VELVET SLIPPERS
In the fifties, farming community schoolhouses in Texas were often all-inclusive. One of the smallest schools I attended was housed in a two story, brick building with a gigantic bell hanging from the entryway rafters. It was the same school that my parents attended in the thirties. My mother tells about riding a horse to get there with her older brother. He was fond of encouraging the horse with the ends of the reins and “accidentally” swatting Mother’s leg instead. At this school, the first and second grades had their own detached classroom, nicknamed “the dog house”. But the first floor of the main building housed combinations of all the other elementary grades while the second floor was reserved for the high school students. My first year there, I was in the fifth grade. Although elementary students outnumbered the high school attendees, we were nonetheless admonished daily to keep our voices down – even at recess – lest we disturb those elite high school students who were dili