My First Day at Skipwith, Virginia (Cont.)
Screen 4 of 7What I saw was a rather unattractive frame building, somewhat larger than I had expected. It was not white or any other painted color. As I drew closer, it became obvious to me that it had never been painted at all. The wood surface of the clapboards was quite natural in appearance, but well aged over the years by sun, rain, wind and sand. Later, I was to see many wooden buildings in Virginia, some of them schools, barns and family houses, which had never been painted, but which had remained intact and useful for decades, a few of them for well over a hundred years.
Oaks School was located at the intersection of two narrow dirt roads. It was shaded and protected by two very large white oak trees, the limbs of one of them reaching out over a part of the school. Quite picturesque, I thought, as I viewed it from a distance. A gentle breeze caused the leaves of those mother trees to move back and forth with a rustling sound, seeming almost to beckon me to come closer--to become better acquainted with what was to be my school home for the year.
Now with mounting excitement I walked faster toward the school and began to examine more critically what I could then see more in detail. I stopped in dismay. The distant view was better!
The front steps were broken and falling to one side. Scores of window panes were shattered or missing altogether; it was as though they had been used as a shooting gallery. As I walked around the building, my spirits dropped even more. The outdoor toilets were literally upside down, the round holes in the wooden seats, now on top, letting in light from the sun directly above.
Turning back to the building, I discovered that most of the underpinning at the bottom of the outside walls of the school was rotted--or just not there at all. My boyhood experience had taught me how serious this could be--both in summer and in winter. Having lived for many years in a small frame house set on concrete blocks one at each corner and a few others in between, I was well aware of the importance of underpinning. Without it, the winter cold and summer heat could be devastating.
Continuing my increasingly discouraging inspection, I came back to the front door which I found locked. It was "secured" by a very cheap padlock. In view of what I had seen and heard, I was surprised it had not been broken. Since I did not have a key for it, I walked around the other side of the building to the back door, which I found to be swinging noisily on its loose and rusty hinges, now open, now shut. No wonder the lock on the front door had not been broken, when access through the back door was so easy.
By this time I was no longer anxious to see more, but somehow I could not resist going inside, even though I had the feeling I was being drawn in toward the center of a terrible maelstrom.
As I stood in what obviously had been the room for the primary grades, I was by this time not at all surprised to see the filth and disarray around me. Some of the small arm chairs were broken; others were turned over or pushed against the wall where some children's drawings--some of them remarkably good--were hanging. Strewn all over the floor were other drawings, school papers, books and debris of all kinds. One corner of the room had been used as a toilet, and the accompanying smell speeded up my exit.
I decided not to look at the other room in which I was to teach--the one for grades four through seven. I had seen enough for one day. As I stood outside the building for a few minutes before leaving, Mr. Ellington's parting words echoed in my ears: "if'n yuh decide tuh stay aroun' afta yuh done seen thuh school." Those words now had far more meaning for me.
Would I stay? Could I do it? Or should I just give up and leave now? The crossroads in front of the school were both real and symbolic. Which of the two would I take? The right one leading to the county seat and a bus back to Kentucky, or the left one which would take me back to the Brames. I had to choose.
If I had not already talked with the Brame women, and if I had not promised them I would return to their home that afternoon, I might very well have taken the road to the right leading to Skipwith and Chase City, where I could have boarded a Kentucky-bound bus. But their kindness, their expressed observation that I seemed "to be a fine young man," and even the cool apple that Grandma had given me were all still fresh in my mind, giving me encouragement to stay.
But the negative points were strong. A silent but nagging voice was telling me to go back home, to let someone else tackle all the terrible problems I had seen and heard described. Why try to be both principal and teacher at Oaks School and cope with all the accompanying requirements and expectations? I wondered. Why not let another person do it? Could I really repair all that damage I had seen, and could I deal effectively with those Brinkley boys whom I had thought about again when I was met with the odor from the dead skunk in the school well? Having no satisfactory answers to these aggravating questions, I was indeed about ready to leave the problems and uncertainties surrounding this little rural school near Skipwith, Virginia and return to the known, the predictable, and the comfortable haven of my home in Kentucky.
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