From the East Wing, Crayolas At Weeksbury, Tiptop & Thanksgiving Hand Turkeys, Sophia & Glen Beck, Full Moons & Root Cellars

Greeting to all and welcome new friends to the East Wing.

Got an email the other day from a fellow asking me if I was the same BobbyRay who went to the first grade at Weeksbury KY. Well the answer is/was yes. Unlike the Tiptop Public School System where I got much of my elementary education, the Weeksbury School was brand spanking new when I was a student.

All washed up and dressed in brand new bibbed overalls, my Mama pushed me out the front door along with my two older sisters so I could go get my education in the new School House, built up there on the hill. And so off I went to school for the very first time.

Now the school at Weeksbury was built with donated funds from the coal miners themselves. Even though they, as a group, were poorly educated people they recognized the need to educate their children, and I’m glad they did, ‘cause I’m one of ‘em . So the two storey brick building was constructed high on a hill, way away from an threat of a flood.

‘Cause one of the things ya gota watch for in the mountains is the threat of a flood. All too often raging flash floods destroy life and limb before people can even get away from the water. Whole towns have been swept away in the dark of night and no one even knew it was coming. So putting the Weeksbury School high on the mountain was those miners way of saying “my babies will never be washed away in the school house during a flood”. It had happened before there in Kentucky, babies washed away in the school house during a flood.

To tell ya the truth, the feller that sent me the email, well, I just didn’t remember ‘em, but I acted like I did. Told him I thought I still had his picture from the first grade. Now some of you may well have pictures from the first grade, and some may even remember the names. But you’re thinking I had the same type pictures you had. I didn’t have that kind.

The kind where they lined everybody up in rows or sat everybody on seats in rows and took a photograph. That wasn’t exactly the way we done it at Weeksbury. We sorta done our own pictures in the first grade there at the Weeksbury School, way up there on the mountain.

There were 18 kids in that class and the school supplies and resources available were rather limited. I remember when the school year started out, the class had a new box of Crayolas, one of those 8 packs, eight little colors all in a row in that yellow and green box with the lid that ya had to remember to tuck back in place else your colors would all fall out when ya moved the box. Cost a nickel back then, 5₵ a box and worth every penny.

With 18 kids and just 8 crayons for the whole class, ya kinda see the problem developing here don’t ya. And so we shared those black, blue, brown, green, orange, red, violet and yellow crayons. We ran out of crayons before it was time to draw those Thanksgiving Turkeys, the kind ya spread out your hand and draw the outline and color it all in.

That Thanksgiving Turkey ya took home so proud to your mama, that kind. Well we done that first Thanksgiving Turkey at the Weeksbury School in pencil. One good thing ‘bout going to school at Weeksbury, they had a backup plan and the backup plan was the pencil, else I’d never have learned the ole Thanksgiving Hand Turkey Technique.

I still remember how proud I was to take my first Thanksgiving Hand Turkey to my Mama, and how excited she seemed to be to get it. I was just as excited years later when my kids brought home their Thanksgiving Hand Turkeys. There’s something ‘bout Thanksgiving Hand Turkeys, they just make everybody feel better. I think it’s that part of ‘em that makes ya sleep or something like that.

But now getting back to the first grade class picture there at the Weeksbury School, way up there on the mountain. The teacher, Miss Merrymay, said we could each draw a picture of the classmate sitting next to us and color it in.

There was a big fat girl setting next to me and I didn’t want to waste a lot of the crayons filling in her picture, so I just drew a stick man with my pencil. I don’t think everybody was as concerned ‘bout saving the crayons as me, else they’d been enough when it was time for the Hand Turkeys.

My dad got a job with the Federal Department of the Interior doing safety inspections inside coal mines in eastern Kentucky and we moved away from Weeksbury before I finished the first grade. By the time I went to a new first grade school they’d already made their Thanksgiving Hand Turkeys.

They too had run out of Crayons for the year and were reduced to using pencils for everything. Thank God for enough pencils for everything, else I’d not only have not learned to color, I’d have not learned to write. ‘Course come folks think I still can’t write, but oh well it sure beats just thinking ‘bout it.

The neat thing I remember ‘bout crayons is when I started the third grade at the Tiptop School, well, I marched up that hill to the Tiptop School House that morning in the bright sunshine, that day after Labor Day, carrying a brand new box of Crayolas, to be used for my excusive coloring experiences in the third grade. All eight of ‘em, lined up there in that green and yellow box, just waiting for me to tell ‘em what to color.

I had already wrote my name on the inside of that little lid that holds the colors inside the box. Wrote “BobbyRay” in cursive ‘cause during that summer my sister Barbara had taught me to write in cursive and I was so proud to be able to write in cursive, didn’t have any cousins at Tiptop that could write in cursive, and I had lot of cousins at Tiptop.

They were all mine, those 8 sticks of color magic as I went to the third grade in Tiptop, but before the day was over I’d decided I’d share with my cousin Pino, his real name was Pilipino but we all called him Pino. He was one of my 12 cousins living at Tiptop and they didn’t all have their own crayons like I had. So me and Pino, we shared. That year our colors lasted well past the Thanksgiving Hand Turkey Season and we almost made it to Christmas but the brown ran out before it was time to color Rudolf, and besides the red was gone too. So we made snow men using pencil on white paper for Christmas, me and Pino.

As the reports of polls for the upcoming midterm elections continue to paint a picture of gloom and doom for the democratic party, Sophia the Republican Cat is in her glory. She spends much of her days now working the phones for various candidates, both local as well as statewide and national. Sophia taped a phone interview with Glen Beck the other day and ya’d think she’d talked to God himself, ‘course Glen Beck seems to think he can walk on water. I take that back Glen Beck doesn’t think he can walk on water, but he does think he can wade really high.

The 2girldogs are so fed up with Sophia asking them if they’re liking that change he was talking ‘bout. They’ve started singing “We Shall Overcome”. The Pup Baby even asked me if there is such a thing as political discrimination. When I said no. She asked if I thought Sophia was a racist for always picking on the 2girldogs. Told her I didn’t know, she needs to ask Al Sharpton. Can you imagine the Rev. Al and Sophia The Republican Cat. WOW ! A match made in both heaven and hell. And I don’t rightly know who comes from where. Damn Republican Cat.

Did ya see the full moon on the night of the 23rd ? WOW ! such a pretty. The Harvest Moon of September, always one of the very best of full moons. I think my two favorite full moons are the Harvest Moon of September and the cold Wolf Moon of January.

I don’t know if I ever told ya ‘bout all the names of the full moons. Oh well if I ever did here we go again. January, the Wolf Moon / February, the Snow Moon / March, the Worm Moon / April, the Pink Moon / May, the Flower Moon / June, the Strawberry Moon / July, the Buck Moon / August, the Sturgeon Moon / October, the Hunter’s Moon / November, the Beaver Moon / and finally for December, the Cold Moon.

Always thought the moon names are kinda cool. Some seem to make since and some, I don’t have a clue where the name came from. It’s kinda like that stuff we’re talking ‘bout a while back. That naming stuff and all. It would have been kinda cool to have named the full moons. If I’d named ‘em we wouldn’t have a Flower Moon, but we’d for sure have a BobbyRay Moon.

Did ya ever hear of a root cellar? Oh sure, it’s a place to put your roots, but more specific long before we had refrigeration it was a place to store food stuff that needed to be kept at a lower temperature than the outside air. The root cellar was named in part for its location dug under the ground and also because it was used to store root type crops such as potatoes, carrots, turnips, and such. One really important item often stored in root cellars were apples, lots and lots of apples.

When I was a kid having a root cellar was a status symbol of doing well in life. If ya had enough stuff to put into a root cellar, then weren’t going hungry. Dug into the ground 8 to 10’ deep and lined with either stone or wood, depending on the water level of the location meant the bottom temperature of the root cellar would forever remain below the outside air.

The ideal temperature to store apples and other stuff in the root cellar is 8° above freezing, or 40°F. As many of you know the one wife owns and operates Pioneer Florist in North Judson. She has an old antique walk in icebox converted into a florist flower cooler, which she uses to store her cut flowers and fresh green stuff and guess what, it’s just like a root cellar, must be, ‘cause she keeps the temperature set at 40°F.

It’s kinda neat to go into the Pioneer Florist Root Cellar. Go in the summer and it feels great. In the winter if ya come in directly from being outside for a long time and go inside the Florist Root Cellar, it feels great. Root Cellars are like that, yeah they are.

Stay safe in Afghanistan

From the East Wing, Crayolas At Weeksbury, Tiptop & Thanksgiving Hand Turkeys, Sophia & Glen Beck, Full Moons & Root Cellars
I wish you well,
BobbyRay