Memories…Oh, How They Linger

Back: Roger Davis, Don Earl Milliken, Franky Bowlby Front: Wayne Holbert, Lonnie Stillwell, Jim Emerson, Tommy Bowlby, Eddie Lumsden

by Eddie Lumsden

I can still visualize the two-door Ford pulling up to our home. Mrs. Wanda Furlong, a teacher would stop and give me a ride to school. She was one of many ladies who taught in the rural school districts.

It was a simpler time. The color coded card for the ice man was in the window. I had to feed our milk cow before school. The reward was that I knew how good the milk and real butter would be when my Dad brought in the fresh milk and my Mother would make that good butter for the delicious biscuits she baked.

It was a time when there were very few televisions and telephones. It was also a time when transportation was not always so simple. Many days we rode in the back of a pickup truck with sides and a top made of canvas.

Our conversations included sharing what we had heard on the radio the night before, including The Green Hornet and Boston Blackie. Later, with the advent of more televisions, the topics became Cowboy Corral and Superman.

Springtime was exciting because we could roll up the canvas cover and also go to school barefooted. Other students rode bicycles, horses, drove a Model T Ford and occasionally the family car. One family had to walk to school, rain or shine, because someone in town decided that if you lived close to the school then the pickup would not pick them up. I remember that family, in their yellow rain suits, trudging in the mud to the school. Some of the parents quickly managed to change that rule.

The schoolhouse site was on one acre of land. In later years another acre was provided because a larger playground was needed. We had a swing set and a slide, but the creative games were the most fun: pummeling each other with sacks of straw and other physically challenging activities. Amazingly, the injuries were very few. A lot of education was acquired by talking on the playground, especially under the tree on the southwest corner. Boys actually made stammering efforts to talk to the girls. The tree remains there today.

Inside the schoolhouse, education and discipline were both present, always. When I was there, we had two lady teachers, one teaching grades 1-3 in the Little Room and one teaching grades 4-6 in the Big Room. While other grades were having class, the rest of us “got our lessons”. Yes, there were whippings for getting into trouble but there were no serious confrontations because we knew that if we did something wrong we would be in more trouble when we got home. In today’s terms, that was rural education “shock and awe”, only we knew it then by “fear and respect”. I remember the absolute fun we had growing up together at that school, but always knowing that we had to behave.

I remember the old piano. Sarah Parker would pound those keys and the singing would commence. When I play the piano today I still think back to the example she set of loving the music and making people feel good.

The Halloween parties were fun. I remember one year I was cleverly disguised as a scarecrow and tried to hug Mrs. Ragsdale. Big mistake. She stayed in professional mode, even during the parties.

During the Christmas parties my Dad, Buck Lumsden, was a big hit playing the role of Santa, to the point that even I did not realize that it was him for a while.

One of the more popular events was the box lunch or pie suppers. It was a lot of fun watching men bid on the silhouette behind the screen and not knowing who they were going to share a lunch or pie with.

As I walk through the schoolhouse today I have many recollections. I remember the teacher writing a capital N on the wall beside my desk in the Little Room. For years I would think about that when deciding which direction was north. I remember the flash cards that were used for teaching arithmetic. I remember that Biff the Fire Dog was my favorite book. I remember performing a little country jig in my new cowboy boots to Turkey in the Straw on stage. I remember when a lot of us got into trouble when someone told the teacher that we were having distance and no accuracy contests in the boys’ outhouse. I still wonder what happened to that metal school bell with the wooden handle that sat on the teacher’s desk. My most precious memory is that of growing up with other country kids, playing in the dust, imprinting an indelible bond of friendship, and being a part of a value system given to us by our teachers and parents that prepared us for whatever challenges and opportunities were to lie ahead.

I am eternally grateful to my parents, O.C. “Buck” Lumsden and Frances Stephenson Lumsden, who were so supportive of the Bayou Meto School and the people of our community. They, along with many other parents, were the backbone of our school system. There were very few government programs and certainly not much money. The teachers were paid 80 to 120 dollars per month. The residents of our area made sure that we had everything that we needed to receive the best rural education possible. They accomplished this in spite of wars, floods, and economical depression. That undeniable spirit was passed on to us and it still lives today through every student who attended the Bayou Meto School.

This story was included in the Bayou Meto School Reunion book for that event on October 5, 2013.

Eddie’s Dad, Buck Lumsden, plays Santa for Bayou Meto School students.

Mrs. Myrtle Ragsdale, Bayou Meto School Teacher