The One Room School House

Yesterday, on my night shift at the hospital switchboard an elderly gentleman came in to visit his brother.  This man and I had conversed many times before this night; his brother has been a patient more than once, and now was down with the pneumonia. With good reason he was quite concerned about his older brother.    I knew I should have been making quick work of the piles of papers that needed to be sorted behind that hospital front desk, but the man standing in front of me, a mere reflection of the strong young man he used to be, called out for someone to just have the time to listen.
So listen I did.  Each time I "find time" to listen I learn.  

Have we forgotten to listen?

He started out with the usual banter about the weather, and the four letter word no one likes to hear about...snow.  Then he continued on about how many times he had to cut the grass around the old house over the summer.  He lamented about the long growing season we had for grass, not that he minded cutting grass, it just seemed like he had been cutting it a bit more this year than last year.  I nodded my head in agreement tossing in a few "Oh really?" and "Yes, hmm"  He transitioned into the tomato soup he would have for dinner when he got home and how it was enough for him now that he was on his own...

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Then slowly, like a shifting breeze, he began to tell me about when he was younger.  He and his siblings all attended a one room school house.  He told me of the many times they would walk quite a distance just to spend the day learning.  "Now-a-days" he said, "You can't get a kid to even want to open a book.  Me, I could not wait to feel those books in my hands.  I felt that if I could only learn all I could from that teacher and those books I could do anything when I got to be an adult."  He paused long enough for me to tell him about my grandfather.  I told him how my grandpa was a teacher during the Second World War so he did not have to enlist as teachers were needed at home.  He rented a room at a local farmhouse and walked the line fence each day to get to the one room school house.  He taught all ages from 2 to 17 year old children.  If there was a blizzard, he would get up in the middle of the night and walk the line fence to get the pot bellied stove heated in the front and in the back of the small building.  At times he would even sleep there rather than trek back to the farm house in the deep and blinding snow.    

Of course my story did not last long once I mention WWII!  He was quick to tell me that he remembers when Pearl Harbor was bombed...he remembered right where he was standing as if it were yesterday.  He was six years old almost seven, and they were all at his grandmother's house.  Of course there wasn't any television at the time in their family and his house did not have electricity, but grandmother's house did.  So she had the radio on loud and clear for his dad and uncle to listen to.  "My dad was a sharp tack, he kept up on all the news and made sure to tuck his money wisely."  He went on to tell me more, "I remember we were all in the living room and everyone was quiet as we listened to the man try to calmly tell us the news.  I remember the static and the voice fading in and out, and I remember thinking to myself that this must be a very terrible thing."  He went on to describe the braided rug on the floor and how he counted the rows as he listened to the adults discuss the future of America, the boys that would want to go and fight, the boys that would want to stay home.  He then told me about his brother, the very same brother now fighting pneumonia, talking about wishing he could go and fight but he was too young.  He was thankful none of his family had to fight in the war, but lost just about all of his former older classmates from that one room school house.   
"Family was important in those days.  You learned to accept the flaws and took care of each other.  Last year for Christmas I got a gift of a plaque to hang on the wall.  The plaque reads  'It Is What It Is'   I don't want to lose my brother, but I know he is in his 80's and he may not recover;  I always say "it is what it is".   He continued,  "My brother is a few years older than I and neither one of us ever married.  I was just too shy to speak to a girl and I figured I wasn't much to look at.  My brother had his eye on a lass for awhile, but she went off and married someone else.  We decided to take care of mother as she got older, and when she passed away...well we just continued to live together.  He went to the nursing home about two months ago because I just can't help him anymore.  It has been hard getting used to living on my own."  

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Then the hospital phone rang and I had to wave a quick good bye so I could get back to my duties.  As he slowly walked towards the revolving hospital doors I thought of  how sad he must feel being the last in his family to remember.  I pictured this man warming up his tomato soup in the microwave, maybe turning on an a.m. radio station on the radio.  The rooms would be silent aside from the ticking of the living room clock.   He would most likely sip decaffeinated instant coffee in his 1970's coffee mug.  My heart went out to him as I remembered how I listened to his  life memories intertwined with  a poignant sense of loneliness.   I watched as history played itself before me in "real time" while he told of the life and times of WWII in his reflection.  I felt for this man's loss and was glad I took the time to listen.  
Today it seems to me we no longer  have a sense of caring for and respecting our elders.  I more often see young people or even people of my own age shooing away those of maturation.  They have become the brunt of our jokes.  They have become a burden and are left to remember on their own.  If you have the time to listen, find someone that needs to share; I cannot tell you how much I have learned about our past by taking the time to listen.

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