Thank Goodness Spring is Just Around the Corner

By David Brennan

Thank goodness spring is just around the corner and this long cold winter will soon be in the rearview mirror. If you think that it has been unusually cold these past few months you are not wrong. The stats show that December was -4.4 degrees colder than average, January was a little better at -2.0 degrees below average, but then early February was -6.8 degrees below average and ended up -3.4 below average overall. In fact, according to my GROK inquiry, it has been colder this winter than even the average cold, cold winters of the 1950’s that James C Johnston, Jr. rightly remembers.

I was very much taken by his reminiscenses about his experiences as a young boy growing up in the Franklin Public Schools, and it brought me back to my own fond memories of the same about twenty years later.

In 1967 my mother walked me up to the long gone Four Corners School on my first day of first grade. I don’t remember her chatting with the teacher or standing around waiving goodbyes with a group of other parents. I’m sure when she got home she enjoyed a nice cup of coffee at her spot in the kitchen. I was five years old and successfully launched. After school I walked myself home.

Four Corners was a great little school. It was called Four Corners I suppose because of its location at the intersection of King St. and 140 where the Walgreens is now. The school was roughly where the store is and the parking lot was the playground.

There were four classrooms, one for each grade, and as the years went by you progressed to the next grade’s room. Ms. Shea was my first grade teacher, Ms. Stevens the second grade, Ms. Hart the third and for the life of me I can’t recall the fourth grade teacher. Something with a G I think, Gordon or Griffith perhaps?

In first grade we learned how to read with Dick and Jane books. We learned some basic civics through songs like God Bless America and the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The Pledge of Allegience, and all the holidays like George Washington’s Birthday, Columbus Day and Thanksgiving, and even Christmas which we were allowed to acknowledge for what it is.

I distinctly remember in first grade Ms. Shea telling us about George Washington and the Cherry Tree, and asking us to write a sentence about it. I really didn’t know what to do with those instructions and when she saw me staring blankly at the paper she came over and helped me.

Some would pooh pooh and sneer at such ‘indoctrination’ I suppose, but I am grateful to my teachers for teaching us that our country is good and worth loving. We learned that we had enemies too and I well remember the Air Raid Drills we did, when we put our heads down at our desks until the drill was over.

In second grade I remember Ms. Stevens seemed a little stricter, and also for that year’s association with Sesame Street which started in 1969 and we got to watch sometimes.

The only clear memory I have of third grade is that our room had big windows that overlooked King Street. One day someone was riding a horse on the street which caused a big hubbub. All the kids ran to the window to look. I decided to remain in my seat thinking to myself that “I am in control of my emotions, just like Mr. Spock.”

For some reason I have no distinct memory of fourth grade -- but it was all a long, long time ago. 

Looking back now what really amazes me is that a school full of 120 children was perfectly managed by four older women. Each grade had about thirty students and one teacher for al  subjects. They had no teachers aides, no administration, no nurse’s office. No lunch ladies. No parents helping. I don’t remember any other staff at all which seems incredible by today’s expectations.

What a day’s work that must have been! God Bless them. I’m sure they weren’t perfect by modern standards but I can’t imagine having anything but good to say about them.