As many of you know, I grew up in Tennessee, in an
unincorporated community in Davidson County just north of Nashville. Joelton ran along the top of a ridge of hills
called Paradise Ridge. In the winter, it
could be tough for people to get home from Nashville on the icy hills. But the local men always seemed to head to
the hill to help out. On at least one
evening after work, my mother had to have her car pulled up Germantown Hill by
someone with a truck.
Our high school, part of the Nashville school district, was
quite small. There were just under 100 students in my
graduating class. Even though it was
called a high school, it actually housed students from grades 7-12. On the first day of school each year, everyone
went to the gym. Each grade level had
its own section. There were never any
signs to indicate this, everyone just seemed to know, even the seventh graders
on their very first day. The seventh and
eighth graders sat in the smaller, visitor bleachers. It made you feel important on the first day of
ninth grade when you got to move over to the home side. The teachers read out the names of their home
rooms, and kids would leave. one classroom at a time.
The school had a long history. My mother graduated from the same high school
in 1949 although it was a wooden building in those days. The main hallway was lined with group
portraits of each graduating class. I’m
not sure how far back, certainly from the 1930s, maybe even the ‘20s. The main secretary was Miss Pauline. She started working at the school in 1948, so
she knew you, your siblings, and most likely one or both of your parents.
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| school days |
When I was in school – and this is completely politically
incorrect – in eighth grade all the boys took shop and all the girls took home
ec. This was required. You could finagle your way out of PE, but not
shop and home ec. Looking back, I wish
they had required shop and home ec of both genders. I think I’d be less leery of power tools today if I’d
taken shop in junior high.
Mr. Hall was one of the shop teachers. He always wore bow ties so his tie wouldn’t
get caught in the equipment. He also
taught math, and I had math one year in the shop room. We sat on high stools at the big square
workbenches surrounded by a cement floor.
Bookends and lamps the boys were working on would be distributed
around the room in various stages of completion. My brother also made a chess board one time,
maybe as a choose-your-own project.
While the boys were in shop, we girls were up on the second
floor in home ec. One semester of sewing
and one of cooking. In sewing, we made a
pillow out of a terrycloth bath towel.
We drew one-inch squares on the “wrong” side and created a complicated
gathered surface. I wish I had a photo
to show you my bright orange towel pillow.
Cooking was much more fun.
My home ec teacher for both semesters was Mrs. Durham. She was a nice lady, but she had her hands
full with us. I didn’t give her any
trouble in sewing, but cooking was another matter. Even then, I couldn’t resist tweaking some of
the recipes. We made sugar cookies one day,
and our group added quite a bit of extra sugar because we just didn’t believe
they would be sweet enough. Poor Mrs.
Durham tried to explain that it wasn’t a good idea to change the recipes, but
our cookies had turned out delicious, so we weren’t buying.
Hands down the best recipe I learned in home ec was for
baking powder biscuits. It is still my
go-to biscuit recipe, and I haven't changed it a bit. A couple of
readers requested that I post my biscuit recipe after my steak and biscuits post, so here it is. Straight from
eighth grade home ec to your table.
Baking Powder Biscuits
2 cups sifted flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
5 tablespoons shortening
1 cup milk
Sift dry ingredients together. Cut in shortening. Add milk.
Dough will be soft. Pat out on
floured board. Lightly knead 5 or 6
times. Pat out dough to ½ inch
thickness. Cut out biscuits.
Bake on greased cookie sheet at 450 degrees F. for about 12 minutes.
