Most of my life has been spent either going to school or teaching in school.  Some of the activities that students and teachers are currently facing are all too familiar to me.  But this is not about today rather it’s about being a student at the Hamer Grammar School in the 1930s.

While there might be some similar comparisons of that era to a student entering school today, there are vast differences. Since Dillon County in the 1930s was mostly rural and then with nearly 30 school districts, many seniors living today can recall their own similar rural school experiences.
Today the opening of school is a major media event with constant reminders but when school opened during my youth the day was greeted only casually even with dread. There was no long list of ‘must haves’ but rather the first day was generally attended with little save a pencil if that.  
There were no book bags (My book sack was a denim homemade affair, rectangular with a slit in one side).  There were no lockers either.  The only other personal item was the brown  bag (paper sack) with lunch. No meals were offered and if you did not have your own, it was a long hungry day.
With today’s ubiquitous copiers, reproducing handouts is a common teaching strategy.  There were no such animals in the early days.  That’s why there were ‘blackboards’. The closest thing to duplicative copies was something made on a device called a hectograph.  This involved transferring a master copy onto a gelatin base from which duplicate copies –usually using purple ink- were made individually and by hand in limited numbers.  
It was messy and fraught with dangers for the inexperienced operator.   It was the forerunner of the mimeograph machine except a much slower process and distinctly less readable.  
My second grade teacher, Miss Bessie Weatherly had mastered the process.
After the excitement of the first few minutes of the first day, the main order was to copy a list of the textbooks that the family of each student was required to purchase and in my case in Dillon at Evans Pharmacy on Main Street near where the old Broadway Theater was located.  In other words, there were no such things as ‘free’ books or ‘free’ lunches for anyone.
One warning given great stress was never to write your name in a new textbook until you brought it to school and had it approved by the teacher.  There were no returns once the book lost its newness.
The first day/afternoon the textbooks were being sold was usually highly disorganized.  There was only one place to buy the books (from a hand written list) and always with few exceptions paid for in cash.  The number of clerks was limited and adding the totals manually was time consuming.  After the wait, there was always the mild excitement of turning the pages of the new book, smelling the ink and wondering if this book would be one of the ‘hard’ ones.
I hate to admit it, but when I and my friends  went to school in the early grades, there was hardly any homework or at least hardly ever were books brought home so that explains my progress in school and one reason for these disconnected ramblings.
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Bill Lee