1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: TORNADO TERROR

Few things excite folks in Texas and the rest of the south like tornadoes. That sunny Tuesday April 2,1957, we had walked the 200 or so yards to school, the equivalent of about three blocks, in plenty of time to be in our seats when the bell rang for the start of classes.

Turning the one corner on our trek, we saw our brown brick school looming straight ahead, viewable dead center of, and close to, the gravel road.
Susan and I usually walked together, and other kids that lived along the way would join us so that by the time we reached school, there were usually five or six of us trudging along, talking and kicking rocks.

A white board fence made of three single rows of 2x4s separated the school from the road. The entrance to the schoolyard was an architectural fancy, surely, for all the folks around Purdon said they had never seen an opening like this, and certainly not at a school.

That entrance, designed for students both entering and leaving, formed two separate and distinct paths, assuming of course, that the students would do the same. It might have worked somewhere else, but they never saw the kids leaving the Purdon school. If someone had tested it there, they would have designed another way for the kids to exit.

The white boards formed a double V-shape. On the right, the three board fence turned into a horizontal triple V, one above the other, ostensibly for those entering. On the left, another triple V, pointed in the opposite direction, for those leaving. If you looked at the opening from the air, which no one in Purdon except birds had, the two shapes would form an X, inserted right in the middle of the fence.

Entering for school wasn't so bad because nobody was in any hurry to get in. But leaving, that was sometimes problematic.

When teachers were present, it worked fine, but when they weren't, it was sheer bedlam: fingers jabbing in backs, pushing, shouting; older and younger kids pushing in and out on the same V, shoving each other; brothers and sisters coming to the aid of their siblings whom they themselves hit at home, but defending them to their last breath on the schoolyard against some "bully" or another family group.

The school had about 125 kids, from grades one through twelve.
Sometimes, a whole wad of kids, their blue jean jackets, tennis shoes, cotton shirts, dresses, and book satchels becoming one, wedged there, and had to be extricated one by one by other kids, or in the worst case, the principal and teachers. The smell of sweat, BrylCreme, and cheap hairspray overpowered some, and they begged to be freed.

If other kids freed them, they would make them wait their turn and usually exact some concession from them before they helped them unloose their arms and legs from the convoluted mass of children. If Mr. Parsons, the superintendent, who also served as school principal, helped them, then they were quiet and obedient, only speaking to wonder aloud how in the world they could have gotten in this mess when they were following the rules so perfectly.

Mr. Parson worked methodically and silently. Pick a foot up here and lift it over the arm of this smaller child. Take the hand of the smaller child and lead him or her under the trunks of the older kids. And he never showed any emotion other than the occasional silent shaking of his head. It was like unraveling a human metal links puzzle.

"Go catch the bus," he said to most of them. "Wait here for your sister," he often told the smaller ones. "Tell your mother that your brother didn't act very well at school today," he instructed others. "Slow down, slow down," he said. "Watch the little ones."

My first grade classroom, with its large ABCs lining the edge of two walls, pleased me. I especially liked the airy lightness brought into the room by the enormous windows that lined the entire outside wall from about three feet from the floor to about two feet from the 12 foot ceiling.

This past winter, Mrs. Hagle helped us with a craft project. Standing over each child, her Apple Blossom perfume offered sweet contrast to the thick air of the classroom. Her thick gray hair was swept softly into a French twist, anchored by a tortoise shell comb studded with pearls.

Each kid tried to move closer to her tailored gray skirt as she assisted them. I knew I wasn't the only one who did this, but sometimes I pretended I was her favorite. All the kids pretended this at times. Because we wanted to be. But she treated each one with the same love and concern. It felt like it would ooze over us like her perfume if we edged close enough.

We decorated paper snowflakes with glitter that winter and placed them in the panes of glass so the sun would reflect from them. Mrs. Hagle told us that every snowflake was unique, "just like you are," she crooned.

When she talked like that, I looked up and smiled, and a warmth crept over me, but not from the wood-burning stove at the front of the classroom. I glanced at the other kids, and all of them sat transfixed, smiling up at her angelic face like first-grade zombies.

But winter seemed distant now, and the grass outside was getting green. It was the perfect time in the big schoolhouse. We could open the windows and smell the new grass and the cedar trees planted next to the school,just outside the windows, and we could feel the cool breezes before it got so hot that we concentrated more on how hot we were than on how to read.

If you flew over the school, the building would form an H. Maybe someone wanted to build a school that incorporated some letters of the alphabet in it, the V at the front, and the school itself an H. A joke; or maybe they were serious.

One leg of the H was grades one through six. My classroom was there, on the east wing. The west wing held the lunchroom, where two or three women stood over steaming pots all morning and cooked food that none of us complained about. A lot of it tasted like home cooking because most of the cooks had kids that went to school there.

Every once in a while, they served something like beets or hominy, neither of which were very popular with kids, but for the most part, we liked the food. Some kids had to bring their lunch because they couldn't afford to eat the lunchroom food. They probably would even have eaten the beets and hominy, but they didn't get the chance.

Also in the west wing was a classroom with a stage where the school pictures were taken, the janitor's closet, and some storage.

The seventh through twelfth grade kids mostly took up the crossbar of the H, and Mr. Parson's office was right in the middle of it, the center of everything. His large expanse of windows looked right out to the front where everyone came and went from the school.

Looking out the windows was a natural pasttime for all the kids, as the school was designed so that every large room in it faced outward with a large bank of windows. Dewey and I were looking out the windows after lunch while Mrs. Hagle read Aesop's Fables to us.

Marie and I were glad she read that instead of our Dick and Jane reader. We got tired of them. Baby Sally irritated me at times, all whiny and needy. She looked a lot like Jan, my baby sister, but I didn't really think that was why things she did got next to me.

And Spot and Puff were the most annoying pets I ever saw. We had a lot of animals though none of them belonged just to me. Still, none of our animals demanded a tenth of the time those two required. Always getting in some mess they had to be gotten out of.

Listening to Mrs. Hagle read while putting our heads down on our crossed arms on top of our desks was calming, and if I wasn't careful, I'd go to sleep. I fought it every day.

Some of the kids were babyish and couldn't stay awake. So she'd let Dewey and I get up and do stuff and after awhile, she'd gently wake the others.

It was about 1:30, just a little after we came in from lunch recess, and Dewey pointed, "Looka there,".

"What?" I asked.

"Looka that cloud there. It's sorta black lookin', looks scary."

About that time, Freddy Higby arrived from Mr. Parson's office, and told Mrs. Hagle in an overly agitated way that school was to be dismissed; everyone needed to go home at once. Then he whispered something to her I couldn't hear, looking at Dewey and me the whole time, like we were too young for the secret.

"Class," Mrs. Hagle said loudly, "school will be dismissed right away, so all of you need to wake up, get your things, and go home just like it was the end of the school day."

The other fifteen kids sluggishly lifted their heads, stumbled to their lockers, and started getting books and jackets.

"Don't take any books, just your jackets, if you brought any," she instructed. "And hurry. If you ride the bus, get on the bus out front, and if you walk home, find your brothers and sisters, and get home as fast as you can."

That last sentence caused a tide of panic to rise up from my stomach. I didn't ride the bus. I had two brothers and two sisters in the school, but how would I find them?

Anything out of the ordinary or requiring rapid thinking set my mind on fire, and the result was burned brain matter incapable of rational thought or action. The flame ignited.

I ran from the room, down the dark halls with their oiled wooden floors, hitting the horizontal silver bar on one of the heavy wooden doors at the end of the hall with both hands, jamming my index fingers.

Exiting the door, which led directly to the front yard of the school, I jumped off the concrete porch, over the two steps leading to the sidewalk, and tore down the sidewalk toward the entrance as fast as I could run. The ominous black clouds loomed low. I felt like I could touch them, but I didn't want to look. A solitary raindrop hit the sidewalk in front of me.

Mother always made a little fun of people who were afraid of storms.

"A raindrop will cause that family to run to the stormcellar," she'd laugh.
We didn't have a stormcellar, so I couldn't run to one if I wanted to. Mother would think it was silly anyway.

A bus sat idling in front of the Vs, and as I threaded my way quickly through the V leading out, and started in front of the bus to run down the gravel road, the bus driver stepped out quickly, and put his hand up, motioning for me to stop.

"Whoa, little lady. Where you goin' so fast?"

"Home," I said, puffing for breath.

"Just wait here a minute," he said. "You're one of them Skinner kids, ain't ya? Live right up there?" He pointed in the general direction of our house.

"Yes, sir," I answered, wanting to run, but knowing that I had to respect someone older.

"Just a minute," he said. "Mr. Parsons will be here in a minute, and we'll ask him what to do."

Mrs. Hagle emerged from the building, looking a little alarmed. She saw me, and her face relaxed. Susan came out with her class about then, too, and she looked at me quizzically. We didn't ride the bus, so why was I engaged in a conversation with the bus driver?

They, along with Mr. Parsons, arrived at the Vs at the same time, and Mr. Parsons told Susan and I to go ahead and ride the bus, it would let us off within 10 yards of the house, as he started lifting up arms and legs to untangle the heap of kids who had just lodged in the Vs.

Our older siblings were coming out of the school about that time and waved happily, signaling that the three of them would ride with Elton, who had brought his old black Plymouth to school. They didn't look scared at all. Several of Neila's friends were trailing along behind them and I saw them pile in the back of the car.

"See you at the house," they yelled.

We climbed aboard the bus, and sat on the front seat as it rumbled over the gravel toward our house.

"Here we are," the driver smiled after less than a minute on the bus. "Be careful now, and go right home."

"Yes, sir, thank you," we said as we jumped off the bus and ran for home.

Mother met us at the door.

"What are you doing home from school?" she asked, surprised.

"There's a tornado coming," Susan said. "And they let school out."

"Well, are the big kids on their way?"

"Yes, they're coming in the car" I said, edging closer to Mother.

"Well, let's pop popcorn and watch the weather. And if it gets bad, we'll go to the Bittner's storm cellar They said we could."

The sky grew pitch black as we melted butter and poured it over the warm white kernels. Some friends had come home with the older kids, and they wanted to play a card game with spoons, which left my oldest brother with scratches when he tried to compete with the four girls grabbing for three spoons.

The tornado didn't materialize in our little town, and we never entered the storm cellar, though I would have liked to, with Mother and everyone else with me, of course. The next day the local paper showed a picture of a mean looking funnel cloud that hit Oak Cliff and West Dallas ,60 miles north of us.

"Will a tornado ever hit our house?" I asked her that night when Susan, Jan, and I were in bed, just before she turned off the light.

"Honey, that is something we will never know. Tornadoes are just something we have to deal with every spring. Life is fraught with danger," she said in a calm voice, patting my leg.

I didn't know what fraught meant, but I hoped the next time a "near tornado" came, I was at home, where I felt safe. And I would probably ask the Bittners if I could use their storm cellar even if I had to stay there by myself.Installed