Martin H Huber - Conversation with Gail, Jenny, Jessica & John on December 26, 2006.
It used to get real cold up there in West Texas; much colder than it does now. And I and my father – because there were two other young ones at home – father took me with him when he went out to see – he had some steers and everything. So we’s driving through this herd of steers and he was dropping off hay here and there. It was a model T Ford truck and one of the steers kicked at the front wheel, and it kicked the tire off of the rim. And that old thirty three and a third, or whatever it is size, had a big – just like a snake ate something, had a big old belly on it. And the tube never blew out, or anything. And Daddy jumped out of the truck and jumped on top of that big balloon there and kept the inner tube from exploding. We let the air out of the tire and put it back on, and fixed that flat out there when we was feeding the cattle. I must have been only about four years old then. I was either four or five. That was the only time I remember going with my Daddy any place; but that was out to feed the cattle.
I still wonder what we did to keep that old – we didn’t have antifreeze in those days, and it was below freezing. I think we must have had kerosene in the radiator, because I remember we were out there and it didn’t freeze up and I know it didn’t have antifreeze – it must have had kerosene.
It was a long, long time ago. I still remember it just as if it was yesterday. We had big old steers – I bet they weighed over two thousand pounds, just about ready to go to market. And it was just as cold as – I guess it was in the low twenties. And why he took me along, I guess, was because Mother had my little baby sister and little baby brother to take care of; he took me along. I guess the rest of the boys/kids were in school.
That’s just about all I remember of him. I guess they don’t it any more now either, but I don’t think I ever got a spanking in my life – not even from a teacher.
Boy, those teachers used to beat a lot of them up. Oh, they would’ve gone to prison if they would treat children like that now. He took one of the boys… Actually, he wasn’t a real teacher; he was a pastor that taught school and preached, too. And this one boy was kind of half way retarded, I guess. And he couldn’t memorize a thing. But that teacher, one day when – Friday was our religious memory, had to do our memory work. Whatever verse of the Bible, or psalm we had to remember, we had to get up and recite it. This boy never could even take John 3:16, “God is Love” – he couldn’t remember that – and he didn’t know it. And that teacher started spanking him with a green mesquite limb, and that stuff just flew all over the school room.
(Jenny – He did it right there in front of everybody?)
Everybody. See, there were eight grades in one schoolroom, and thirty one or two children. He took and spanked that poor boy. I think half of the kids in there went to crying. It was really something. But I don’t know how in the world they got by with that.
(Jenny – Did he do it more than once, or just one time?)
Oh, gosh no. He whipped a child almost one every week. And he picked on this child because he was retarded and should have had special attention. But in those days they didn’t have a psychiatrist sitting in there in the principals office or the psychiatrist’s office. They didn’t know how to handle children. It was quite some deal.
(Jenny & Jessica discuss how early an age they could remember things from. Jessica remembers in kindergarden getting in trouble for talking during a silent time. I was explaining an episode of The Smurfs to my friend – the one where they all are laughing and then start crying. I got my name on the board. Then I started crying, and my kindergarden teacher apologized.)
Gail, you had some experience in your first year, because I was on the school board and I got you in the school one year too early. Mr. Doering had come to me several times – “How in the world can I keep that girl in her seat; she’s roaming around and..” See, there was another inex… - that was a disadvantage to you because that was his first year of teaching and he didn’t really know how to handle children, either.
(Gail – He tied me in my chair. The big thing was, I got up and helped everybody else. But then his problem was, he leaned back in his chair and that was a no-no. And so we were all like three grades in one room. And the doors were open and his desk was to the door. And he fell out backwards. So the thing was I was tied in my chair, and he fell in his chair.)
But see, she had a disadvantage, because we should have kept her out of school one more year, but we were trying to start a new Lutheran day school. I was on the school board and we needed more children to get up to thirty – I think we wanted thirty. He was a young kid – first year out of college, never had any teaching experience – and he just didn’t know how to handle children. It was my fault, and her mother’s fault a little bit too, because we wanted to get the school started and we wanted to work. But if I wasn’t on the school board she probably wouldn’t have gotten in. I did pretty well what I wanted to do.
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