From the Home Place

October 31, 2025

28 degrees, headed for 46, my ‘ol bones are already cold. With at least one more day of working on the north side of the house, this will be a tough one.

Let’s talk school for a minute. My education experience started in a one-room county schoolhouse. I and one other boy were the entire student body. He was my cousin by the way. They lived less than a quarter mile from the school, I had to walk over a mile, but at least it wasn’t in the snow, uphill both ways, well not all of the time anyway.

We started in first grade, no kindergarten out there. Our teacher was an older lady the school district pulled out of retirement. The teacherage, her residence, was about fifty feet from the schoolhouse. As such, she would meet us at the door each morning, do the attendance and the pledge of allegiance. We would then get our assignments for the morning, and she would go back to the teacherage and watch soap operas all morning.

Us two boys would spend most of our time playing, with a little bit of studying. This went on for three years. Fourth grade, we rode a school bus 26 miles to Sunrise. Wow, their idea of education was a heap different than what we were used to. Not only was I introduced to many firsts – spelling tests, the principal’s office, writing, math, the principal’s office, history and Halloween. I didn’t know much about any of the above subjects they wanted me to work on, but I and Principal Fender became well acquainted.

Oh yah, like I said, I experienced my first Halloween during my fourth-grade year. By this time, my little sister was in school as well, so our folks loaded us up and we went door-to-door in Sunrise and Hartville. I had never seen so much candy!

Well, when we got home, mom took the bags of candy and hid them, so we didn’t try to eat all of it. Twice each week, the candy came out, and we were allowed to choose one piece each. It didn’t take very long to notice that all of the chocolate candy had disappeared. I guess it was mom’s storage fee.

The next year, Sunrise school consolidated with Guernsey school, and we added another seven miles to our bus ride each day, for a grand total of 66 miles round trip. Yep, I loved school! On the bus at 7 a.m. and off the bus at 4:30 p.m. The problem was, there was at least an hour’s worth of chores on each end of that daily journey. At 5:30 every morning we started chores and I had to be in bed by 8:30 each night during the school week.

Oh, but guess what, during my Junior-High days, we got to add more bus miles. Yep, we would ride the bus to Guernsey, and then we would get on another bus and ride back to Sunrise for classes. I still cringe when I see a school bus.

It was during my Junior-High days that I really learned how to do Halloween. In seventh grade I wasn’t in the principal’s office quite as much as fourth grade, but thanks to my maturity in the Halloween process, I did get to go to the sheriff’s office. It seems the local law enforcement was convinced that my pals had pushed a tow truck across town and left it at the front door of our school principal. Well, we volunteered to push the truck back across town to its rightful place and give our names to the principal for punishment the next day. And yes, there was still mom’s storage fee on the chocolate candy I had gathered along the way.

So there you have it, as you can surely understand, I’m none too crazy about school buses, Halloween. or being in the office of those in authority. And on top of that, for the past 53 years of living with Miss Deb, I still have to pay my candy storage fees.

Enjoy this day, fuss over all of the little critters who come to your door tonight and give thanks to our Heavenly Father for allowing us to see another October come to a close.

Blessings upon you and yours, Neal