Each year at the start of a new school term, I delight in seeing the big yellow buses filled with students. I think back to my years in the classroom. I loved both sitting in the small desk facing the large desk of my teacher and sitting at the large desk in front of my students. I had sat on my front porch watching the school children walk up Church Street to the school and longed to be one of them. In 1941 my dream came true when my first-grade teacher, Miss Scarboro, met me at the classroom door and assigned me a desk. I must have been the first arrival, because more children continued to fill the desks. My attention was on the window and watching the big yellow buses lined up and unloading many students of all sizes. One small girl clutching her school supplies headed into the first-grade building. Miss Scarboro met her at our door and brought her to sit in desk behind me. “This is Shirley and Shirley, this is Annette.” That was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. We learned that there would be a morning and afternoon recess to go outside and play on the campus. At noon we ate in the lunchroom. You could eat the lunchroom food, a lunch brought from home or if living close by, go home for lunch. At recess time, Annette and I would join a group to play “hop scotch,” “The Farmer in the dell or “London Bridge.” Great fun until the bell rang and back to classroom. Throughout the next twelve years we played together, ate together, and hoped each year to be in the same room. Sometimes she went home with me and spent the night when there was after school activities. This was like the sister I had always wanted. In our last years of high we both got jobs at the United Five and Ten Cent Store. The store would fill with customers from noon until nine o’clock. It was fun work, especially filling the candy case, dinner break at Lucille Lewis and earning three one-dollar bills. After graduation we went our separate ways, until reuniting when she returned to live in Swainsboro, and when I visited my hometown often. Happy Reunions always. I cherish those memories. Now Annette McDaniel Evans, my first friend, my best friend, and my longest- time friend is not well. My heart, thoughts and prayers are for soon recovery and return to good health. Write to Shirley at sptwiss@ gmail.com.
