Month: March 2024

So I was having this conversation with a friend the other day.  She’s 81 years old, looks twenty years younger, and is quite possibly the sweetest, kindest and friendliest person I know.  We were just making small talk which, of course, always leads to complaining about the weather.   It was a frigid January morning and we got on the subject of school kids having to wait outside for the bus in the cold. 

It was at this point I remarked that many of today’s kids are so lucky that their parents drive them to school each day.  I groused about spending many mornings in my over-sized parka, shivering out on the road in the sub-freezing temperatures, waiting for a rickety old bus to pick me up.  I swear they forgot to put shock absorbers on that thing, because every crack and bump in the road sent us flying off the seats toward the ceiling.  I was one of the first pick-ups on the route, so I had to endure that bumpy journey for over an hour every day of my school life, right up through graduation.  Nothing gets your school day off to a better start than showing up queasy and car sick. 

Poor, poor me.  I guess I was sort of fishing for my friend to feel sorry for me and sympathize.  Instead, she broke into a knowing smile and told me this story:   

She was born in 1942 in Alberta, Alabama, a little community about 30 miles from Selma.  Alberta was a mixture of black and white folks who got along and lived together in relative harmony.  But schools were segregated then.  So at the age of six my friend, who is black, began to attend Alberta Junior High, which was actually an elementary, middle and junior high combined.  The school was five miles away. 

School bus?  Nope.  Every morning all the black kids in the neighborhood would gather as a group and walk it.  Rain or shine, they made the trek.  She recalled it even snowed occasionally.  She had a vivid memory of walking across grass that crackled and snapped after an overnight frost.  

I stopped her there.  Wait a minute, I said.  Aren’t you exaggerating?  Isn’t this one of those “I walked to school in the snow every day uphill both ways” type of stories?  She insisted it was absolutely true, and she had the detail to back it up.  Five miles every day.  Her mind is sharp as a tack and her memory is specific and comprehensive.  Besides, I don’t think her deep Christian values would allow her to tell a lie even if she wanted to.  She’s well beyond the point of needing to impress anybody. 

She went on, revealing that the daily trudge was especially challenging because she had a lame right leg as a child, and she had to kind of drag it as she walked.  She suspected it was some sort of polio, before they knew what polio was. Thankfully the condition improved as she got older.   

Upon finally arriving at school, they would enter a building with no central heating or air, and no cafeteria.  The kids brought their own lunch.  Heat would come from a tall pot belly stove in the room.  Her lunch often consisted of biscuits and syrup.  She would have to wait her turn to put them on the stove to warm up.  There was a dress code.  Girls were not allowed to wear pants.  But during the cold winters they were permitted to wear them underneath their dresses, so long as they took them off once in the building.   

At the closing bell it was back out on the street for the long march home.  She did this every day through the eighth grade.  It was not until high school she was able to board a bus that took her eighteen miles away to Wilcox County Training School.   

She never forgot her humble childhood.  It motivated her to work hard to build a better life for herself, which she clearly accomplished.   

Wow.  After hearing her story, I felt pretty foolish complaining about my experience.  It certainly gave me a new perspective.  Suddenly that bumpy bus ride I took every day seemed like a blessing instead of a curse.  There’s a lesson in here somewhere.  Appreciate what you have, because many others have a far more difficult life than you.  I learned that from my friend.   

I suspect there is a lot more I can learn from her.