On a cool September morning in 1951, I debuted for my first year of formal learning at Twelve Mile Elementary School in rural Pickens County.

I was an ordinary, inauspicious child of 6 who had never been away from home alone for any extended period of time, and I was terrified. I think I was terrified mainly because my older sister had made me wear short pants to my debut. In my opinion, a man did not wear short pants in public. The attire of ALL the other boys proved me right. There were no other boys in the first grade dressed in sissy short pants. As I recall, I spent most of that first school day trying to hide myself from public scrutiny.

However, I did survive that first day of school and came to enjoy the daily get-togethers of all us guys. Besides, there were plenty of things to do to fill the gaps between book learning sessions.

All the students at Twelve Mile School were from the country. Some of us were not the cream of the crop intellectually. My memory reminds me of a couple of older kids who were as big

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