Childhood

What Matters Most……….….Commentary by Jim High

Even though it was a long, long time ago I can remember my childhood in Tupelo, Mississippi.  Was it better than growing up now?  I can’t say that, but it sure was different.  My earliest memory at three years old is of a trip I took with my Mother on the train to St. Louis to see my Father before he shipped out to the Pacific in 1943.  I remember the day the war ended in 1945, and the day my Dad got home to Tupelo.

Then I began first grade at Church Street School in Miss Mary Frances Beard’s classroom.  I had been to kindergarten in a room in the basement of the school the year before.  Don’t remember the teacher’s name, just that she was wonderful.  For four years I walked to school every morning and home in the afternoons.  We never heard of or saw a school bus.

By fourth grade I had made the Safety Patrol and got a special belt with a sash and a bright shinny Safety Patrol Badge.  Can you imagine a nine year old kid without adult supervision of any kind directing traffic and seeing to it that the smaller kids got across the street safely at the corner near the school?   The school’s still there, the corner of Church and Walnut is still there, the neighborhood is little changed, so why not now I say.

During recess my girlfriend and I played house inside the big hedges between the school and Robins Field.  We salted and peppered our potato chips with sand and crumbled up dried leaves.  And all the boys belonged to different gangs, maybe I should say group, the word gang has taken on a new meaning these days, but we called them gangs back then.

I moved to Milam for the fifth grade through the ninth, and next door to Tupelo High School where I graduated in 1958.  All that time I also walked to school, but of course, my house was only three houses away on Jefferson Street.  I actually came home for lunch every day, and never left for school until I heard the bell ring.  After the first ring, we had three minutes to get to class, and that was just enough time to cut across the Gravlee’s and Weaver’s backyards and be at school in less than three minutes.

During high school some kids from out in the county did arrive by school bus, and a few students in high school had their own cars.  When I say a few, I mean a few, maybe only a dozen or so.  Those were not the days when everyone in the family above the age of fifteen had their own personal car.  Mr. M. M. Winkler who lived across the street walked to his accountant’s office every day, walked home and back for lunch, and home in the evening.  I remember Mr. Winkler as being very fit and trim.

The kids in our neighborhood grew up in the 1940’s and early 1950’s without TV.  One memory I have of my grandfather was him sitting in his chair every evening listening to the news and commentary on the big floor model radio that we had in the living room.  Yes, we had radios that were furniture, just like the first TV sets were.  The Community Antenna System finally brought early cable TV to our house about 1955.  That system was the beginning of COMCAST that still serves our city today.  I would come home from school every day and watch the Mickey Mouse Club.  My favorite part was the adventures of Spin and Marty, and the Hardy Boys.  All TV programs were in black and white in those days.

Another thing we did as kids was make up our own games to play in the evenings.  Our house had a huge front porch so we invented a game we called Run Jump Off The Porch.  You had to go from the yard to the chairs on the porch and back without getting tagged or you were it.  Being it was bad.  We played Kick The Can and May I.  Kids have so much else to do today; I really wonder how they manage it all.

What Matters Most………childhood is a magical time, or it should be for every little child.  I know that mine was, and that I am a much better person today because of my childhood.  I appreciate the adults in my life that saw to it that as a child I was loved and cared for.  Today’s world is a busy complicated place, but let’s never forget how important childhood is to a child.

© 2011 #5  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467