SCHOOLHOUSE FUN !

On our corner, we used to own an old one-room country brick School House. I’m sure all you “Locals” vividly remember it!  It was used by us as a grain storage and drying site. As a small kid, I always heard that our schoolhouse was the largest grain drying operation in the area. Tim and I spent many youthful hours inside it having many adventures and just downright fun! Since it was a grain storage site, it was TOTALLY INFESTED with many rats! When we would enter inside, the rats would scurry off in all directions like a herd of cattle! A family friend of ours used to store some of her old scenery from her dance studio inside and in no time, the rats would gnaw it to pieces! There was an old dolly inside made out of wood with steel wheels. We used to stand on it and pushed each other all around the schoolhouse. I sure hope if any of our kid friends ever showed up at the house and asked where we were, that our mother never said, “They’re up at the school house playing with their “Dolly”!  If she did, that would explain the “funny” looks we sometimes got at school! When we got older, we took our old hand-me-down .22 rifle with us to the schoolhouse and shot rats. It sure wasn’t easy to hit scurrying rats with a .22, but we did manage once and a while. I think this is one place Tim perfected his shooting skills, since he is a much better shot than I am. (This talent would later come back to haunt me during our BB gun fights!) I’m best at “Shooting the Moon”! (Or at least I USED to be. One of these days I will “bare” all in a story about this.) Before I run out of space, there is a very interesting side-light about the Schoolhouse. Unfortunately, it is no longer standing. About 15 years ago it finally fell in after too many years of being pummeled by weather and wind. Just before it totally fell in, I retrieved the “Date Stone” which was inlayed in the brick front. One the back of the flat “Date Stone”, there was a name and date of birth and death! It was an old headstone. I contacted the local historian, and he said that it was common to use old headstones from graves that were moved for Schoolhouse “Date Stones”. Now, get this…: The name on the old headstone was my sister-in-law’s Great Grandfather! How’s that for irony! It came from Meadowlawn Cemetary in Norwalk when they replaced his headstone! (SEE PIC) I guess you just never know! I have to wonder if this is a stroke of “fate”, or just another “C of L"? It does make one wonder…