1.0The News Journalhttps://qa.thenewsjournal.netrich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="wI3AV4ZKQh"><a href="https://qa.thenewsjournal.net/remembering-hickorys-sting/">Remembering the hickory’s sting</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://qa.thenewsjournal.net/remembering-hickorys-sting/embed/#?secret=wI3AV4ZKQh" width="600" height="338" title="“Remembering the hickory’s sting” — The News Journal" data-secret="wI3AV4ZKQh" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript"> /* <![CDATA[ */ /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display="none";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):"link"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute("src")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener("message",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute("data-secret"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+="#?secret="+t,e.setAttribute("data-secret",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:t},"*")},!1)))}(window,document); /* ]]> */ </script> https://qa.thenewsjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Bena-Mae-mug137.jpg200228Sometimes when I stand at my door and watch the children board the school bus in front of my house, the lyrics of the old song, “School Days, School Days,’ run through my head. When I get to the lines that go, “reading’ and writin’ and ‘rithmetic, sung to the tune of the hickory stick,” I stop and think about how the teacher’s hickory stick once struck terror in my heart. I was in the third grade at the time. We had just moved to a little town away back in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. Such was our life in those days, following Daddy from job to job, moving from one town to another to wherever his work took him. He was in the construction business and when he was finished with one job, we would load up all of our belongings and move on to the next, putting one in mind of the Joad family in John Steinbeck’s, “The Grapes of Wrath”. Mama hated moving so much. She didn’t like living the life of an itinerant. She never got used to pulling up stakes and setting up housekeeping in strange houses. But my sisters and I loved it. We loved seeing new places, meeting new people and looking over a fresh crop of potential boyfriends. To us, it was just one big adventure and we relished it to the fullest. Although the school we attended was primitive in comparison to what we had been used to, we weren’t daunted by it at all. We thought the water bucket that sat on a table in back of the classroom was quaint and old-fashioned. We didn’t think twice about drinking out of the same dipper everyone else drank out of. The pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room was another thing we weren’t used to. But it didn’t bother us a bit. On the contrary, we considered it a high compliment when the teacher sent us out to the big coal pile in back of the school to bring in a bucket of coal when wintertime came. A warm feeling comes over me whenever I remember sitting with my new little friends on the green bank beside the schoolhouse where we ate the lunches our mothers had prepared. How I envied them their homemade biscuit and jelly sandwiches and cold sweet potatoes while I had to settle for a plain old cheese sandwich. And why, I wondered didn’t Mama pack my lunch in one of those cute little Clover Leaf lard buckets like they carried instead of an ordinary brown paper bag. The outdoor privy was another story altogether. We only paid it a visit when it was absolutely necessary since we were afraid we would encounter spiders or wasps or snakes along the weed-choked path leading down to it. Still, we looked on it as just another part of the adventure and one we likened to going on a jungle safari. The teacher assigned to teach my class was an excellent teacher as far as ‘book learnin’ goes. But her looks and stern demeanor scared me from the very first day. She was tall and slim with straight hair pulled back in a tight little bun. She didn’t wear a sign of makeup. Instead, her face wore a no-nonsense look that plainly said, “Don’t mess with me!” She always wore riding jodhpurs, never wearing a dress except the one time when she returned to school after her husband’s funeral. But seeing her in a dress intimidated me even more. As a rule, I was a good student. My worst infraction was that I would sometimes forget to put my chewing gum in the waste basket before class took up. In this class, however, I felt the sting of the hickory often. And it was through no fault of my own. In those days, some of the classrooms had double desks which were wide enough to hold two students. As fate would have it, I was assigned to one which I had to share with a boy. Not just any boy, mind you, but the meanest boy in class. Not a day went by that he didn’t get a whipping from the teacher. And there, my friends is where the hickory stick came in…or as Shakespeare so aptly put it, “Thereby hangs the tale.” Standing ready for attack beside the teacher’s desk was a monstrous looking hickory that looked to be about five feet long. Whenever someone misbehaved in class, that someone usually being my seat mate, she would grab that hickory and in the blink of an eye, she would be on him like a ‘duck on a June bug’. From where I sat in proximity to the culprit, I was in the direct line of fire each time she struck a blow. In other words, when he got a whipping, I got a whipping since the end of the hickory extended across to my shoulders. And boy, did it sting! But I was too afraid to cry out. all I could do was scrunch up my shoulders and pray for the Lord to open up the floor and let me fall through it. I guess I did more praying in that class than I ever did in church. Even though many years have passed since I was that scared little third grader in that little mountain school in Eastern Kentucky, I still remember it as though it were only yesterday. As the years went by, I lost contact with the teacher but I would guess by now she has gone on to that big classroom in the sky. I never think about her, though that I don’t remember the sting of that hickory. And I wonder whatever happened to that mean little boy, I wish I could see him again….just once. Because HE OWES ME! Faith Andrews’ Wonderful Buttermilk Fudge Ingredients 2 cups sugar 1 cup buttermilk 1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick) 1/2 tsp. baking soda 2 […]