Country Folks can be Quite Independent

Reader Contribution by Arkansas Girl
Published on April 13, 2013
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When I look back on some of the freedoms that we country folks enjoyed, I sort of pity city dwellers. We could be somewhat “free spirits,” to say the least. I remember that the reason my oldest brother and sister ended up in the same class and graduated from high school the same year is because my Mother held my brother back until my sister could start the school the next year. Now, that probably wouldn’t have happened in the school system up town, but we country folks made our own rules…pretty much!

And, for me, I was a year ahead of the class I should have been in…and I guess that’s why there were only boys in my class. I didn’t realize that I started to school before the “legal” age requirement until I graduated from high school. Hopefully, my time frame is factual. Here’s what I remember about my classmates’ ages. Most everybody else was already eighteen when we finished school. I was sixteen and turned seventeen before our commencement. My best friend’s birthday is June 1 – the same as mine, but a year ahead. When she turned 18 (in 1967), I turned 17. I had already graduated.
We were certainly independent as far as we could be, but the one thing we country folks didn’t have any control over was the consolidation of our school. When our enrollment dropped so pitifully low, the head administrators had no choice but to close our school. I was the only one in my class when the school closed.
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