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front seat was always warmer and a lot quieter. I liked the quieter
front seat anyway.

The next year we were back to Little Creek School for one more year,
riding the Lake City school bus. The lunchroom was a separate
building, with two rows of tables and with benches on each side, a
rather close quarter arrangement never-the-less it did what it was
designed to do. Here they served hot meals every day, and we said a
group blessing before every meal. Charles Register was the usual
leader in saying the blessing. The words were:

Father, we thank you for this food;
and ask thy blessing upon it. AMEN

In 1948, all the schools in our area went to a new school, "Murray
Hill" named for a Mr. Murray who was serving on the school board and
was instrumental in getting the school built. Now we had a new group
of kids to add to our small classes from our school. Here, too, we
had to wait for the bus from Lake City, Columbia High, with the high
school kids to change buses and go home. By now the county board had
found a worn-out old bus with no heat for the winter for us to ride,
the seats ran lengthwise instead of crossways. This old bus broke
down quite often. One morning on the way to school the steering
mechanism went out and Mr. Melton stopped just before running into
the ditch. No one was seriously hurt, however Mrs. Melton, had her
ankle or leg hurt when she fell off a seat and limped a couple of
days, but she kept cooking for us. This happened about a half mile
above our house, we walked back home and arrangements were made to
get everyone home. As the population changed in the northern part of
the county they kept changing the bus routing. Our bus had to wait
for the bus from Lake City, this wait was usually about 20-30
minutes. Three of my first four years in school we spent a lot of
time waiting on a bus to pick us up and take us home. We had a lot of
fun playing on the road bed bank to a creek near by. Running up
sliding down, just to spend a bit of time while waiting on the bus.
It was not as much fun when raining, we didn’t want to stay inside
the school. Murray Hill was a new experience for most of us, it had
electricity and indoor "outhouses." Now this was a first class
building. Three classrooms and a lunchroom under the same roof. About
two times a year the Forest Service would bring fire prevention and
safety films to school, along with a treat, a cartoon or some other
entertaining movie. Also, Mrs. Christian from the board of education
would bring out a "WQAM" Miami Herald News Reel to bring us up to
date on the latest news happenings. The big news items were of the
Korean War and the 1952 presidential election. That was the first
time for big TV coverage of the presidential race.

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