- This Sunday past, Father's Day, I was given permission
to revisit 1903 SS #9 - the little one-room school in a nondescript Ontario
village named Bradshaw. It had been less than a year since celebration
of its hundred-year anniversary, yet the grip of that humble school still
holds me like a vice.
-
- Even as my car rolled to a quiet stop on that warm summer's
day, I felt the pull of the old building. The contemporary vinyl-clad facade
of stone failed to hide its verdant history which spilled out of the doors
and down the steps...even from its windows... once again beckoning me inside.
-
- I paused on the modern, pressure-treated decking just
outside the entrance. Looking down between the spaced boards I caught a
glimpse of the orignal concrete steps which at one time had carried youthful
innocence, hopes, dreams, and aspirations to the rows of desks inside.
I wondered how many feet had traced the route I was about to walk.
-
- Sunlight beamed through the windows illuminating remnants
of the school's centennial celebration still lining the walls. Two paces
into the class and I was standing on the ancient floor browned by the radiant
heat from the belly of a wood stove; a semicircle of burns marked where
the stove had its insatiable appetite fed for years. Straight ahead, just
below ceiling level, was a hole which had received the stovepipe that once
traveled from where the stove rested to the front of the class. I turned
to look at the entrance through which I'd just stepped...the wall to its
left was bruised and chipped, marking the spot where the wood box had been.
-
- One-hundred and fifteen strips of two and a half inch
oak flooring established the room's width. Two and half lengths of oak-strip
defined the room's length -- about 24 x 30 feet. I eased along the parameter
of the old classroom for an hour, my senses drinking in every detail; class
pictures, old textbooks, report cards, notices, artwork, and projects.
I imagined those little fingers which had worked so diligently.
-
- A notice on the wall read: Bradshaw Concert, Dec. 21st.
Proceeds to purchase a radio for the school. A Stromberg Carlson radio
(circa 1946) rested silently atop an upright Findlay wood stove. Was this
the coveted radio the school had purchased? A mere three years later the
fine wood finish on these beautiful radios would be replaced by plastic.
Nothing, it seemed, was immune to progress - - not even in 1946.
-
- I picked up and thumbed a dog-eared text book, it smelled
old and honest: Canadian Geography For Juniors, written by George A. Cornish,
B.A. in 1927. I opened the ancient vessel to examine its contents. It spoke
of trade routes, wind and sail, tramp ships, and lumber. It said Toronto's
population was 550,000, and her modern manufacturing plants paid more than
any other in Canada by virtue of 'cheap and limitless power' derived from
Niagara Falls. My goodness, where had the time gone? Where was all that
cheap power now?
-
- "Nature is a brute," Art Rense used to say,
because it discards without a touch of sentiment such things as roses and
kitty-cat - and families. And, so it happened with the kids of Bradshaw
school, many now just grayscale ghosts frozen in pictures from a simpler,
kinder place in time. I wondered about those faces ... wondered if they'd
aspired to living 'the better life' and gone on to realize their dreams
- the ones their parents had so fervently wanted for them.
-
- When I next visited the little school (the following
day) I brought my son, Tyler. He, too, exhibited an afinity for the history
inside. He picked up a little book exclaiming, "Look dad, a small
journal of some sort!" He handed me the fragile little publication.
"What is it, dad?"
-
- I opened the cover to view the date of publication, 1910.
"This is a storybook, Tyler, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It's
considered by many to be the first great American novel and was written
by a fellow named Samuel Clemens - many know him as Mark Twain. Sit down,
I'll read you some."
-
- Tyler laid his head on a desk, his chin resting on his
arms. I gently opened the old book and started to read: "You don't
know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark
Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. . ."
-
- Just beyond the windows a breeze stirred the leaves to
applause as crickets sang the virtues of Twain's work . . . then time lost
all meaning, and minutes turned to hours as the humble, one-room school
once again embraced two students who'd come to learn.
-
- ____
-
- Visit Lea's other wonderful writings here: Lea MacDonald
|
