Preston's Gap School

The first year I went to school (1960-1961) was at a one room school on Nat's Creek.  Actually, it was kind of in a gap between Nat's Creek and Patrick, Ky.  I don't remember how many kids attended that school but it was not a whole lot.  I had three or four cousins that were close to the same age whom I'm sure went there but I don't really remember anything about any of them.

This was while we lived at the Spring Knob forestry tower so my brother would drive me to my grandparents on Sunday evening and pick me up on Friday evening to take me back home.   During the week I lived with my grandparents.

Our teacher, Mrs. Cooper, lived in the little, log cabin where I was born.  Her husband would drive her down the creek past my grandfather's house.  I'm not sure how close he could get her to the school house as there were no roads that went there.  At least none that were passable by car.  There was an old road that went from my uncle Jerry's house up the hill past the school and down the Patrick side but it was impassable by car, as best as I can remember.

On the days my grandparents would allow me to go to school I would walk from their house to the school house.  I am not the greatest judge of distance but it was at the very least a mile.  It was down the path from my grandparent's house to the fork of the creek.  Generally I'd meet some cousins there and most mornings I walked along with the Ratliff boys so I was not going alone.

From the forks of the creek we  had to cross a small stream (no bridge) then down a path that went through an old barn and back to the road where it came out of the creek.  Then down past the old Blessing place (where I later lived as a teen) and across a field where my cousin Jerry Lee had soy beans planted every year.  Then we crossed the main creek on a 'foot log'.  That was just a tree that had been felled so it landed across the street.  I think someone had build some kind of hand rail on this one but I cannot recall for sure.

Then it was up the hill past the graveyard where my aunt Burnice was later buried and through a barbed wire fence and across a pasture then through a second fence, across the old road and up to the school house.  In the afternoon after school the whole procedure was reversed.

I said I did this when my grandparents allowed me to go to school.  They were very over protective of me.  If it rained, snowed, frosted, looked like it might rain or snow, I was not allowed to go to school.  So I missed quite a few days that year.  I'd spend them playing around my grandparent's house, climbing the apple trees and "skinning the cat" on the quince tree in the front yard.

"Skinning the Cat" is where you grab a tree limb that is over your head and bring your feet up over your head and put your legs through your arms and flip backward.  It seems so easy then and so impossible now.  There was an apple tree on each side of the house and I'd climb both of them every day.  And, I'd keep a weather eye out for the big, red rooster I hated and was deathly afraid of.  The day he got made into chicken and dumplings was a very happy day for me.

Back then we got report cards every month.  I bragged I was going to make straight "A's" the whole year.  Well, I almost made it.  I made all A's except one.  I got one B in effort.  I guess Mrs. Cooper had a sense of humor.

I loved the one room school and I still love the concept.  Of course, not for large classes, but for very small classes where first through eighth grades are in one room and are taught together.  I suppose it is very boring for the older kids but they got a lot of remedial teaching by having to listen to the younger kid's lessons.  And, we younger kids were exposed to a lot of learning by listening to the classes for the older students.  Even if we did not try a lot of that knowledge filtered into our brains.

Another reason I loved it was that first grade classes really bored me.  I much preferred to listen to the classes above me.  I remember when we were learning to tell time and it all seemed so simple to me but nobody else in first grade could understand it.  I just could not understand what was so difficult about it all.

And, we had two recesses and a lunch hour.  We'd play 'kick the can' and 'hide and seek' and every once in a while we'd all crawl through the fence to the pasture and have a game of baseball.  Glorious days.  Back when schools were fun.

The school was on top of the gap and had no well or other water supply so one of the older boys would be sent down the old road to my uncle Jerry's house to draw a bucket of water from their well and bring it back to the school.  I got to go with one of the boys from Patrick (I cannot even come close to remembering who) once and I marvelled at how he could carry that heavy bucket of water so easily.  There is a vast difference between six and fourteen years of age.

Mollett had fifth and part of sixth grades.  Mr Hummer had the rest of sixth.  Mr Delong had seventh and eighth grades and was principal.

When I got to West Van Lear school ceased to be much fun for a lot of reasons which I will not go into here.  It was nothing like Preston's Gap where all the students were in it together and everyone older took care of all the younger kids.  Maybe it was mostly because we were all related to some point.  Maybe it was just more country and we did not have any of those "city" attitudes.

I guess I enjoyed my one year at Preston's Gap one room school more than I enjoyed any other school year in my life.  Just one of those nostalgic things I look back on.  The way time robs us of our bad memories and leaves us with only the good may mean it was not nearly as great as I remember it.  But, in my mind, it was (and still is) great.