In my photo album from childhood, there is a group of children waiting for the school bus between the Eller and Atkins homes on Back Street (now Longbourne Street). Ten kids form two rows so mothers can get a photo on the first day of school. The kids include Mike, Freddie, Donna, Peggy, Nancy, Judy, Patty A, Mike, Pat and two girls I don't recognize ("maybe from the red farm house or Larry's sister plus someone else?). This was my first day in the first grade. We didn't have kindergarten in those days (1952).
We rode on bus 4, driven by Jim N. Most of the buses were driven by farmers. Bus 3, driven by Orien H., another farmer, also came through Liberty, but not on back street. A few times when I was a bit late, I ran up town to the "corner" and caught bus 3. It seemed that the girls on bus 3 were overall slightly cuter than bus 4. Bus 4 eventually went from Liberty out the Dayton-Liberty Road to the western end of Olt Rd, then backtracking to Union south over to East on Derby, through Carver Village, down Dayton-Farmersville Road to Jefferson ("The school we love, the one among the throng", to quote our alma mater). It was about 35 to 40 minutes long from Liberty to Jefferson, time enough to nap or do some homework.
I guess Liberty never had its own school. We did have a doctor for a while, Doctor Hall who practiced in the Hill home. We had two filling stations for a while, Pure and Texaco. I used to go to the Texaco and watch men play cards and tell stories and jokes. I love to listen to stories. Men playing cards were interesting, too.
Uncle Oscar and Aunt Clara Jonas from East Dayton used to come to Liberty to visit Mary (Grandma) and Art (Grandpa) Jonas, play euchre, eat cashews and tell stories. Uncle Oscar also cut Grandpa Jonas hair and Grandma and Aunt Clara traded hair permanents. The men drank beer from a bottle, very slowly and would occasionally let Mike or I drink the last sip. It didn't taste very good, but it seemed manly to me.
I recall getting a dime to drink the last sip. Also remember the speed of the eucher games was amazing, no evaluation of cards played just alot of table slamming and move to the next hand,almost before the cards were moved out of the way,alot of hollering too.
ReplyDeleteCorrection on Bus 4 driver: Pete Longhenry Hammond tells me it was Webb Marker- sounds good to me, since Jim Nye told me at church (where no one can tell a lie) that he was not the driver of bus 4. He drove bus 1. (The brain means well but misfilings happen). Pat
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