of magic to the town children, as well, as the man who could talk across the wire with his fingers, coupled with a mystical aura of one who appeased the roaring beast twice a day.

He had gently courted the pretty young Miss Ruth when his parents were living, escorting her to church and singing programs and the Senior Play for several years, with an occasional date to the picture show or to his Lions’ Club Dance.

 

Mrs. Wood had been a teacher herself for some few years and was just-past-forty  when they married, so she did not return to teaching after her husband passed away.

Having Margaret and her son Royal “right there” living in the servant house out back, and tending to everything around the place, and herself being well acquainted with the demeanour, personal lives and character of her fellow teachers, she offered room and board to a chosen few, and was gladly accepted.   The original six had been diminished only by marriage or retirement during the succeeding years, and by one Miss Ratcliff’s further education in four years of Summer School up at NWJC, after which she moved and became a member of the faculty there. 

And there was ALWAYS a waiting list---with the new residents chosen with an eye to compatability and good nature.   The house was welcoming, the cooking was excellent, and the company agreeable, with breakfast at seven, supper-right-after-John Cameron Swayze, and lunch on weekends and every day in Summer.   Mrs. Wood set a good table, having two freezers out on the screen-porch ---one just for the beef and pork “spoken for” from Mr. Neighbors, one for vegetables and fruit shelled and peeled and put up by Margaret and some of the ladies themselves in Summertime, and an extra refrigerator in the butler’s pantry  so each of her residents could have a space for whatever extra treats or refreshments she cared to bring in herself. 

And another draw and convenience was that Mrs. Wood had the distinction of having not one but TWO water heaters installed out there with the freezers.

Miss Edith Mae Jones was one of the long-time residents at the “Teacherage” as Mrs. Wood’s home was called by the old-time residents of the town, and had secured a nice reputation for herself as an orator and actress and performer at little local events.   Her room in the top east corner smelled of Woodhue and lemon drops and an ever-so-faint wisp of the Vicks salve she kept to ease her throat, and her shelves were arranged with volumes of poetry and Shakespeare and many of the slim, flexible little books of readings from Shaw and Longfellow and Service and Millay, most of which she "knew by heart."

And moiré non, of these quiet ladies of the past, and their gentle ripples toward the future.

WHERE'S TRUMAN?

 

 

Couldn't you just DWELL HERE?  We’ve been plotting and planning and measuring for the new kitchen---just a tiny affair downstairs, one little wall-counter maybe 8’, with a corner turn into 4’ with the old black stove off on another wall, big and independent, sitting there like a huge squat frog with little round red handles to break the stern black-and-steel  of her face.

I want solid white, sturdy cabinets, like the metal ones above, with a pale top, perhaps Corian, but what I’d LOVE is one of those concrete counter-tops, pale pearly gray and forever, with the faint marks of the maker’s touch. We haven’t arranged for anyone to do it yet, and the times make me long for dear old Truman Burke---man of all work, who “did for” everybody I knew of.

Daddy did all our building and re-modeling, as he was a master with wood and cabinetry, but Mr. Truman---he was an artist of his own kind.

Truman Burke---that's a Mississippi name, a Southern name, a name for a solid citizen who IS who he is and does what he does and everyone thanks him for it.

“Cars actin’ up. Better call Truman.”

“Truman, would you take a look under there? She’s makin’ that zzzzzwhoo sound again.”

“How’s Marlee n’ em, Truman?”

“How much I owe you, Truman?”

 

A mainstay of this great nation, a real person who does what he does, raises up from his hunker over your carburetor, wipes his hands on an oily rag, leans into the window and asks about the family. And when the voice from under the hood says, “Try ‘er now,” you know you’re on your way, your day lightened and your way eased by that noblest of Americans---the small-town mechanic/carpenter/ handyman/plumber who everybody relies on and everybody knows by name, though it’s not there on an oval over his heart. A man who cleans up nice and shakes your hand in church and will stop anywhere, anytime, to help a stranded motorist/puzzled map-reader/kid hunting his dog.

He’s a man with a calling, perhaps not from On High, but from the earth---the gravel of the first roads, the concrete and the asphalt and Firestone tires and Valvoline and Quaker State and maybe I got a part to fit that.

Truman does his part to lift the flag and keep this country on the move. God Bless all the Trumans---I hope you know one.

 

MARY GRACE IS DANCING

Once upon a time, some forty-something years ago, we sat in our living rooms, watching Mayberry on our black-and-white TVs.  The episode featured a visit from Thelma Lou’s rather awkward, rather plain cousin Mary Grace, and since it was already arranged that Thelma Lou and Barney and Andy and Miss Helen were double-dating to the big Spring Dance, Thelma Lou asked Barney to find a date for Mary Grace.

 

Barney sumpn sumpn and Andy Hmmm Hmmm and Thelma Lou SUMPN SUMPN!! And Barney shoulders-hunched hmmmhummm, so he and Andy ask Gomer to take her, using the Kiss Of Death regarding Blind Dates: 

 

 “She’s Nice.   She’s REAL NICE.”

 

Date arranged, night of dance arrives, three ladies wait in Thelma Lou’s living room.   Three guys arrive, come in, and as soon as Gomer and Mary Grace are introduced, he dashes back out the door.

 

Mumblemumble, sorrysorry, A&MH & B&TL leave for dance, leaving Mary Grace at home.  

 

Knock on door, she answers, Gomer says, “Sorry it took me so long. I noticed the other girls had flowers and you didn’t. I had to go two different places to find something with a little bit a pink in it.”  

She asks if THAT was the reason he ran off, and he says that “it wouldn’t be right for you to go the dance unadorned.” 

Noting that they now have no way to get to the dance three miles away, they both say they’d rather just stay home with each other. 

 

More hmmmhmmm and GrrrrGrrr at the door of the dance, Thelma Lou fumefume won’t get out of the car, they all go home.   As they all reach the front door, they can hear lively MUSIC inside.

 

R. I. P Mary Grace Canfield

 

You make me smile, every time.

 

TEA AT BOONE'S TAVERN

This past weekend was the occasion of the Annual Boone’s Tavern Tea Party, attended by about seventy-five guests. 

 

It was a splendid occasion, with a welcoming atmosphere, delightful and delicious tea fare, and superb service.   My friend Linda Jennings at Friendship Tea coordinated the event, and did a magnificent job.

 

I wish I could have been there, and I’m invited to a lovely gathering of tea-bloggers in March, so I’m really looking forward to that.

 

Meanwhile, DO have a look at the enticing afternoon:  TEA PARTY.