First grade at Malesus School (1929) was a new experience which brought lots of new friends. We walked from home to school which was a long mile. On rainy and some other bad days they would let us ride in the buggy. I remember the walk more than the ride.
I remember some students would ride horses or buggies and tie the horses in the woods for the day. I liked my teacher and playmates but can't say much for my studying.
I remember my first school bus, but I don't know what year (about 1931). Mr. Earl Hunt had a Chevy truck. He put a canvas top (like a covered wagon) and benches across front and sides. Nothing to close the rear. Soon there were too many to ride in the truck, so he pulled a four wheel trailer behind the truck. The trailer had a canvas top like the truck, with no safety features.
We had exercise out on the school ground each morning which everyone attended. We also had chapel in the study hall. The small children always looked up to the high school students. I remember several of them but they seemed never to notice the small ones.
In later years they got a better bus. It didn't come by our house so we had to walk one mile to Chester Levee Road and wait with several others to catch it. Sometimes you would be late so you just walked on to school.
We had a recess in the morning, then out for lunch. Of course, everyone brought their own lunch. Lunch time we would have time to play games or play ball.
I went to Adee one teacher school with Clara Mai, I think about the sixth grade. It was really an experience for me. She taught all eight grades. They started early so as to let out for cotton picking. After about six weeks I wanted to go back to Malesus, so Clara Mai turned me loose.
Malesus was always looking for basketball players so being large for my age, I substituted on the team while in the eighth grade. At the end of the year, our eighth grade class took a trip to Chickasaw Park. Woods Davis took us there in his wood hauling truck (no top, no seats--just stand up and ride). The girls fixed lunch and the boys ate. The Park wasn't finished. They were working on the buildings and there was no swimming area. We boys went swimming anyway.
The government started an N.Y.A. program for school students. I worked on this one year an hour a day. It paid 15 cents per hour; we swept floors, washed windows, any other job. Sometimes we would help build fires in the stoves. The school lunch program also started about this time. We called it the soup kitchen and it was in the basement of the school building. There was no plumbing in the basement, so all water was carried in and out in buckets as well as supplies. This was part of the job. I thought the lunch program was good.
One time I said something to Mama about patches on my clothes. She said, ``Son, as long as you are clean, don't worry.'' Mama also talked to me about the girls I was going with. She wanted to know about them.
Woodson Hall wanted to be in the Golden Glove Boxing Championship in Jackson. He wanted me to work out with him, so I thought I was good, pretty good. We would work out after school. Woodson won his bout, but I lost and that was the end of boxing for me. They put my picture in the paper telling I lost. This was the year I lived with the Gus Thompson family. They hired me to do the chores and farm work.
The teachers gave me the grades I'm sure. I know now that I could have done a lot better. They let me finish with my class. Four of us went through all twelve grades together, Franklin Day, Tina Ruffin, Nora Frances Fitzgerald and myself. One thing I will never forget are the plays we had at the end of eleventh and twelfth school years. I sure wasn't cut out to be an actor. The thing I enjoyed most was the years playing basketball--and Malesus was the runner-up for County Champion in my senior year, 1940-41.
-- Paul Watlington