Editor’s Note: A version of this column was published July 1, 2018.
When I was “knee high to a grasshopper,” as my Uncle JT used to call me, I lived with my mother and two brothers in a small farming town in Middle Tennessee. Mom taught at the only school there.
It was a three-story dark brick building that sat on this side of Catheys Creek and across a dirt road from Widow Thompson’s cornfield. Mature oak and sycamore trees surrounded it.
Children of the county’s farming families went there, first through 12th grades all under one roof. Poor, but proud.
Dedicated Christian women, dressed like Louisa May Alcott, taught them their three Rs as best they could. In the mornings, just after the bell rang, everybody stood up, faced the flag that hung just above the chalkboard and with great clarity pledged allegiance to it. They had prayer sessions and faith-based discussions in the classrooms twice a day. Those kids may not have conquered algebra, but they knew their Bible and were proud to be Americans.