MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XI
BIG YELLOW SCHOOL BUS
Part II
While we always called the road Blue Town Road, it was actually Camp Road. Blue Creek Road is about a half mile from the camp and goes up a hollow that would take you to the hard road at the top of Dunns Hill if you followed the cowtrack on up the hill. Just before you get to Blue Creek Road coming from Sandy, there is a hill and a longish run around the hill to get back down to Blue Creek.
Whenever we had a good rain, the road in this stretch became very muddy--greasy, we used to say. It was mainly red clay mud and the gravel washed off soon as it was applied. If the gravel didn't wash off, it was ground down into the clay by the traffic anyway, so it did no good. As we were such a studious and conscientious lot, we naturally hoped there would be no untoward occurrences as the bus navigated this tricky little piece of landscape during such times. No one likes to be stuck out on a hillside waiting for a tow when they could be safely ensconced in a warm classroom learning to decline a Latin verb or proving that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides (and thank you, too, Pythagoras.)
Sure. And God didn't make little green apples, either.
When it got good and soupy and the bus made its' way up to the top of the hill, we all hoped that the brother and sister who lived almost to the top of the hill were going to school that day. For if they did, the bus had to stop to pick them up and then go into low gear and that was always a potential slide in a coach that long. Never would we think of doing a "student body left" while the driver tried vainly to keep it out of the ditch. Never. Always. And about 50 % of the time it worked.
It was always too muddy to get outside so we sat and sang songs or whatever else suited our fancies until they brought a tow truck, tractor or another bus (seldom--why get another bus in the ditch?) Besides, we were guaranteed to be at least an hour late getting to school. Eventually (after a couple of years) they got smart and overloaded the area with gravel and stone--and then they changed the route so we didn't go that way anymore.
Of course, that was not the only place the bus got hung up. Ferguson Ridge Road was always a great place for it to happen also. This road, once the top of the ridge was breasted, was pure red clay, all the way from the top of the hill at the cemetery to old schoolhouse. And there was the place where the bus got hung up regularly, especially in the spring of the year.
The bus had to be turned around here, and the driver went just beyond the schoolhouse and then backed in beside it, made a few back and forth moves, and then made a sharp right turn and was on the way back out the ridge toward the hard road. There was a large tree in just the wrong place and the driver had to turn the wheel a little left and get the side clear of the tree before he could go on out. The schoolhouse was built on fill dirt that had been shoved over the hill and then leveled for the site.
If it had been raining for a while, the dirt turned to pure red clay mud, slick and soft and the back end of the bus would sink . The more the driver tried to move, the farther it sank. When this occurred, we had to wait for an extended length of time since this was at the very end of the route in terms of distance from the garage, plus the fact that there were no telephones in the area, and this was long before the advent of cb radio or cell phones. So we had to wait for someone coming by on the road to even send for help. There was a road just across Ferguson Ridge Road that went down the hill into the next county, but in all my years of being around there, I only saw a vehicle on it one time, and that was a huge logging truck.
The only help was to catch someone driving down off the ridge and have them call the garage. Now there were kids from only three families that we picked up at that stop and they had walked upwards of a mile to get there. There were no telephones and the traffic was very light, most of their fathers had already gone to work before the bus ever got there, and most families only had the one vehicle, if they had one at all. We sat there, on occasion, as long as three hours before the folks at the garage realized we were stuck somewhere. Then they had to run the route backwards to find us. Once or twice a logging truck happened by and pulled us out.
This schoolhouse was a one-room school that had been closed and consolidated into Maple Creek Elementary the year that I was in the fifth grade. We picked up about fifteen kids from that closure and another fifteen or so from the closing of Upper Buck and ten more from Lower Buck (my cousin was the teacher at Upper Buck when it closed.) The board had added one more room to Maple Creek Elementary and had expanded the kitchen to accommodate the influx of students. After the addition of these three schools, Maple Creek Elementary had about eighty kids altogether.
The old schoolhouse on Ferguson Ridge then became a church. I have no idea what denomination this church was supposed to be. And, for my brothers and I, and a few other folks, too, the easiest way to get to the church was to go up to the head of Maple Creek and ascend the old road to the top of the hill whee the church was located. At one time, that old road was capable of being negotiated by old time automobiles, then by trucks only and then by jeep only and by the time I was old enough to know anything, by horse or foot only, after a slip developed and took three-quarters of the roadway with it. That road had been the main way to get to Ferguson Ridge back in the 1920's and 1930's but fell into disrepair during the 1930's and the war years. Going by foot for us was a trip of about one-and-a-half miles from our house to the church.
The other way of course was to go out to the hard road, north on the hard road for about a mile then up Ferguson Ridge Road for about three miles, for a total trip of about five miles. So it was natural for us to go up our hollow and up the hill. About halfway up this hill, there was a pool of water just off the old road. This pool had some of the best tasting water in those parts, especially when you were climbing that hill. I don't know how it tasted when you were descending the hill, because I never needed it then. And as I grew older I realized that drinking that water may not have been such a good idea anyway, as you never knew who had been up and down that hill before you or what they may have done in their travels.
After the church had been established for a while, they decided to put a big press on to reap the large number of young people who came to the church but spent most of the time outside socializing. Their method was to sponsor weiner roasts (ok, we called them weenie roasts.) All the swells and not-so-swells attended these functions, as well as a large number of the local girls. As it was church-sponsored, no one thought of bringing in anything alcoholic (unless you looked in a few of the cars.) On the whole, everyone was very well-behaved, even the normal adolescent and post-adolescent profanity was muted. One fellow did ask the preacher for a 'church key' one night, but that was not too bad (as a matter of fact, the preacher pulled one out of his pocket and handed it to him.) The food was good, the company better and everyone had a good time. Sure beat those school-sponsored 'socials.'
The better part of these get-togethers was that there was nothing else going on at the time in the area. The weenie roasts were held on summer and early fall evenings when it was warm, but not hot, out on top of the ridge, and were welcome diversions for all the locals. Plus, there was no preaching, no altar calls, no pleas to come to the Lord. Just a social get-together where all were welcome. After the church folks left, it got a little looser, but even then was pretty well controlled.
Coming home we usually walked off the hill by the road so we could stop at the little drive-in restaurant at the end of the road at the hard road. Here we could listen to good country music, drink a pop and talk--plus see who else was hanging out that night. Most nights we had one of our unmarried uncles and a bunch of friends and a looney guy from down at the bottom of the hill walking with us. Local folks said he had a steel plate in his head as a result of a prior injury. He acted half-crazy and his grandfather was the local bootlegger. He'd walk along telling wild tales and occasionally screaming at the top of his lungs. When he was quiet, which happened sometimes, it was very peaceful to listen to the crickets and katydids and all the tree frogs calling out in the night.
My brother used to tell the tale that when he was hunting one day, he happened to be near the old mans' still. The revenuers had been there and smashed the still and upended the barrels of mash and the drippings had flowed into the sluggish little stream that flowed out of the hollow and joined another creek to form the northern branch of Maple Creek. Some of the old mans' cattle had wandered down to get a drink from the creek and had sampled some of that white lightning. He said they were stumbling and weaving and falling down from the effects. Just like the men who drank it did.
Part II
While we always called the road Blue Town Road, it was actually Camp Road. Blue Creek Road is about a half mile from the camp and goes up a hollow that would take you to the hard road at the top of Dunns Hill if you followed the cowtrack on up the hill. Just before you get to Blue Creek Road coming from Sandy, there is a hill and a longish run around the hill to get back down to Blue Creek.
Whenever we had a good rain, the road in this stretch became very muddy--greasy, we used to say. It was mainly red clay mud and the gravel washed off soon as it was applied. If the gravel didn't wash off, it was ground down into the clay by the traffic anyway, so it did no good. As we were such a studious and conscientious lot, we naturally hoped there would be no untoward occurrences as the bus navigated this tricky little piece of landscape during such times. No one likes to be stuck out on a hillside waiting for a tow when they could be safely ensconced in a warm classroom learning to decline a Latin verb or proving that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides (and thank you, too, Pythagoras.)
Sure. And God didn't make little green apples, either.
When it got good and soupy and the bus made its' way up to the top of the hill, we all hoped that the brother and sister who lived almost to the top of the hill were going to school that day. For if they did, the bus had to stop to pick them up and then go into low gear and that was always a potential slide in a coach that long. Never would we think of doing a "student body left" while the driver tried vainly to keep it out of the ditch. Never. Always. And about 50 % of the time it worked.
It was always too muddy to get outside so we sat and sang songs or whatever else suited our fancies until they brought a tow truck, tractor or another bus (seldom--why get another bus in the ditch?) Besides, we were guaranteed to be at least an hour late getting to school. Eventually (after a couple of years) they got smart and overloaded the area with gravel and stone--and then they changed the route so we didn't go that way anymore.
Of course, that was not the only place the bus got hung up. Ferguson Ridge Road was always a great place for it to happen also. This road, once the top of the ridge was breasted, was pure red clay, all the way from the top of the hill at the cemetery to old schoolhouse. And there was the place where the bus got hung up regularly, especially in the spring of the year.
The bus had to be turned around here, and the driver went just beyond the schoolhouse and then backed in beside it, made a few back and forth moves, and then made a sharp right turn and was on the way back out the ridge toward the hard road. There was a large tree in just the wrong place and the driver had to turn the wheel a little left and get the side clear of the tree before he could go on out. The schoolhouse was built on fill dirt that had been shoved over the hill and then leveled for the site.
If it had been raining for a while, the dirt turned to pure red clay mud, slick and soft and the back end of the bus would sink . The more the driver tried to move, the farther it sank. When this occurred, we had to wait for an extended length of time since this was at the very end of the route in terms of distance from the garage, plus the fact that there were no telephones in the area, and this was long before the advent of cb radio or cell phones. So we had to wait for someone coming by on the road to even send for help. There was a road just across Ferguson Ridge Road that went down the hill into the next county, but in all my years of being around there, I only saw a vehicle on it one time, and that was a huge logging truck.
The only help was to catch someone driving down off the ridge and have them call the garage. Now there were kids from only three families that we picked up at that stop and they had walked upwards of a mile to get there. There were no telephones and the traffic was very light, most of their fathers had already gone to work before the bus ever got there, and most families only had the one vehicle, if they had one at all. We sat there, on occasion, as long as three hours before the folks at the garage realized we were stuck somewhere. Then they had to run the route backwards to find us. Once or twice a logging truck happened by and pulled us out.
This schoolhouse was a one-room school that had been closed and consolidated into Maple Creek Elementary the year that I was in the fifth grade. We picked up about fifteen kids from that closure and another fifteen or so from the closing of Upper Buck and ten more from Lower Buck (my cousin was the teacher at Upper Buck when it closed.) The board had added one more room to Maple Creek Elementary and had expanded the kitchen to accommodate the influx of students. After the addition of these three schools, Maple Creek Elementary had about eighty kids altogether.
The old schoolhouse on Ferguson Ridge then became a church. I have no idea what denomination this church was supposed to be. And, for my brothers and I, and a few other folks, too, the easiest way to get to the church was to go up to the head of Maple Creek and ascend the old road to the top of the hill whee the church was located. At one time, that old road was capable of being negotiated by old time automobiles, then by trucks only and then by jeep only and by the time I was old enough to know anything, by horse or foot only, after a slip developed and took three-quarters of the roadway with it. That road had been the main way to get to Ferguson Ridge back in the 1920's and 1930's but fell into disrepair during the 1930's and the war years. Going by foot for us was a trip of about one-and-a-half miles from our house to the church.
The other way of course was to go out to the hard road, north on the hard road for about a mile then up Ferguson Ridge Road for about three miles, for a total trip of about five miles. So it was natural for us to go up our hollow and up the hill. About halfway up this hill, there was a pool of water just off the old road. This pool had some of the best tasting water in those parts, especially when you were climbing that hill. I don't know how it tasted when you were descending the hill, because I never needed it then. And as I grew older I realized that drinking that water may not have been such a good idea anyway, as you never knew who had been up and down that hill before you or what they may have done in their travels.
After the church had been established for a while, they decided to put a big press on to reap the large number of young people who came to the church but spent most of the time outside socializing. Their method was to sponsor weiner roasts (ok, we called them weenie roasts.) All the swells and not-so-swells attended these functions, as well as a large number of the local girls. As it was church-sponsored, no one thought of bringing in anything alcoholic (unless you looked in a few of the cars.) On the whole, everyone was very well-behaved, even the normal adolescent and post-adolescent profanity was muted. One fellow did ask the preacher for a 'church key' one night, but that was not too bad (as a matter of fact, the preacher pulled one out of his pocket and handed it to him.) The food was good, the company better and everyone had a good time. Sure beat those school-sponsored 'socials.'
The better part of these get-togethers was that there was nothing else going on at the time in the area. The weenie roasts were held on summer and early fall evenings when it was warm, but not hot, out on top of the ridge, and were welcome diversions for all the locals. Plus, there was no preaching, no altar calls, no pleas to come to the Lord. Just a social get-together where all were welcome. After the church folks left, it got a little looser, but even then was pretty well controlled.
Coming home we usually walked off the hill by the road so we could stop at the little drive-in restaurant at the end of the road at the hard road. Here we could listen to good country music, drink a pop and talk--plus see who else was hanging out that night. Most nights we had one of our unmarried uncles and a bunch of friends and a looney guy from down at the bottom of the hill walking with us. Local folks said he had a steel plate in his head as a result of a prior injury. He acted half-crazy and his grandfather was the local bootlegger. He'd walk along telling wild tales and occasionally screaming at the top of his lungs. When he was quiet, which happened sometimes, it was very peaceful to listen to the crickets and katydids and all the tree frogs calling out in the night.
My brother used to tell the tale that when he was hunting one day, he happened to be near the old mans' still. The revenuers had been there and smashed the still and upended the barrels of mash and the drippings had flowed into the sluggish little stream that flowed out of the hollow and joined another creek to form the northern branch of Maple Creek. Some of the old mans' cattle had wandered down to get a drink from the creek and had sampled some of that white lightning. He said they were stumbling and weaving and falling down from the effects. Just like the men who drank it did.
posted by tanstaafl | 2:07 PM
2 Comments:
I had to laugh at "student body left". Smart group of young'uns, lol
I resemble that remark!
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