Chapter 6: Amsterdam Township #4

AMSTERDAM TOWNSHIP NO. 4

I was four years old, soon to be five, when I began my formal education in the little one-room school at Amsterdam Township No. 4.  The school was a mile east and a mile south of where we lived.  Like most rural schools in the midwest in my childhood, every four-square mile section of land would, if population patterns permitted, have a school located in the center of it.  Amsterdam township in the southern part of Hancock County had the usual pattern.  My school was located as far from our home as it normally could be because our farm was in the far corner of the mile section, and our farm buildings were in the far corner of the farm.  So, yes, it is true: I walked two miles to school every day.  Occasionally, though, Henry, a senior in high school when I started first grade, would take the family car to school and we (Harold, Ruth and I) would get a ride.  When the weather was dry, Harold would sometimes lead us diagonally through the fields to shorten our route home.


Starting first grade at four years of age was a bit young, but there was no Kindergarten in that school,

and my mother considered me quite bright; so with cousin Gretchen Vander Ploeg being our teacher, my educational career was launched.  I joined approximately 15 other students scattered throughout the eight grades, among whom were Ruth in second grade, and Harold in eighth grade.
            
My classmate was Carroll Carlson.  I thought it was funny that he could not say "six."  He always said "ticth."  Teacher labored with him on that for some time, but, to my knowledge, he never conquered that problem that year in spite of all the times I volunteered to say "six" for him.
            
If my memory serves me correctly, we had some good-sized spelling words to write and addition problems which were at least 3 digits high.  Today I'm a good speller, but I remember one day I had problems with the spelling words, and Gretchen was convinced that I had been dawdling with my time and not studying them.  She kept me in from recess and made me stand at the board until I got them; or until, perhaps, she was convinced that I couldn't get them.


Not only was I taught the three R's at Amsterdam No. 4, I was also taught what morality was all about.  

A most dramatic lesson occurred during the afternoon recess one sunny, very pleasant day, early in the school year, probably September. Some of us first and second graders, including myself, Ruth, Merle Mickelson, and Carroll Carlson and his sisters Leona and Marjorie, were sitting together on the grass under the shade trees by the swings.  How the particular subject came up I don't know, but we apparently began discussing the private parts of the anatomy.  Whether I was challenged or I simply volunteered, I cannot say either, but shamelessly I offered to show my "wee-wee" and, unfastening the lower buttons of my coveralls, I did just that.  Now, Ruth and I, on one occasion earlier that summer when cousin Beth was visiting us, had doffed our swim suits and cavorted naked across our back yard.  And my dad, happening to witness that bold flouting of the rules of common decency, did intervene and reprimanded us, but only mildly; so I had not fully comprehended the gravity of this depraved kind of behavior yet.  But I soon would.  For some reason, maybe it was a kind providence intent upon sparing me from a life of sexual degeneracy,--whatever--Gretchen happened to be looking out the schoolhouse window at just that moment.  And posthaste, out she charged and, with a ferocity befitting righteous indignation, she grabbed me by the nape of the neck and marched me into the school building.  That was not enough.  I also had to stay after school so I would be sure to learn a lesson I should never forget.  Well, I did learn a lesson.  I learned that wee-wees were not for display, particularly if there were little girls present.

There were fun times and extra-curricular events at that little school too.  We gave a school program for the parents and neighbors one evening which I remember only vaguely.  More clear was a school party that I, along with others, had made little boats for the occasion constructed from the half shells of walnuts.  These half shells were filled with wax and a toothpick with a paper flag was then inserted into the wax.  The object of this enterprise was to have a boat race across a basin of water, water to which a bottle of blue ink had been added for enhanced realism.  We lined up our faces behind the boats and, on signal, began blowing them to propel them across the stormy seas.  I don't recall the outcome of the race.  I suspect my boat tipped and floundered shortly after the initial gust which launched it.

There was also that silly game of bobbing for apples in a tub of water.  

That proved to be quite difficult, to say nothing of it being rather senseless.  First of all, the apples were much too big for a little first grader's mouth to clamp onto.   Besides, the pesky apples refused to stay put.  After a few exasperating moments of futility and frustration, I did what any resourceful little human being would do:  I used the two hands God gave me and held that apple and sank my teeth into it.  In spite of the protests of the other contestants and because the attention of the older student judging the contest had apparently been diverted, I won the prize.  I could have the apple I had conquered.  But, as consolation to the losers who had not been so inventive as I, they also were given an apple.  So, really, my conscience was relieved of having to battle over that illicit victory.  It was, as I said, a silly game.

The day would come, even before the first year was over, when we would leave Amsterdam No. 4, for our family would move to a new farm and we would attend a new school; this one only about a mile from our new home. 

Although there was a neighborhood farewell party held for our family, I remember little of any farewells actually exchanged with my schoolmates or others.  The pain of parting, of course, was not really understood yet, but a sense that I would soon be leaving behind some friends was beginning to dawn on me.  The anticipation and excitement of moving, however, would far exceed that pain.  A new day with a new environment and new people in my life was about to begin.  Of that reality, too, I was only vaguely aware.  The future, of course, is always clouded in a dense, impenetrable mist, but I'm glad that even then the cloud bank toward which I was heading had been made to appear, if not exactly bright with opportunity, at least not dark and foreboding.  This balanced way of viewing the future--not unrealistically bright nor ominously dark--seems to have generally been my perspective on life ever since.  There are, no doubt, better ways to view the future, but this early pattern seems to have set the course for the rest of my earthly ventures into the unknowns of the days lying ahead.
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Chapter 8: One Room Schoolhouse - Norway Township #3

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