Guest Blogger- Grandpa A: Life In The Wisconsin Northwoods Beginning 1927, The Christmas Season Story Two

Lessons Learned: Guest Blogger- Grandpa A

It All Happened In A One Room Country School: The Christmas Program

The Christmas Program was the academic drama production of the year, and all of the uncles and aunts, grandparents, and friends, as well as the parents attended. Every child had a part, and every child was also a part of the choir. The children sang Christmas carols and other Christmas songs. The music was everyone’s favorite and each and every child had a chance to be a soloist. The singing was followed by the pageant. The pageant was either a humorous story celebrating the joy of the season, or it was The Christmas Story from the Bible, complete with the wisemen, the shepherds, and the manger scene including the Christ Child. There was no attempt to separate church and state; life was much simpler when I was growing up. At the end of the program, one of Santa’s helpers appeared and gave candy to everyone. We all knew that this Santa’s helper was the kind neighbor who happened to have a red Santa’s helper suit. His appearance at the conclusion of the program, and the treats he shared always brought great excitement and happiness to all. It was a much anticipated, very joy-filled event that we so enjoyed year after year.

Guest Blogger-Grandpa A: Life In The Wisconsin Northwoods Beginning 1927, The Christmas Season

Lessons Learned: Guest Blogger- Grandpa A.

It All Happened In A One Room Country School:

 The Christmas Season

(This week is Grandpa A's 87th birthday! With pure joy and rapt attention, we hear Grandpa's incredible stories about growing up in the Wisconsin Northwoods and then offer them to you here as a sweet glimpse into the heritage by which we have all been touched. Be blessed by Grandpa A's birthday gift to all of you in this first of a three part Christmas Blog.)

The Christmas Season started the first week in December. The Christmas Tree had to be chopped down, taken to school, and decorated. The Christmas Pageant had to be prepared and presented at the Christmas Program, which was always some evening between the 15th and the 20th of December. The school room had to be decorated, and the stage needed to be built in the front of the room. The stage was constructed of perhaps a dozen 3/4 inch by 4 feet by 7 feet storm doors which were usually used to cover the windows when the school wasn't being used. The dozen doors were placed on top of wood saw horses that were about one foot high. Every country school had a Christmas Program, so scheduling became important as some grandparents had kin in three or four schools, and they certainly did not want to miss any of their grandkids' performances.

Guest Blogger- Grandpa A: Life In The Wisconsin Northwoods Beginning 1927, Janitor

Lessons Learned: Guest Blogger- Grandpa A

It All Happened In A One Room Country School: Janitor

Janitorial Service was done by students on a monthly basis; consisting of many responsibilities. The janitor was responsible for  opening the school at 7:30AM, building a fire in the stove when necessary, and keeping the wood fire going to heat the building. After school each day, the blackboards had to be washed, the waste paper baskets had to be emptied, the paper towel containers had to be filled, the drinking bubblers had to be emptied and cleaned, the floors had to be swept, and toilet paper had to be put in the outhouses as needed. The path to the school and to the outhouses had to be cleared of snow in the winter. The wood box in the school had to be kept full of wood. The water bubbler had to be kept full of water, which had to be pumped from the water pump in the pump house in front of the schoolhouse. At the end of the school day, the building had to be locked by the janitor. At the end of each month, the janitor needed to wash the floor and attend to other cleaning needs.  I served as the janitor for two years; during both fifth grade and sixth grade. The monthly compensation for the janitor was $6.00 for the spring and fall months and $8.00 for the winter months, with an additional $2.00 compensation for each end-of-the-month cleaning. This was big money in those days, and, in my case, it enabled me to buy a $21.95 red bike from Montgomery Ward. This new bike had a light on the front fender and a carrier for a passenger over the rear wheel. Nobody else had a new bike. I was a pretty lucky guy.

Guest Blogger- Grandpa A: Life In The Wisconsin Northwoods Beginning 1927, Anee-I-Over

Lessons Learned: Guest Blogger- Grandpa A

It All Happened In A One Room School: Anee-I-Over

Anee-I-Over is not big in the Olympics; in fact, it’s not included in the phy ed program in any of our schools or colleges. It was big, however, in One Room Schools of yesterday because they had no gyms, no swing sets, no merry-go-rounds  or baseball diamonds, and no coaches, only a three acre field with a schoolhouse, a woodshed, a pump house, and two outdoor toilets, one for the girls and one for the boys. Who could ask for anything else?

Anee-I-Over was an outside game and could be played with as few as two people, however, the excitement heightened when you had four or five on each side. The only equipment needed was a rubber ball about the size of a tennis ball. The game started when half of the players lined up on one side of the schoolhouse building and the other half were on the other side of the building. One player would throw the ball over the roof of the building, and one of the players on the other side would catch the ball before it hit the ground or on the first bounce. The object of the game then was to run around the building and hit one of the other side’s players with the ball. Half of the catching team would run around the school building one way and the other half of the catching team would run around the school building the other way. No one on the throwing team knew who had the ball, so trickery and deception and an accurate throw served well. As a player on the throwing team was hit by the ball, he became a member of the catching team. This game was good for both recesses, the lunch hour, and before classes started in the morning.

Guest Blogger- Grandpa A: Life In The Wisconsin Northwoods Beginning 1927

Lessons Learned: Guest Blogger- Grandpa A.

The One Room Schoolhouse

A journal is a daily record of events and observations that occur. My journal should have begun sometime around September 1, 1932 when I started first grade and I learned how to write or print.  My first grade teacher, Miss Carlson, at the Carl Von Linnea School, would not be pleased with the progress I made in writing if she were to read my writing today. That first year was a learning experience for me and my other 13 classmates. Most of the country school teachers had two years of college education, and in many cases, the teachers were not much older than some of the eighth grade students. I recall there were five in my first grade class. Four of the five graduated from college and one became an MD. The teacher taught all grades and all classes, taught music, drama, phy ed, supervised the cleaning, the heating, and was in charge of discipline. I don’t recall my problem, but I remember spending a good deal of time standing in the corner in the front of the classroom. We lived over three miles from school. One of the parents, Enoch Johnson, converted his car to a bus and transported those of us from the Minnesuing area to school.

The Back Story Of The Song "L-O-V-E"

Lessons Learned…

The UW Madison University Hospital School

In the midst of IV’s, hospital gowns, doctors, nurses, therapists, and colorful artwork on the walls, there was a school right there in that enormous pediatric unit. Student-patients came faithfully to the hospital  classroom every chance they had because keeping up with homework kept each one thinking forward to the glorious reunion with friends and teachers and coaches in the hometown schools they each longed for.  Having health and strength to attend school and participate each day in every part of school was indeed the hopeful dream of these student- patients.  A hopeful dream not recognized at all as such by those students who have never had to study and learn in the hospital school.  It’s so easy to take for granted things that are easy and good and ours, but things can change as the wind blows. Change, expected or unexpected, often serves to bring perspective.  These dear, brave student-patients longed for school. One particular day, I was asked to do bedside tutoring with a student-patient who wouldn’t come to the school; everything hurt and everything was wrong.  She didn’t want to talk, so we just sat that day and for the next few, as well. Homework was pointless, she asserted. Okay. Interested in singing? I ventured the suggestion without making eye contact. Stupid. Too loud. Silent sitting resumed. The next day, I offered, singing in sign language because it wouldn’t make any noise. With a combination of incredulity and hilarity and contempt, our first eye contact occurred. What? Come on, it will be fun, and I wrote this song for you. L-O-V-E, love is special, a song just for her. It worked. She loved it. We learned it and continued to sing it silently on my every visit to her room. When she got tired of singing it, she let me help her with homework.  Eventually, she agreed to come to the hospital school only to help me teach her song to the other student-patients. She thought it would make them happy and she was pretty certain I couldn’t teach it as well as she could. She was absolutely right.

She taught me about courage and honesty and perspective and connection and love and joy even in the pain. My song for her is one I have shared every Valentine’s Day since then with the students in my own classroom. Should you desire to share this song with your children, grandchildren, or students, LOVE can be found at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store, called "Arts Infusion Collaborative," for which there is a link on the top right side of my blog. Blessings to you and Happy Valentine's Day!

What to do with six more weeks of winter weather...

Lessons Learned

On The Toboggan

Out the back door of our home in the country was a gigantic hill covered with trees, bushes, and berries of various sorts, and wandering circuitously through them all were paths, some secret and some not as secret. These paths were the routes to countless adventures upon which the children, grandchildren, Labrador Retrievers, and other friends would meanderingly rove throughout all four very distinct seasons of the year. But one particular path contained no winds or bends; it was stick straight. It was the fastest way to the bottom of the hill, and it was the winter season’s path of choice among the crowd of adventurers. It was the toboggan run, this path that was carved straight down through the trees. Upon this path, upon the toboggan, the riding team could quickly gain enough speed to send the forested world whizzing past in a white and chilly blur of excitement. With dogs frolicking and barking, pig-tails and snow wildly flying, raucous laughter rippling among the woods, and several evel knievel cousin toboggan drivers taking turns at the helm, time danced away on the wintery breeze for these rosy-cheeked adventurers on the back of the toboggan. Once through the trees that hugged the steep, straight path, the toboggan would burst out full-steam into the vast open field that rolled in gentle downward waves across twenty acres.  Hanging on to each other  fiercely yet hilariously with woolen-mitted hands, carefully keeping all appendages tucked safely and streamliningly onboard, the esprit-de-corps riders enthusiastically chased the previous riders’ path hoping beyond hope to exceed their distance record. Then together, with all woolly hands on the rope, the rider team, knee deep or more in snow, would lug the beloved toboggan back to the hilltop for another greatly anticipated run by another anxiously awaiting rider team.  Over and over and over and over again we learned to play, to share, to help, to be on a team, to love the outdoors, to take turns and be glad for each other, to drive, to ride, and that laughter and cousins and winter are another perfect recipe for awesomeness.

The Kind, Wise, Gentle Farmer...

Lessons Learned…

At The Farm

We were city kids. We lived about twenty blocks from Lambeau Field, to be exact. We walked to school, biked around the block on  straight flat sidewalks, played kick-the-can with all of the tons of neighbor kids rambunctiously and delightfully swarming the area, regularly ran very profitable lemonade stands, and trick or treated and Christmas caroled door to door at a hundred very welcoming, close-at-hand doors. Then we moved. Twenty-five acres of rolling hills, wildlife-filled ravines, rows and rows of planted oats, alfalfa, and corn, endless sky with endless stars at night, and the sounds of farm animals going about their days. From paradise to paradise.  Urban to rural. Crowded, noisy and energized to spacious, still and free. Loved both worlds, but especially loved the new one. The gentle farmer across the road became our unknowing teacher of textbook-transcending lessons. In his faithful living, working, caring, patience, he shared the pure beauty of simplicity and selflessness. He never said much, but his living said it all. He and his dear wife never really officially invited us city-slicker kids to serve as slightly incompetent but ever so enthusiastically willing farmhands, yet every day in the summer to his farm we would race to offer our hands. And every day, his nod and his big smile said come on in. During those precious summers we learned about life and death, the passing of seasons, planting and reaping, making do, improvising, waiting expectantly, and countless life-impacting lessons as deep and rich as the good soil itself. Farming is a life of tremendous faith and unshakable optimism; the sun will return to warm and light the earth each morning, and spring, at the appointed time, will always awaken and emerge from under the silent blanket of winter. Under the wise farmer’s tutelage, these city kids became country kids.