Memories of High School

I graduated way back in 1978 from Cascade High School, which was a phoenix of a high school. It was located in Wartrace, Tennessee, but I think that it was really a bit closer to Bell Buckle.

It is fitting that it should be between Wartrace and Bell Buckle because Cascade existed because Wartrace High School and Bell Buckle High School joined together after Bell Buckle’s school burned down. For the remainder of that school year, after the school burned, Wartrace students attended the Wartrace school for an abbreviated day in the morning and the Bell Buckle students attended an abbreviated day in the afternoon. The next school year, 1972-1973, we were melded together, all attending at the same time. We went from being Wartrace High School Panthers and Bell Buckle High School Blue Devils to becoming Cascade Champions. Later Queen made a song just for us!

Since we had the same building but more people in it, a new school was built between Wartrace and Bell Buckle. So, a few years after we became Cascade we moved into this new school which housed all grades, K-12 from both schools and Normandy students, as well. The office was inside the front doors and the higher grades were to the right and the lower grades to the left. The lockers were out in the halls lined up on the walls between classrooms. My locker was almost an engineering achievement right up there with the pyramids. It was full of books and various other things. The books weren’t stacked neatly at all. Some were flat, some upright, some leaned diagonally across the width of the locker. That locker was a masterpiece of not just chaos, but organized chaos. I could slide a book from the bottom of the helter-skelter stack and nothing else would move. Perhaps my ancestors helped to build the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

During high school, some of the classes offered were: American History, Government, Algebra I, Algebra II, Advanced Math, Trigonometry, Home Economics, Bachelor’s Living, Industrial Shop, Woodworking Shop, Typing, English I–IV, Drama, Business, General Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Spanish I-II… I can’t remember what else. I am getting some of my college courses mixed with my high school courses. I can’t remember if we had Literature and World History in high school or if that was college. Anyway, that is a sampling of the courses.

Now, when I was in high school, I don’t believe that even the school office had a computer. Computers were things that NASA scientists used, not rural high schools. We learned typing on electric typewriters so we did have that!

Also in high school, at least at Cascade, you could get a smoking permit signed by your parents then you could go outside to the smoking area and smoke when not in class. Today, that seems strange when many places have smoke free campuses and you aren’t supposed to smoke on the grounds at all. I suppose they didn’t want someone to sneak and smoke in the bathroom and cause a fire when they hurriedly threw their cigarette into the trash if a teacher happened by.

The parking lot seemed to be a center for mischief. I recall one time coming out to have my windshield soaped. I cleaned off the soap really well and drove on home. I forgot all about my windshield getting soaped until the next time I was driving and it started to rain. I turned on my wipers and after a swipe or two, my windshield had quite a lather on it! I cleaned it again, being careful to rinse it very, very well.

One of our classmates drove a little two-seater sports car. One afternoon when school let out, we went to the parking lot and her car had been picked up and turned sideways in the parking spot. I’m not sure who did it, but I know that there had to be some partners in crime!

I remember kids at school did get into a bit of mischief, but it was all in fun and I don’t recall any malicious behavior. I don’t remember any bullying going on and it seemed like all of my classmates had friends to hang out with. I don’t really remember anyone who stuck out as being isolated. Maybe, I am looking through rose-colored glasses. I honestly can’t say. I only had about 27 folks in my graduating class. It was small and I knew everyone in it. There were a few friends that I was especially close to, but I knew everyone and I liked everyone in my class even if I didn’t chill with them. I have to say that I liked all of the teachers too. Of course, I liked some of them better than others, but I don’t think there was a bad one in the lot.

I did well in high school but it didn’t just come naturally to me. I didn’t possess a photographic memory so I did have to study. I lived in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors and three channels plus NPT on TV; there was not much to do so studying was an okay diversion.

A few of our classmates were very close. We also had a couple guys from the class below us who were part of our group of close friends. In study hall, sometimes the teacher would let us play cards; spoons, BS, speed… We had a good time together in school. We often got together after school.

I recall how my friends and I loved to go spooking. Most of our spooking happened in college but I can remember one time in high school two carloads of kids went spooking.

For as long as I could remember, I had heard stories about Wolf Meadows. I don’t know what part, if any, of what I had heard was true. As I recall, the story went that Wolf Meadows had been like a lunatic asylum and the lunatics were not treated kindly. They were kept chained to trees in the yard of the mansion and were given dog food to eat.

                                 
                                                                  Wolf Meadows
                                                   (The fence looks taller in the dark!)

Of course, we found this very intriguing and it sounded like a really fun place to investigate. So we had one truck full of kids. Lee Boswell was driving the truck with one or more kids in the cab. Eddie Coop and I were standing in the bed of the truck leaning over the cab as we began slowly pulling down the eerie dark lane that would lead us to our destination. There was another vehicle behind us and Timmy Ensey was driving it. I don’t remember who all was with him but he was lagging back following us. We finally saw a tall wrought arm fence surrounding a large old house. It was dark, you don’t go spooking in the daylight, so we couldn’t see too well.

Well, unfortunately, I came up with a bright idea. I told Eddie that we should start screaming and beating the Cab roof to scare Timmy and the others following behind us. So we did. Well, we heard Timmy peeling rubber, spinning gravel backing back toward the road. Unfortunately, we had forgotten to tell driver Lee our plans and he couldn’t read our minds. He too started backing back down the lane. I guess he thought that a lunatic hanging from the trees overhead had assaulted us. I don’t remember being thrown to the bed of the truck so Eddie and I must have been holding on pretty tight.

Well, we only caught the briefest of a glimpse of Wolf Meadows as we all kept backing up towards the road and headed back home. I think that Wolf Meadows has since burned down but it will always live on in my imagination. I just wish that I hadn’t had that bright idea to scare Timmy’s carload of kids. We might have even seen spirits of lunatics munching on dogfood. As it was, if we had looked, we might have seen them laughing their butts off at us scaring ourselves to distraction!

A few of the Wartrace kids would go on to MTSU after graduation and there we continued our spooking. Some of my fondest memories were going spooking in college with old high school friends and a couple of new friends from college. We had such great times trying to scare ourselves to death!

Cascade had several of the regular extracurricular school activities; football games, basketball games, baseball games, homecoming games. We just had those three sports teams; no soccer, golf, swimming... back then.

One highlight of games was being able to witness the Master of Cheer, Joe Lee Singleton. Joe Lee had already graduated but he was still one heck of a supporter of the Cascade teams. He would sit in the bleachers and lead us on in cheers. As I recall, he had a top hat and a black cape lined in orange that he would take off and swirl at points in his cheers. Joe Lee didn’t cheer those “Rah, rah, ree” type cheers. He made up his own and he would chant them out and have the crowd stirred up into a frenzy. I think of Joe Lee as a forerunner of rap because that is kind of what his cheers remind me of today. One that I can recall goes something like this: Joe Lee would yell, “When you’re up, you’re up; and when you’re down, you’re down. Who ya think you’re messing with, Bozo the clown!” Then the crowd would chant; “Hey, hey, let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go! Hey, hey, let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” Then Joe Lee, “When you’re one, you’re one; when you’re two, you’re two. Who ya think you’re messing with, Captain Kangaroo!” Then the crowd, “Hey, hey, let’s go; let’s go, let’s go! Hey, hey, let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” This would go several rounds. I think that everyone enjoyed Joe Lee except for the Bozos and Captain Kangaroos on the other team! Heck, they may have even loved him too! He was a Champion treasure. Maybe, he still goes to the games and stirs up the crowds? I hope so.

Back then, we didn’t even have a Jr/Sr prom; we had a Jr/Sr banquet where we dressed really well in our long dresses and tuxes to have a mediocre meal at a Murfeesboro hotel’s banquet room. We enjoyed it anyhow as we would hang out with friends after the banquet.

So, in 1978, I graduated from Cascade, the second class to graduate from the new school. I consider that I got a good education at Cascade. The year that I graduated, the guidance counselor told us that the top two ACT scores in the county came from our little rural school. Take that Shelbyville!

I can remember after graduation some of my friends and I went down to Florida for a week. We didn’t have much money so we had to plan around that. Philip Ayers was going to drive and we were going to take coolers and tents and camping stuff and find a campground to camp out. Eddie Coop and Philip Ayers were still juniors, but my friends and I hung out with them all of the time and they went on the trip. Since we had little money, we figured that we could afford to camp out. I think that Philip Ayers, Eddie Coop, Carol Grubbs, Lydia Brothers, maybe one other person?, and I went. I think that’s right. Some of us hung out so often, it is hard to imagine them not being involved in all of my adventures.
So we load all of this camping stuff into Philip’s car and then we load ourselves into the car. We were packed to the gills with camping gear and kids. As I recall, three sat in the front and the car was a standard transmission with the stick shift on the floor. I can remember every time the gears had to be changed that Philip had to yell shift so that the person sitting in the middle could shift so he could shift. I’m not sure, I may be getting that part confused with a spooking trip but I think that was the Florida trip.

So here we were, driving down to Florida, the windows down, the wind blowing our hair, the music blaring and us singing, or in my case trying to sing, along with to Journey, Kansas, Aerosmith, ACDC… with Philip occasionally yelling Shift! It was such a wonderfully, magical, carefree time!

We made it to St Augustine in one piece and we ended up having enough money to rent a bungalow right on the beach! That was the first time I had seen the ocean and I was blessed to be able to see it with friends that I loved. Even my ears got sunburned, but I so enjoyed that trip with them and I have never really had another trip quite like that one. We enjoyed our week and then miraculously made it back home in one piece!

So those are a few of my memories of my high school days. I can remember being anxious to graduate from high school, then college and then getting a job and my own place to live. I can remember, wishing all of those years away to skip to a future when I could be an adult and “do whatever I want”. LOL!!!!!

But now I look back and see how sweetly beautiful those times really were. Oh, we had some sad times. I can remember losing classmate Wayne Floyd to cancer before he had really had a chance to live. I can remember a young girl in another class, Joyce Richardson, succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning when high waters blocked the exhaust on the car she was in; at least, that was what I remember hearing. I can remember my good friend Carol Grubbs losing her brother Melvin while we were in high school. I can remember hanging out with friends, drinking a bit and ending up crying. I can remember breaking down into sobs and when they asked why all I could say was that my great-uncle couldn’t come to my graduation. He and my great-aunt had raised my mom and were more like my grandparents. My friends asked why they couldn’t come and I just could not tell them that he was dying from cancer. I guess in some weird way, I thought if I didn’t say it aloud, it might not be so…but it was.

So, there were times that were not all sunbeams and roses but we had good friends and did not have to deal with the sad/bad times alone. Together with those friends, we were stronger than we were as individuals. We were young too, and adult responsibilities had yet to furrow most of our brows. Somehow we survived, even those of us who thought we had mad Mario Andretti skills. I think that God was responsible for that. He only knows how many times He has saved our little Wartrace and Bell Buckle butts. We will never be able to recognize and appreciate all of those times He stepped in. I do recognize that He let me be planted into the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Wartrace, away from family. I was away from family but I had a wonderful school environment and I made wonderful friends. I may not keep in touch with everybody but I think about them often. My kids have all heard stories of my times with my friends in high school and college. I have awed them with stories about our silly and totally childish antics that some kindergartners might have been too sophisticated to enjoy.