To: Any who wish to take the time to read this From: Stan Browning The following was originally written for the enjoyment of my two granddaughters. It is offered here as a nostalgic reminder to us all. Please look past the personal aspects to the descriptions that typify conditions and attitudes of the times. I wager that the Old Matheny Grade School was similar to the one that some of you attended. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SCHOOL DAYS Times were hard in Wyoming County when I became old enough that the law required that I start school. I looked forward with much anxiety for my first day of school commencing in September 1936. My mother had outfitted me with some store-bought clothes from the Montgomery Ward Catalog, which were probably the first clothes that I had ever owned that had not been home made or worn first by some other child. I was ready to show off. I guess I was fairly typical of the boys who were beginning a journey that year at the old Matheny Grade School, in Wyoming County, West Virginia, that would take us, by differing paths, from the confines of our beloved hills and hollers into a world that neither we nor our parent’s could have imagined in our wildest dreams. My home was virtually in the wilderness in the head of Coon Branch, about two miles from the school. The road that I had to walk was a sled road that ran along or in the creek bed perhaps for a quarter of a mile before joining the road down Coon Branch. In the opposite direction, the Coon Branch Road continued up over the mountain behind my grandparent’s house and down Turkey Creek. In winter the road off Coon Branch was nearly impassible to all vehicles except large logging trucks that constantly kept the mud stirred up such that it became a world-class obstacle course for those of us on foot. When ruts became so deep that the trucks’ undercarriages began to drag, the drivers simply created a new path and thus more ruts. The mud, which was impossible to avoid, came up over our shoes and our britches became caked with mud up to our crotches where our pant legs rubbed together as we walked. (I have always considered one good thing about leaving my home in West Virginia was getting away from that infernal mud.) My school clothes, which were to last all winter, included two of each: bibbed denim overalls, chambray shirts, long cotton underwear and tan, they were always tan, cotton stockings. I hated those darn stockings. They were the standard cheapies sold by Wards and were worn by boys and girls alike. I never could keep the dang things up and they were constantly slipping down over my shoe tops. Garters didn’t help. By trying to improvise a retention system I would stretch the tops of the stockings further and further and the problem became worse. Finally, I would give up and trudge home through the mud walking on my stockings, which insisted on trying to leave my feet altogether. My favorite clothing possession was my high-top boots. They looked just like Daddy’s and even had a place for a pocketknife on the side of one of them. All the boys wanted a pair just like them. My school wardrobe had to last me all winter and there were no extras. Mother was kept busy just washing, ironing and mending. There was only one change of clothes, and clothing that got wet or muddy often had to be readied for school before the next day. This was made difficult because school lasted from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, so it was dark before I got home in the wintertime. Overalls with patches on the knees and seat were the rule, not the exception. Our cotton gloves and socks were mended, remended and kept until they wouldn’t hold a seam anymore. So I couldn’t get away from those pesky stockings by wearing them out and having them replaced with something more durable. It wasn’t long until holes began to appear from wear on the toes and heels, but mother kept sewing them up and they lived on. I remember folding the toes up over my foot to close off toe holes or rotating a stocking until a hole in the heel was on top of my foot, and then going on about my business. Since they were cotton, Mother didn’t darn the stockings, as one would do with wool stockings, but she sewed the holes shut with needle and thread, thus creating an irritating seam that contributed further to my hatred of those detestable socks. Shoes didn’t last through the winter without repairs either, and most every household, including ours, had an iron last and staff, shoe hammer and “sprigs” (brads) of various sizes, with which to half-sole the family’s shoes. Leather for that purpose could be purchased in small sheets at most all stores. Using the sprigs and hammer, a piece of leather was attached by driving the sprigs through the new half sole into and through the old original sole. The sprig points were “braded” (bent) against the iron last of the appropriate size for the particular shoe and the leather was trimmed to shape. One doesn’t know pain until he has walked in a pair of half-soled shoes with a sprig point that has not been completely bent over and it continues to dig into his foot mile after agonizing mile. A pair of three- or four-buckle, rubber arctics (overshoes) could help to fight the mud and keep our feet warm. However, they wore out quickly with constant use. When the sole of the arctic was worn through allowing mud to be pumped into the space between the overshoe and boot while walking, we had yet another set of problems. Timbermen all wore arctics, primarily to keep their feet warm. They used special sprigs with large round heads and nailed leather cleats to the sole of their arctics to enable them to get traction on the frozen hillsides where they worked. Thank God for advances in materials technology that allows us to have clothing that is so serviceable that we now throw things out or give them away because we are tired of them, not because they are worn out. It has been a long time since I have had a problem with my socks, except when they fail to match and my wife notices. Eventually the roads dried, I had more friends than I could shake a stick at, my hands and feet were warm again and school became one big adventure after another. (To be Continued)