Typing class (ding), band, dragging Main

A message from Pat Lyford:

I was delighted to get access to the website, forwarded to me by Jim Walls. I was also happy to hear that Mrs. Kerr is still alive and kicking. I can still hear her saying "YOUR BELL HAS RUNG." Her instructions in typing helped to feed me when I was a divorcee with 3 kids.

In reading some of the back blogs, they mentioned the band directors. Did everyone forget Alfred C. Montain(sp) who played with John Phillip Souza, and marched with us playing his baritone at the football games. That was before James Dean and decent uniforms.

Before Mr. Dean, we had maroon pants with gold stripes down the leg and blue coats. And Ralph Lee Sparks kept stepping on my toes. We had great band trips, except it took forever to get to Oklahoma City in the buses.

We actually entertained ourselves on Saturday nites by dragging Main (all two blocks of it) and hanging out and talking to each other, before the bop shop. Of course there were a few other things going on too.

The stories also reminded me that we always knew we could find Dee Foster in the gas station by the B & O (don't think it was still B & O when I got there) I think that after he made his rounds at night, he parked there.

And what about Pap Hutchins. He used to sit by the bank and get so mad when strangers put money in his coffee can he used to spit in. AT one time he broke his leg ----Think he got hit by a car shuffling across the street without looking-- and was in a wheel chair. It had been a while since the initial break--Pat Simpson and I were walking the same direction he was going and he got the chair stuck in the new gravel they had put on the road. He rocked the chair back and forth and just as Pat and I were gonna go help him, he got out of the chair, pushed it out of the gravel, got back in and took off.

What a safe world we lived in. What a shame our kids don't have that.