Pastime: It’s almost time for school

Maylon Rice

There are some indelible memories about the start of the school year long ago.

It usually started with the late summer appearance of school supplies in town. There was the ever popular, Blue Horse Notebook, or the Big Chief Tables, or how about a snazzy denim covered three ring-note books with a back pocket right there on the blue denim cover.

Of how about a daring a wire spiraled giant five-subject notebooks for all your classes this fall.

And always there were the packages of a dozen No. 2 yellow pencils and all those sizes of Crayola Crayons began appearing on the shelves of such places as The United Dollar Store, Morgan & Lindsey or Ben Franklin’s 5 and 10, on Main.

School supplies making their appearance usually occurred shortly after the 4th of July, always seemed an indication the summer was quickly drawing to a close.

There was always a towering stack of brown, 40-pound sacks of “white lime” for marking off the local football fields that magically appeared along the back wall of Wayne’s Pool Hall, almost blocking the rear entrance of the hall along Cypress Street after July 1.

There was the end of summer “reunions” often at the Dairy Queen, where classmates, who had been “missing-in-action”, returned from having been down to Florida on a vacation; off visiting relatives (who always seemed to be from Texas). And there were those of us who had been laboring in the tomato fields until mid-July when the harvest ended and had been incommunicado with others.

The activity around Wilson’s Photography on Main Street, always “ramped up,” as the in-studio Junior and Senior portraits began setting “appointments” for your formal and professional photo for the Pine Cone, the school annual.

You would see your friends (the girls) jump out of a car with their hair all damp or wrapped in turban of a towel after a fresh washing. Some even had curlers or “hot rollers” still attached to their scalps. The gals would scurry down Main Street, double-quick to avoid being seen into the photography studio.

Once inside the girls were often whisked behind the tall, dark, thick set of curtains where a make-shift lighted mirror with a dozen tiny bulbs of  hot, white lights was arranged. A small, worn stool was provided for you to sit, while your mother or your best friend or your mother’s own hairdresser (who has been shanghaied from her beauty shop) set to work, combing, teasing, straightening or spraying – always spraying your coiffeur to perfection.

Then there was the simple dapple of make-up, always an iffy proposition if ones momma was behind the curtains.

Guys, usually resigned to wearing t-shirt all summer long, would be seen walking down Main with a white shirt clinging to a hanger. A two-button blue sport coat or  jacket (if you had one) often slung over the shoulder as he walked down past Martin’s, Brown & Appleton’s Drug, Barrett/Purtle Drug Store and even past McCaskills Drug to Wilson’s for a photo session. 

The tie, thankfully for many, was often “tied” by an adult at home. If help was needed the staff at Wilson’s would call or retire quickly on foot down the street to Martin’s.

The late Dale Taylor, on a moment’s notice, would magically appear, and “tie your tie.” There is no telling how many ties, Messer Taylor tied for junior and senior portraits over the years.

Signs of activity of school soon starting were present at the WHS Complex along Pine and Cheery Streets as well.

Over at the old weight room, next to the gym on the old WHS campus on the Cherry Side of the Street, near the Band Room, one would hear the metallic clank of iron as some odds-and-end weights were being lifted and bench pressed in the tropical heat. Each clank or clink it seemed was magnified a dozen times over in that cavern of an old dingy-white painted school building.

And there was always someone hanging out along the gym, around the high school, bouncing a basketball or so it seemed.

After August 1st (this is another, totally separate Pastime) there would be sounds emanating from that old wooden band room.

Just before summer’s end, there was always some type of cheerleading practice going on. Often it was inside the gym as the cheerleaders, with rolls of white butcher paper spread all across the floor, were painting giant end-zone pep signs for every game.

The cheerleaders, in that oven of a facility, sketched and painted designs (always in Orange or Black) such as an upside down McGehee Owl, the opponents  mascot, with its plucked tail feathers scattered all about plus large “X’s” where its eye would have been. The bird  was hanging by a Lumberjack noose on this 30-yard wide poster, the theme which simply said: “Hang The Owls.”

And true to the era, where two or more cheerleaders are gathered there were three or four guys – just handing out. The guys didn’t help paint the signs or even acknowledge the presence of the cheerleaders – they just didn’t have anything else to do.Or maybe they were just hanging out in the parking lot with the old Eight Track player cranked up double loud  - on some Southern Rock tunes to drown out the large gym fans from its slow, but noisy clockwise fan blades motion.

All summer ending activities usually included a trip to retrieve a cold drink, a giant sized-Icee, some chips and occasionally a candy bar or two from the Wag-A-Bag during the day.

Amid all this summer activity, there was a grand anticipation of the new school year ahead.

That’s a Pastime – even in a pandemic - that we all should remember.