Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Disappearing Clyde

While I was in Kentucky last week I took some pictures in Fleming. One of them was of Dr. Akers home because it was part of the site where the old Elementary school was. Here is a story that my cousin, Nancy, wrote after she saw this picture.





This house looks like it is in the place where the old wooden Fleming Elementary School stood. I attended grades 1(1950-51) to part of the 4th (1953-1954) grades there. The new Fleming Neon Elementary School was opened during my 4th grade of school. The school was so old that my grandmother, Nancy Harris Cole Draughn had attended there. I think Kay Mullins also attended.

During the third grade, my teacher, and cousin, Mary Jo Craft got married and moved with her husband. They didn't hire a replacement. We were moved to the principal's, Mrs. Wormsly, 7th grade class. Each third grade student was assigned to a seventh grade student and we sat in the seat with them.

Clyde, one of the seventh grade students, often couldn't do the work that the seventh grade students did. He would get up and go to the first or second grade class and work there. One day Mrs. Wormsly rang the bell to announce that it was time for recess. We all went out to play. When we went back inside, Clyde wasn't in his seat. Mrs. Wormsly sent me to look for him in the other classrooms. I couldn't find him. The teacher sent a couple of the older boys to go hunt for Clyde and to be sure to check the cave up on the hill beside the school. We all knew that the cave was off limits. They came back and still couldn't find Clyde. Mrs. Wormsly decided that he must have decided to go home.

Later, one of the boys held up his hand and asked permission to go to the restroom. He came running back in to the classroom and said he had found Clyde. We had outhouses instead of inside restrooms. The boy said there was a voice coming out of the outhouse hole, "Help me. Help me. I've fallen in." Poor old Clyde had stood up on the wooden double seater and was so slim that he fell right in. A couple of the boys got a rake and stuck it down in the hole. When they pulled him out, they threw him in the creek that ran between the school and the Coal Company owned Sweet Shop. After drying off some, Clyde DID go home.

There were two outhouses--one for girls and one for boys. After Halloween, when we came back to school we would never know where we would find the outhouses. Once some pranksters had some how lifted them and placed them on the roof of the school.

As an elementary school fifth grade teacher for five years, and an elementary school librarian for over 29 years, I had many story times. Instead of reading a story to the class, I would often tell them stories of the mountains that I love. Disappearing Clyde was the most requested story.

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