The Elementary Years and the Perfect Community !

It was time to start school.  It was the first time I had ever been away from home, but I remember it all with fond memories.  I started school at Roseborough Elementary.  This small town that we had moved to was wonderful and the whole community setting, although I definitely appreciated it at the time, I now realize was a picturesque life.  I would grow up in this same community with friendships and families who all knew each other and there was lots of FUN and no fear!!  When I was in first grade, my mom began working at the school where I was.  She had always been home with all of us, so when I started school, it would have been the first time in 22 years that she would have had some time to herself.  Later in life, she said that that first day to herself, she saddled up the horse and went for a ride.  She said she got back on the property behind us and realized that if i got sick or hurt at school, there was no way for her to be reached (because there were no cell phones then) so she came back home and sat by the phone.  She said it was then that she figured if she was going to just sit at home, she should at least go get a job at the school.  So, she did. and she worked there for 20 years. My dad worked Monday through Friday and our whole family was home in the afternoon and evenings together.  Our world revolved around school, church, and family life.  There was such a community connection within everyone.  It was wonderful!  We visited the library (across from the current sunbank), would eat lunch at the Peppermint Stick (i'm really dating myself there), get our prescriptions from Seabrook's pharmacy (with the recording--"watch your step, watch your step" when you walked in the door---and often the recording skipped), have a coke float at the Rexall drug store, and a saturday morning visit to Vincent's dime store was always the best.  At home, I LOVED riding the horses.  Ginger, our Tennessee Walker, was a favorite to ride.  I remember on the weekends we would all be sitting around and I would ride the horse.  I always loved to run her, but they would tell me not to. Afterall, I was only 5 or 6.  So, when I would reach the back of the house, I would take off running her and stop when I would get around to the front where they could see me.  (that was probably the extent of my rebellious streak)  haha!
And something really dorky that I would do (now i was probably 7 or 8), I would drive the car around the property (our property only).  I would drive and drive and drive and I would put Beau, our Irish Setter in the front passenger seat.  He would have been bigger than I was.  There was this tree that was "the bank."  Beau and I would pull up to the tree to make our bank deposits.
So, here I was in elementary school and Jody was in high school.  On our way into town, we would beg our mom to drive the route by 5th Avenue and Lake Franklin and we would pick whether we took the route that make the big bump or the route where it dipped down around by the lake for a different approach to a thrill ride.  Ohhhhhhh, the things that thrill children.  LOL !!
My memories of Roseborough were wonderful ones....family, friends, and teachers who cared and knew you and your family.  You couldn't get away with anything !!!  :-)