Delwin Days

I recently posted an old photo of the student body of Delwin during my eighth grade year.  Looking at all those faces brought back some good memories and I though I would share one of them with you today.

When we moved to Paducah in the early fifties Daddy started farming.  He made some pretty good crops the first few years, then the drought of 50's hit.  We lived on a dry land farm with no irrigation and after a couple of failures he realized that he needed to generate some income.  Dad had attended college up until half way through his junior year and, like so many others, had to leave when WWII started in full swing.  During that time he married, they had me and the rest was history.  He tried working at several jobs, but soon came to the realization that he needed the freedom to make his own decisions and, with the help of his Dad, bought a little farm in Cottle County.  

Because he had the college credits he contacted the County Superintendent, Jessie Thomas, and asked about a teaching position in one of the several country schools in the county.  She hired him and he went to summer school at West Texas State to get emergency teaching credentials.  He then began a four year teaching career at Delwin Elementary and Junior High.  
Let me set the picture for you.  Through my "meanderings" I will have many Delwin stories for you.  This was a school about 10 or 12 miles south of Paducah.  Our farm and house was about 7 miles east of Paducah.  This school averaged around 35 students, grades 1 through 8.  Dad taught 6, 7, 8 in one room and a sweet little maiden lady, Miss Amburn, taught the remaining students in another.  After the first year they added a 3d teacher, Helen Joyce Harrison.  She taught 4th and 5th in another room.  Dad was the principal, teacher, janitor and bus driver.  Mom cooked and ran the cafeteria.  It was a brick one story building with about 4 or 5 (as I recall) classrooms, each with a cloak room.  There was the cafeteria and an enclosed low ceiling gym with a small stage on the end.  Again, if memory serves me, there was one restroom which the girls used and a two seater outhouse for the boys.  There was a "bus barn" on the premises as well.  Daddy taught here long enough to earn enough money to build a new house and to drill an irrigation well.  

That's the set up.  When you read future stories about Delwin this will give you a mental picture.  They were glorious days.

This is one story.
Because Katy and I were in school we attended Delwin as well.  Katy was actually too young (5), but they put her in class.  There was no kindergarten back in the day.  I was in the 6th grade.  Rather than having to drive so far back and forth we lived in a very small house that they had for the teacher.  It was a 3 room square house consisting of front bedroom/living room, small bedroom and the kitchen.  There was no hot water and no bathroom facilities.  Mom and Katy used a chamber pot behind the door and Dad and I had to traipse outside to a small one hole outhouse that had been crudely erected.  It was in this outhouse that this story is about.  
This particular outhouse was not one of those fancy "cement" (accent on the 'ce') outhouses.  It was erected on flat ground and did not have a pit under it.  As a result it had to be raked or shoveled out pretty often.  Those of you who have experienced the joys of outhouses can relate.  If there is a cold breeze blowing you can freeze your butt off pretty quickly.  However, the first rule of outhouses is to ALWAYS LOOK DOWN BEFORE YOU SIT DOWN.  You are always on the outlook for spiders or other critters  and you don't want to dangle your nether regions over a hole you had not inspected!  Also keep in mind that Dad and I only used it for number 2 activities.  Number 1 was just behind the garage.  Being raised on a farm makes this inherent in us.  We never ran home just take a leak! 

One fine day I strolled out to the outhouse for a commune, dropped trousers and looked down.  I was horrified to see that that was a rather large snake under the sitting hole!  He looked at me, I looked at him and I took off like a shot!

"Daddy, Daddy! There's a snake in the outhouse!" I screamed while hastily hauling up my pants.  

Dad came charging out of the house to help remedy the situation!  My hero!  He grabbed his gun and he ran to the outhouse.

Did I mention it was a shotgun?

I followed along behind him.  Dad lifted the gun, stuck it down the hole and FIRED!
Excrement flew up, coating both of us and it was rather like a brown hurricane.
We looked down just in time to see the snake slithering away.

He had missed.

We did not speak of this for a long time, but it later because one of our favorite stories.  The day Daddy missed the snake in the hole in the outhouse.

Jumping off the end of the pier

Well, here it is.  This is my first foray in the blog world and I hope I have done it correctly.  This is a trial run.
In order to clear the air and to understand my intent in putting this out there I want to go on record that this is going to be a random effort.  There might be times that i will follow a topic and have followups and other times it will be something off the cuff dealing with a feeling or experience.  It might also be character sketches of people I have known in my life.  I assure you that it will never be mean spirited.  I will make attempts to vary the subjects to include humorous, thoughtful, or subjects just for the hell of it!  There will be anecdotes, observations and certain pieces that I have written in the past.  I hope you enjoy them.
I am a Texas boy, born and bred.  I was raised in a farming and ranching community right off the Caprock and at the base of Panhandle.  I am a product of my "raising" and I definitely reflect that.  My personality was formed by my father, Roy Neal, who was and is my hero.  My interpersonal skills are based on what I learned from him.  The first thing I learned is that listening is more important than speaking followed by always being respectful and kind.  Often before I act I consider WWDD, What Would Daddy Do.  For the most part it has always served me well.  
Now that I have that out of the way I will finish this post.  From this point forward if you chose to read any further it will just have to be a surprise!  
Here I go…...