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Last Year Of School

Sorry I missed last night, there was a toss up between writing a story, or watching a movie on TV, this is something I don't do very often, so "Happy Feet" received the nod instead of writing, the shoulders were sore and burning from what I'd been doing the day. I did a few rows of crocheting while watching, keeping me awake to make it to the finish of the movie, impatiently waiting for the end to go to bed. At least I made to the end. 

Today I have been trying to catch up with some of the writing I'm behind in, plus doing short burst of mowing, tomorrow I will pay with pain and stiffness of the muscles, but I would prefer to do a bit of mowing than try to walk around the block, the energy from doing that hasn't achieved any thing for me, I would probably have to ring a taxi to bring me home. Doing something at home, I can pack up and go inside to rest the fragile muscles while reading or writing stories. I think, when I have saved lots of money, I'll have all the yard cemented and I won't have to worry about tigers and lions in the grass, and weeds growing in the garden, just have potted plants.

To move on to the topic I have chosen for tonight, the last year of school was a very risky year, the wonder is that we survived without being killed, or injured, I don't mean by shooting or being attacked. What I'm referring to is the mode of transport in which we traveled to school. I went to a country school. Students of today have buses, some may not be up to  the legal transport standard, with many complaints made by families that the buses aren't safe, don't have seat belts fitted. Well, I'm here to tell you we were driven to school in an old Holden station wagon. Some of us had to travel about twenty miles, where I traveled from was only five miles.  We were packed in like sardines, some with no seat because they were squashed in the luggage compartment with the bags.

Over loading the car didn't seem to be an issue with the department who had hired the driver to take the bus/car run to and from school each day, or no one complained to the school department, or a government department, not even to the police. In the front with the driver were two students, four on the back seat, and four in with the bags. Traveling like this was like living with a time bomb not knowing when an accident would happen and we'd all be killed.

Remember this was in the country, the road was gravel with many creeks and gullies prone to flooding, the road like it was made by following a snake, graded when the wheels of the traffic wore tracks to form a hump in the middle of the road, once this happened you had to straddle the hump or tear the diff from beneath the car. The width of the road was approximately two cars with a little room to pass each other, not allowing for all the cattle and timber trucks that used the road every day.

One day during the rainy season we were set home around lunch time so we would make home before the rivers and gullies flooded, these cutting the road quickly not allowing any one to pass. The gullies and rivers were on the rise as we passed over, lucky for me I got at at the five mile section of the road being the first one home. the road from my home to the next town was blocked in several places so the driver had to take a long detour to reach the next drop off before he could go home. The brakes stopped working out in the never never region where not much traffic went except for farmers. Getting out of the car, not break fluid to top up the cylinder, muddy run off water was scooped up and tipped into the cylinder to replace the fluid. Seven hours from when we left the school the last of the student reached home. Lucky this was a Friday which gave him time to have the work done to repair the brakes to working order before we had to return to school. The only good thing about that traveling not once did we suffer from an accident, so someone must have been watching over us to keep us safe.

Our class room for that year was under the Primary school building, where a temporary wall was build around the stumps to make a class room, to house twenty students, being interrupted by the other student if they were let out of class before we were. We had a teacher straight out of college to teach us. The year was a very interesting one, I passed even though I had many sick days due to my tonsils becoming infect. I would have loved to continue to a much higher level of education, not to happen as I had parents who believed girls didn't go for higher education because the money was only wasted on them, they were soon married. Another thing that stopped me from arguing with this decision was money was short, the other was I went to hospital to have the tonsils removed, ether was given to me and when I came out of it I had lost a fair slice of what I had learned over that past year. Today some of the lost memory shots back when I least expect it to do so.

Have to end this tale of woe, the neck muscles are burning like they are on fire, the back is aching and the feet are getting cold. Can't put on the slippers until I have a shower, the feet are tinges with green from walking on the mowed grass.


   

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