There can only be one Bob and Lizzy Scott and they literally took care of everything at Grainola Grade School where I spent a lot of my early life. Bob drove the bus and maintained the building, yes one building for the entire school, and he cleaned it and he fixed everything. Lizzy cooked and cleaned the kitchen and loved everyone of us. I never heard them complain and I never knew them not to help out even if it were not a standard school event like the annual basketball game for old timers or a square dance where Carl McConaghy played the fiddle or the Grainola District fair where Eva Kelly and all the Kelly clan had something in the fair to even the Lord's Acre Sale where they raised money for the local Methodist Church. Now I do realize I was a kid and did not know of all the conflict or frustration or work that went into each of these events but I did know one thing and that was EVERYONE in the community chipped in to help get ready and clean up. No excuses just community rather you were a democrat or republican. In those days Democrats outnumbered Republicans but luckily that has changed. Whooppps, someone just got mad.
Lizzy was always old to me and she stood with a slight bend to her shoulders but she could cook. I especially liked her sloppy joe hamburgers which I think was the same thing she put on spaghetti which I thoroughly loved as well. She served, she cooked and she cleaned without help.
Now what brought me to remember Bob and Lizzy was thinking about that old coal fired heater in the basement of the school. You see we never had air conditioning and as I recall everyone turned out ok and some folks were even successful. A little sarcasm for those who complain about todays facilities. Our doors leaked and our windows leaked and we had those old hot water heater/furnaces. Well, anyway I was always curious about that basement and Bob gave very limited access to anyone so one time my first cousin and the son of the famous Gladys Snyder and I broke into the school basement from the east side of the building where there were some old stairs and an old door. I honestly don't remember how Billy did it but he got us in there and we took our flash lights and went exploring. That basement had to be 12 feet deep at a minimum and seemed to be the entire size of the basketball stadium because it was below the court and the bleachers. Each year at least once per year there would be a delivery of coal which was dumped into the basement to fire up the heater. It was magical and it was cold and damp and down right scary like one of those Alfred Hitchcock movies. Do you remember The Cask of Amontillado? If you have not read or watched it, it is a classic and at least in those days would scare the bijibbies out of you. I never did know what bijibbies was and certainly do not know how to spell it. But if you were in that basement you would feel them all around you.
Well after exploring the basement Billy and I went upstairs and discovered the old locks on the old doors were easily broken into if you had a skeleton key (as we called them). We never did get caught and we did not mess with things, we just looked around and enjoyed the adventure. Back then even if you got caught you would get a paddling from Bob ( I assume or from the principal, Lewis Morris) and then certainly one from home but you would never get kicked out of school. Now here is one question you can help me with.
What good does it do to kick a trouble maker out of school? It seems to me that you just gave freedom to the person who got in trouble. That is NOT punishment, kind of like everyone getting a trophy for participation. What a joke! What idiot thought of that one? I guess I made someone mad with that one as well. If you want someone to change their ways you PUNISH them not reward them and rehabilitation is a joke in my opinion, for the most part anyway.
My brother in law, Rocky Carter a football coach retired and I hope he does not get mad because I am getting ready to quote him, told me one time when he had four of his football players kicked off the team for smoking pot because of school policy. He even thought it was stupid because he could have made them work harder, run laps and make a personal decision that the reward was not worth it. But instead they were put on the streets so their grades when they got back would be worse and they would not get to participate in sports, one of the few things they really wanted to do, and of course they would be mad and more disrespectful and more likely to grow up with bad habits and make more bad decisions. I make a motion that we stop getting stupider and stupider and use some common sense.
Oh well, I have gone too long so: What do you learn in the Osage?
thepioneerman.com
Lizzy was always old to me and she stood with a slight bend to her shoulders but she could cook. I especially liked her sloppy joe hamburgers which I think was the same thing she put on spaghetti which I thoroughly loved as well. She served, she cooked and she cleaned without help.
Now what brought me to remember Bob and Lizzy was thinking about that old coal fired heater in the basement of the school. You see we never had air conditioning and as I recall everyone turned out ok and some folks were even successful. A little sarcasm for those who complain about todays facilities. Our doors leaked and our windows leaked and we had those old hot water heater/furnaces. Well, anyway I was always curious about that basement and Bob gave very limited access to anyone so one time my first cousin and the son of the famous Gladys Snyder and I broke into the school basement from the east side of the building where there were some old stairs and an old door. I honestly don't remember how Billy did it but he got us in there and we took our flash lights and went exploring. That basement had to be 12 feet deep at a minimum and seemed to be the entire size of the basketball stadium because it was below the court and the bleachers. Each year at least once per year there would be a delivery of coal which was dumped into the basement to fire up the heater. It was magical and it was cold and damp and down right scary like one of those Alfred Hitchcock movies. Do you remember The Cask of Amontillado? If you have not read or watched it, it is a classic and at least in those days would scare the bijibbies out of you. I never did know what bijibbies was and certainly do not know how to spell it. But if you were in that basement you would feel them all around you.
Well after exploring the basement Billy and I went upstairs and discovered the old locks on the old doors were easily broken into if you had a skeleton key (as we called them). We never did get caught and we did not mess with things, we just looked around and enjoyed the adventure. Back then even if you got caught you would get a paddling from Bob ( I assume or from the principal, Lewis Morris) and then certainly one from home but you would never get kicked out of school. Now here is one question you can help me with.
What good does it do to kick a trouble maker out of school? It seems to me that you just gave freedom to the person who got in trouble. That is NOT punishment, kind of like everyone getting a trophy for participation. What a joke! What idiot thought of that one? I guess I made someone mad with that one as well. If you want someone to change their ways you PUNISH them not reward them and rehabilitation is a joke in my opinion, for the most part anyway.
My brother in law, Rocky Carter a football coach retired and I hope he does not get mad because I am getting ready to quote him, told me one time when he had four of his football players kicked off the team for smoking pot because of school policy. He even thought it was stupid because he could have made them work harder, run laps and make a personal decision that the reward was not worth it. But instead they were put on the streets so their grades when they got back would be worse and they would not get to participate in sports, one of the few things they really wanted to do, and of course they would be mad and more disrespectful and more likely to grow up with bad habits and make more bad decisions. I make a motion that we stop getting stupider and stupider and use some common sense.
Oh well, I have gone too long so: What do you learn in the Osage?
- let local folks who understand the situation make decisions about how to punish a person based on the situation and keep the lawyers (oopps, just made another one mad) and bureaucrats (dog-gone-it, made another one mad) out of it.
- Local coaches, teachers and administrators and even cooks, maintenance folks, bus drivers can make better decisions than a person 100 miles or more away in an office with nothing to do but write policy on something they do not understand or have the common sense to fix (I am chalking up a bunch of offenses)
- In case you make too many people mad, HIDE or duck your head so they don't hit you
thepioneerman.com
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