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From: j <>
Subject: [TNDICKSO] Sunday Afternoon Rocking
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 18:34:27 -0400


Note: This is yesterday's column. I have been visiting with family and so
it is a bit late, also next week's column may also come a bit late. Thanks
for your understanding. -jan
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"Worth Remembering" (from the Sunday Afternoon Rocking series)

There are four of the books, thin, ragged, pages yellowed and crumbling
about the edges. There is a Ray's Arithmetic, a geography text, a McGuffey
reader, and a blueback speller, all one needed in the 1880's for an
education. That they were carefully kept all these years is reason enough
to understand their importance, but the McGuffey reader tells the tale
completely and exquisitely. Long ago the danger of it falling apart must
have occurred to my great grandmother, for it has been carefully covered in
red faded cloth, the long ago stitches of a mother's hand evident in the
care taken to preserve the tool for her son's education. The books
belonged to my grandfather, a fatherless boy being raised by a widowed
mother who took in other people's laundry in an attempt to afford her son
the opportunity of walking several miles to school. And manage to do so he
did, all the way to high school, though opportunities for doing so in the
rural Tennessee community were few, and little his mother had to give him.

He showed me the tiny bundle of books long ago when I was a child, and I
marveled at their "thinness" and age. I had no basis for understanding at
the time how dearly these books must have cost for the times and the family
situation, or what great sacrifices had been made that they could be
studied. My grandfather's pride in those books was evident, but I had no
way of realizing why that was so.

In time, with an understanding of the past and my family's situation, I
would marvel at the chance he had, in the situation his family was, both
economically and geographically. I would remember the scene I had noted
throughout my childhood, an elderly man seated in a great old stuffed
chair, Bible spread out in his lap, peering through a magnifying glass to
read the words. And finally I would understand how much he regarded the
sheer ability of comprehending the words he read as a blessing many of his
situation never received. I would remember his obvious interest in so many
things around him, and how when something seemed interesting or noteworthy
to him, he would scribble a notation about it on whatever piece of paper he
had, in a sense "preserving knowledge". Much later, I would be shown the
iron wash kettle my great grandmother had soaked and steamed and scrubbed
the clothing of others in, and I would realize that my grandfather must
have remembered seeing that as a young boy, seeing her exhaustion, her hair
falling in wet sweaty strands about a flushed face, and realized the
sacrifices she made.

In contrast, my other grandfather was illiterate, and deeply longed for the
education he had missed. His family situation was very different, and
there was no one to intervene and see to it that he received one. He was
farmed out at the age of seven, and from that day forth "pulled his own
weight". He was a bright man, a carpenter who could figure in his head
faster than I could figure on paper, but he could not read. He loved books
and so his wife would read to him, long hours in the evening when he came
in exhausted from a day's work. Respect and appreciation for an education
was very much a part of his outlook as well. He understood all too well
what an opportunity it was.

I would begin to realize how that pride in an education had been very much
a part of the family. My grandfather's brother would be killed in World
War I, but before his death he would repeatedly tell the family that should
something happen, his war bonds were to be used for the education of Helen
and Hazel, his young nieces. And so they were. All of my life I heard the
adage, "A good education is something no one can take away", and those
words resounded in my head for many years as an adult. Although none of
the family has achieved great things in terms of scholarship as the world
accepts such today, all of the family surpassed my grandfathers in terms of
an education, just as they intended, and the goals for such seem to grow
with each successive generation. Yet...as the goals have grown, it seems
that the appreciation is lacking. With books and schools and teachers so
readily available, to the extent that anyone who so desires to do so and
plans for such in terms of scholarship even if finances are not available,
can have an education...it seems something is lacking.

I do not have a bundle of school books from my past that I would show my
grandchildren with pride. I have those texts, yes, but deep feeling and
reverence my grandfathers so obviously felt is simply not there. I value
education, and indeed it has been the pivotal point of my career, but a
deep reverence for it as other generations felt is lacking. I can
appreciate where my grandfathers' own deep feelings came from, and I can
understand...but I do not have the same frame of reference. My children
have even less so. Unless one has desperately longed for a thing, seen a
goal as almost impossible and the road to it impassable, one cannot
possibly appreciate what it means.

It seems ironic that the very thing the generations have worked so hard to
make available, an education, should finally be on our doorsteps, and as we
have arrived at the lighted end of the tunnel, few seem to recognize deeply
within the heart that there was ever a tunnel to progress through. It is
sad to know that perhaps the only way such can truly ever be appreciated
again, is to regress and lose the means for the majority of our population
to attend school. Those who remember such days, when a public school
education was not mandatory but cherished, when schools and learned
teachers were not many but few and far between, when a family did not
automatically enroll a student in school but instead often never bothered
to consider such, unable to spare a working body, are not many. That
generation is very nearly gone from us.

I honestly believe that unless a people understands where they have come
from, where their families have been, they may well find themselves
repeating the same lessons. All the more reason for preserving the stories,
finding ways to make the history of our families meaningful to our
children. All the more reason for telling them of the boy whose mother
sweated over an iron kettle to send her son walking several miles to
school, for telling them of the boy who was farmed out at the age of seven
and always longed to have the opportunity to walk several miles to
school. All the more reason for showing them things like a tattered
schoolbook for which a tired anxious mother once stitched carefully a faded
cloth cover...and pointing out the titles a grandmother read to a gifted
and weary carpenter who never was able to find the opportunity to learn to
read.

just a thought,
jan

Copyright ©2000JanPhilpot
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(Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be
shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety.
Thanks, jan)
Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday
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