Good Fences

This white picket fence stands elegantly in front of the New Era School. New Era is a restored 1884 one room school house that was dismantled and moved seven miles to its present location. It is now a museum to days gone by when the conveniences of modern schools were nonexistent. The New Era School has maintained the integrity of its time with original desks, pot-bellied stove, slate chalkboards, oiled floors, pump, outhouse, and coal shed. You can see the coal shed to the right of the school and the outhouse is out back on the left. The school is open on Tuesdays during the summer months for tours. Admission is free. The school stands adjacent to the local elementary school. In May the school children will take part in May Day activities at the New Era school including an old fashioned maypole dance.  

Years ago my parents had a choice when it was time for me to begin my school career. They were informed I could ride the bus into “town” to go to the public elementary school there or the bus would drop me off about halfway there at a small one room school house. My parents chose the town school. Every day the bus would stop and drop off those students attending the one room school and then off to town the rest of us would go. I attended school in that one building from grade one to grade eight. I liked school and have many wonderful memories of those elementary years.

However, I still often wonder what it would have been like in that little one room school house. Everyday as we stopped to get those other students we could anticipate a glorious story of something that had happened. We heard who fell in the creek, a story about the, um, – outhouse, the baseball games or tag. I particularly remember there were many stories about a young boy who was always getting into something. He was a little cross-eyed and the boys had a running joke about his antics. They always said,”It would have killed any ordinary man.” And, always we heard their laughter each and every day.

I’m not sure if those students missed out on anything; but I think maybe I did.

Linking to Good Fences and Weekly Top Shot