Page 61 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

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

A TYPICAL DAY

From the time when I was about 8 years old, until I graduated from high school, the first thing I did after
getting off the school bus in the afternoon, since we were later getting home than most of the other
students because the bus route started and stopped at our house, and 1 would be starving to death. The
lunch we had during the day was either something we look from home in a brown paper bag, or
sometimes we would have a dime to buy lunch with. My good school buddy in Elementary school and
Junior High was Julian Christie, and Julian and I quite frequently would go down town to Haworth’s
Bakery, where they had huge, delicious glazed donuts, which we bought 2 for a nickel. A half pint of
milk also cost a nickel so many times we ate 2 large donuts and a half pint of milk for lunch. At other
limes we would just simply buy a pack of potato chips and a coke, and suffice until we got home.

After getting off the school bus in the afternoon of course the first thing I did was to go in the kitchen
where mama always had some kind of food left over from lunch, as well as some little old home-made
biscuits, and we would quite frequently eat biscuits and syrup, together with a nice piece of ham or some
fried bacon that had been left over. We had plenty of milk that we produced right on the farm, so I
devoured many a meal after school consisting of biscuits and syrup and bacon and ham, together with a
big glass of milk.

Then, the next thing I had to do was to go out to the corn crib and shuck and shell 2 big buckets full of
shelled corn, which I would then take out to the hen yards and give to the chickens.

Ma bought some of our chicken feed, including some scratch feed and some oyster shell, but her
chickens largely existed on a diet of shelled corn from our own corn crib.

This was a never ending chore which had to be done every day, and then 1 had to see that all of the
watering pans in the chicken yard were filled with water which 1 had to carry in buckets from the well.
This was a pretty good sized chore, since the well was in the northeast comer of our front yard, and the
chicken houses were behind the house, some to the northwest and some to the southwest. Anyway, it
was a long trip from the well to the chicken yards to carry that water.

Sometime after we got electricity, ma had water lines run to the chicken yards so that all we had to do
was turn on a faucet and get the water much easier. That was a happy day in my life.

lh
th
A typical day for me also consisted of practicing my band instrument, in my 5 and 6 grade years thirty
minutes per day, and then after that a full hour per day.
Our Band Director, Mr. Carl Roberts, had started me off on the baritone horn, but at the beginning of my
th
7 grade year I sold a hand full of chickens that mama had given me for my very own, and raised S35.00
to buy an E flat alto horn, which was much easier for me to carry than the baritone horn. Besides that, I
did not have to share that instrument with anyone else, since it belonged to me.

During the summer after I got the E flat alto horn, I really buckled down and tried to improve my
playing, and at the beginning of the fall school term when Mr. Roberts heard me play he was
flabbergasted. I was playing things at that time that some of his high school students who had played 4
or 5 years still could not play, and 1 remember that about the second day of school he had me open up
the musical exercise book 1 had been playing from, and play some in front of the entire band. After that,

www.LakeCityHistory.com LCH-UUID: B423BA50-F22B-4D87-A44C-403308C92982