Wild Violets by alma arthur

Author:alma arthur
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 29

Freshman Year,

Dad’s Grim News, Albert’s Death

September, the Monday after Labor Day, 1942, Jeanne and I were eagerly awaiting the big yellow school bus that would take us to Elmer E. Lyon High School in Covington, 4 miles away. We were spic and span, bright as new pennies. When we got aboard the bus, we greeted our old friends from town, and chatted with the other students. Let me tell you about this large, modern high school. It had been the inspiration of Huey P. Long and his regime to try to consolidate a lot of inadequate small town high schools around each parish and to build one modern facility that offered more to the students, and it would be cost effective as well. Students would be bused from outlying areas. St. Tammany Parish, where we lived, was the first prototype school. We were the guinea pigs that would determine if this arrangement worked. The main, stalwart brick building on two stories, held all the classrooms, a huge library and separate study hall, science lab for chemistry, a home economics department, complete with stoves, refrigerators, and sewing machines, a business section complete with typewriters, shorthand room, mimeograph and stencil cutting rooms, four large locker rooms, and the piece of resistance was the huge gymnasium with its’ gleaming hard oak floor and balconies on three sides. There were banks of windows on the second level with space for chairs and/or tables underneath. The gym was tall enough for the wildest volleyball shot. It was also the assembly hall for all meetings. At one end of the humongous gym was the elevated stage, used by the drama department and for the debate team, etc. The Phys Ed teachers used the gym to teach volleyball, basketball and tumbling, etc. We held all the parish basketball tournaments there, and at lunch time, after eating, the students could insert slugs to play the jukebox and dance. I mustn’t forget the large dining room for lunches prepared by local volunteers in a wonderfully equipped kitchen facility. The school had volunteer gleaners who picked the remnants of crops; parents who picked up contributions from local grocery stores, accepted donations from farmers who had excesses of farm yields. The meats and other necessary food items needed for a balanced diet were purchased with the small charge from sales of baked goods or knit and crocheted items, or many times, gifts from local butchers. Each meal was ten cents, and 5 cents for a pint of milk. Those were the days when ordinary citizens volunteered with no thought of pay, and the days before ridiculous governmental regulations disallowed volunteers to prepare the food, but it was also a time when many a poor student who couldn’t afford it, received at least one substantial meal per day. There were no cold cuts or sandwiches. Each week’s menu was planned and consisted of a hearty portion of meat in the form of stew, chops, roast beef or pork, chicken; there were 3 or 4 vegetables to choose from, as well as white or sweet potatoes or rice.

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