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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

STARTING TO SCHOOL

In the fall of 1934 I began attending school in Lake City and until that moment I don’t believe I had ever
experienced anything known as anxiety. However I can remember experiencing a great deal of anxiety
about starting to school, and this persisted for a day or two after school had begun. Then I began to
realize that all of the other kids were in the same pickle I was in, and gradually got over being anxious
and apprehensive about school, and indeed learned to love going to school. The year before I started
school about the first of September in 1934 my birthday when I turned 6 came on September 10, so I
really started when I was just 5 years old, but nearly 6.

I did not realize at the time I started school what a great advantage I had by reason of my older sisters
Emerald, Opal and Fay. From the time I can remember they had taught me to count and I could easily
count to 100 before I started school, and I could say all of my ABC’s both backward and forward due to
their teaching.

But more important than their tutoring me was the encouragement and challenge they threw out to me.
They kept telling me “Now Lenvil you’ve got to stay ahead of all those other kids, if you study hard and
do what the teacher says and keep your mind on your business all the time you’ll get ahead of them and
once you get ahead of them you’ll probably stay ahead of them.” 1 remember hearing those words or
words to that effect many many times before 1 started school and I believe partly at least due to that
early tutoring and challenging, I did manage to stay ahead of most of the other kids and always had good
grades in school. In fact my first grade teacher Mrs. Lois McColsky, even had me reading for the rest of
the class before the year was out and strangely enough it seemed that the rest of the students did not
resent that at all but actually seemed to applaud my being able to do that.

Speaking of Lois McColsky, in 1956 when I became the Band Director at Columbia High School, 22
years later, her son, John McColsky, was the most outstanding in my band. When I took over the
Columbia High Band as their Band Director I do not know what 1 would have done without John
McColsky because he was one of only two or three students in the band who could play in anything
close to an acceptable manner. In fact, and this was most unusual, John played a trumpet solo at his own
graduation ceremony, and I can remember after all these years that the number that he performed was
“COME BACK TO SORRENTO”. His excellent performance did nothing to reflect badly on his Band
Director, although having had him only one year, I could not take much credit for his performance. As I
dictate this part of this book, John McColsky is a retired dentist living in North Carolina, and I have not
seen him in years, but 1 would like him to know how much I appreciated his performance and leadership
as a senior in that first Columbia High School Band that I directed.

1 have stretched out the time during which I have tried to put this book together, and as I dictate into my
tape recorder today it is a little over 10 years since I started dictating the book, as today happens to be
April 13,2012.

But back to my entering school in the first grade, except for Rodney, who came along 5 years later, 1
was the only child in our family to begin school in the lake City School. The year before I started
school, the school boundary lines had changed and prior to that all of the John Dicks children were in
the Mason School District, which they all attended until the fall of 1934. Emerald I believe had

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