Only One Still Standing

I started the first grade in the fall of 1960. I attended the first day and came home and told Mama I have been and I ain’t going back. I didn’t like the idea of having to stand in line to eat lunch and having to raise your hand to go to the bathroom. I sure didn’t like drinking milk with my meal. I just wasn’t used to that kind of stuff. I thought I was in prison.

Forty six years later and looking back, I’m glad Mama made me go back the next day.

The group of about 30 people I started to school with on that fall day in 1960 are special people to me. I attended a wedding this past weekend and ran into Bunny Fuller Harris and Will Crawley, who were both part of my original first grade class. I’m always reminded when I see any of our group that we really are like family. We have common roots and we share a whole lot of wonderful memories.

We also shared some of the best teachers that ever entered the profession.

They taught us reading, writing and arithmetic. I realized later on in high school and in college just how well they did that. I had an educational foundation that could be compared to anybody - anywhere.

But they taught us much more than that. The first items on the agenda each day were the Pledge of Allegiance, a reading from the Bible and a prayer. We also prayed and thanked God for the food before we were herded to lunch each day.

Some of our teachers were also our Sunday School teachers. And they were also our parents, grandparents or friends of our parents. In other words, if we got in trouble at school, you can be sure we would get in trouble again when we got home. We certainly could not hide a bad grade.

They taught us but they also cared about us.

When I came back years later and took over the funeral business in Reynolds, I had an interesting responsibility. One by one, I buried the group of people who had such a major impact on my life. I can tell you each time I had one of those funerals, I remembered what they had done for this little boy growing up in our special little town. And I had a grateful heart.

Most of them are buried within a rocks throw from each other in the city cemetery in Reynolds.

There is only one of those teachers still standing. Mrs. Ruth Jones, our sixth grade teacher is alive and well. In fact, I have her email address on my computer and we email back and forth pretty much every week.

A few years ago we had a reunion of our original first grade class that went through 8 grades together at Reynolds Elementary. Miss Ruth came and even brought a few of her old grade books. We started the reunion with the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer. She then did a roll call from the original class roll.

To say that group of people appreciated her presence would be an understatement.

Recently Miss Ruth sent me an email and told me she had moved to Jamestown Assisted Living Facility in nearby Fort Valley.

A few emails later she asked if I ever worked for free. She then asked if I would consider coming to Fort Valley to speak to the residents of Jamestown at their weekly devotional meeting.

Consider it? I would pay her for the honor to go there.

I am a busy guy these days.

But I can tell you I will never be too busy to do a favor for Miss Ruth Jones.

I owe her more than she knows.