The Good Ole Days Are Possible in Your Home
Yesterday Ray and I drove a couple of hours from Gainesboro to his hometown of Columbia, Tennessee, for a celebration. His brother Alan drove up from Tullahoma. The event was the 80th anniversary of the opening of Riverside Elementary School, alma mater of Ray and Alan.
Ray saw old friends, including three girls who were part of his church growing up. I loved hearing them reminisce. Cheryl, who had moved to Columbia from “up north,” remembered playing the very southern “Daisy Mae” in a talent show. When she brought it up, Ray immediately quoted lines from other characters in that skit:
“What’d you learn at school today?”
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“Boy, what are they teaching you? Everybody knows pie are round!”
Cheryl added another: “Cornbread are square!”
I don’t know how many times I have heard Ray quote those lines! And last night, I got to meet “Daisy Mae!”
On the way home Ray talked about the times he was in the talent show himself. Once he performed a comedy routine as a weather man. Another time he portrayed President Kennedy with jokes taken from the popular “The First Family” record album, an album we had at our house, too. It was a spoof of members of the Kennedy family — really funny to American families at the time because of all those Bostonian accents, but not something the Kennedy family thought very highly of. I don’t blame them.
I like to imagine Ray as a 5th and 6th grade comedian.
Another girl remembered that she had called us in 1977 when we lived in Oxford, Mississippi, and she had come to town on business. She said that was the last time she had heard Ray’s voice. “I don’t know how I got your number . . . maybe Mother mailed it to me.” Imagine your mother sending you somebody’s phone number in a snail mail letter today!”
I especially enjoyed meeting an older couple who had been Ray’s neighbors. He told me that Ray delivered their paper and that he was always on time. “And, he still is,” I told them. He also told us how much his mother had liked Ray’s dad. I wasn’t surprised. He was devout, upright, smart, and a real comedian himself!
Last night’s celebration took place in the school cafeteria. Against one wall were tables, one per decade, with PTA (Parent Teacher Association) scrapbooks. Ray and I looked at the ones from the 1950s and 1960s when he and Alan were at Riverside. At first, I was disappointed. I was hoping for photos of the children, especially Ray. There were a very few photos. Take a look at these children performing “Way Down Yonder in the Paw Paw Patch.”
There were lots of newspaper articles and memorabilia from the activities of the PTA. Boring stuff, I thought at first, but then I dug deeper and found some real treasures.
This booklet lists the programs of the monthly PTA meetings. At the January 9, 1962 meeting of the Riverside Elementary School PTA, Ray’s daddy Wes did the devotional and children from two local churches sang for the assembled parents and teachers. It was his daddy’s 47th birthday.
I found a listing of room mothers. Ray’s mother was the room mother for his first grade class.
Activities on several programs were fascinating. One night the PTA had a tacky party with prizes for the “worst dressed lady and gentleman.”
The Parent-Teacher Association in the 1950s and early 1960s represented and encouraged Christian values. One PTA meeting program included the address: “Spiritual Growth for Children.”
In one scrapbook was a United Press International newspaper article by a Patricia McCormick, who reported on the 1962 message to parents, “In All Conscience,” by Margaret E. Jenkins from Long Island, New York, who was then head of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers.
Author McCormick summarized Jenkins’ message by encouraging parents to “plant in the child fragile roots of a code of ethics.” McCormick noted that if parents did a good job, youngsters enter kindergarten or first grade with a “thriving, growing conscience. They know the difference between right and wrong. . . . If you mishandle the chore assigned parents from the time of Adam and Eve, the youngsters enter school with an underdeveloped, defective conscience. They rebel against authority, rules, and routines.”
McCormick goes on to quote from Margaret Jenkins: “They have to be taught in home, school, and church to love what they ought to love and hate what they ought to hate.”
Inside the 1955 program of the annual convention of the Tennessee Congress of Parents and Teachers were the words to songs for delegates to sing at the convention. In addition to songs, such as “Hail, Hail the Gang’s All Here” and “When You Wore a Tulip,” were these: “Faith of Our Fathers,” “Onward Christian Soldiers,” “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You,” and “Jacob’s Ladder.” These are the words to the last song:
We are climbing Jacob’s Ladder,
Soldiers of the Cross.
Ev’ry round goes higher, higher,
Soldiers of the Cross.
Inside this program for the 1911-1961 Golden Jubilee Convention of the Tennessee Congress of Parents and Teachers, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee, . . .
. . . was the Parent-Teacher Prayer.
Heavenly Father,
Thou who are our Creator and our God:
We Thank Thee for all the blessings Thou has bestowed upon us, more especially for the children and our relation to them. We ask that Thou wilt endow us with wisdom and strength as we care for and nurture them. May we be Thine instruments to lead our children to a realization of Thy power and Thy love.
Bless Thou our fellowship as we work for the children of our land. Lead us in steadfastness and faith toward the solution of the great problems that confront our world today.
Consecrate us to Thy service and to the service of all children, everywhere.
Amen.
This nostalgic look back may make us long for an earlier time when our Christian faith was more supported by our culture. However, we can also praise God that we are the “parent-teacher association” in our homes and that our children can sing and pray and have their consciences trained every day.
But the goal of our instruction is
love from a pure heart
and a good conscience
and a sincere faith.
1 Timothy 1:5