OVER MY SHOULDER

When I was in the seventh grade, we had moved to Mom’s family farm South of Blue Mound, and my brothers and I were attending ‘town’ school. The seventh grade was in Mr. (David) Stump’s room. Mr. Stump had the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade class. It seems to me that there were a total of about 29 or 30 students in the class.

It was during the previous year---sometime during the year, when I was in the sixth grade, that a young lady from Hewins, Kansas joined our class,----and Mr. Stump set her in the seat in front of me. I recall that she cried the most of the day that she arrive. I also recall that I was teased by the other boys in the class about having a ‘girl friend’ and what did I do to make her cry?-----(it was not until years later that she became my girlfriend, and still is)

Mr. Stump was a very good teacher---he had been raised on a farm, and lived on a farm, had attended college, knew what the real world was about, and what a person needed from school to ‘make something of one’s self’. He was an ‘easy going’ person, but if someone got ‘out of line’, his neck and face would get quite red, and you knew that you were in trouble.

He kept a paddle on top of the cabinet in the back of the room, and if he made a decision to use it, the person to be paddled was required to climb on a chair, get the paddle and take it to the ‘North room’ (which was the boys dressing room) where Mr. Stump would meet them for a counseling session. (I never had to climb that chair---although I probably should have done so a time or two).

Everyone in the room had home work to do, books to read, book reports to write, and the usual ‘recitation’ to do each day. I always enjoyed the Friday afternoons---as on Friday afternoon, Mr. Stump allowed us to choose up sides, and to have a contest. Sometimes, we would have a Spelling Bee, sometimes we would have a Geography match (which consisted of finding and locating the longitude and latitude of places on a map of some country in the world), and other times, we would have a ciphering match.

During the years that I was in Mr. Stumps’ room. I was either a ‘Captain’ or chosen first on the ciphering teams, or on the Geography teams, but I was always next to the last one chosen for the Spelling match team-----(only one youngster who would today be in Special Education would be chosen after me in Spelling). Obviously, I did quite well for the team in the Geography match, and would often ‘win’ over even some of the older students in the ciphering matches. (In those days, we were required to memorize the addition, subtraction facts through 9, and the Multiplication facts through 12)

Mr. Stump was a very trusting person, and for the most part the students honored that trust in the way that they behaved. He had a policy that allowed students who had completed all of their assignments, to clean the book shelves, clean the cabinet, dust the erasers, clean the library (which was at the other end of the hall), or to clean the ‘North Room’---not only that, he would allow two or three students to undertake this task as a group. It was on one of these occasions, that one morning Duane Simpson (who just happened to be the High School Superintendent’s son, and one of my best friends), and Dick Brock (who was my cousin, and another one my good friends) were allowed to ‘clean ‘ the Library. Strange how certain people always got their work done at the same time.

The ‘Library’ had served as the High School Office before the WPA built the new High School Building where the High School was now located. The Elementary school took over the old High School building, and since there was no full time Elementary principal, the office was not needed, but a library was needed---thus the office was turned into a Library. Being an office at one time, there was a walk-in vault in the room. When the vault was built, for fire safety purposes, no light had been installed in it.

The vault had what I call a ‘bank type’ door---which was a large, heavy metal door, with a combination lock. In as much as the vault was no longer used as a vault, the combination lock had been disabled so that the handle worked just as any door handle---and the door could not be locked------so we thought.

Duane, Dick, and I worked hard (I am quite sure) on dusting, putting books in order and in general cleaning the Library------I am sure for a few minutes anyway. Then we decided that it would be fun to take turns going into the vault---just to see what it was like in the vault, with those outside shutting the door---however, there was no handle inside of the vault, and the one inside was at the ‘mercy’ of those outside.

Duane, took his turn, and after a little ‘bickering’, we opened the door and let him out---as Dick did the same---then it came my turn---I went into the vault and they shut the door---the door did not seal completely tight, as I could see a small slit of light at the bottom of the door, and after my eyes became accustomed to the dark I could ‘almost’ see.

When I asked to get out, there was of course some ‘pay back bickering’, and someone ( Dick has always said that it was Duane) kicked the door----apparently the kick dislodged the ‘deactivated’ lock, as when they did finally decide to open the door, it was locked, and would not open. Of course, I thought that they were ‘putting me on’, and that they were just giving me a hard time. Then I could hear them discussing whether or not to go tell Mr. Stump, or to just go back to class--- they decided to go tell Mr. Stump, as he would want to know where I was anyway.

Mr. Stump came to the Library, but could not get the door to open, Duane’s Dad was called, and still the door would not open----”they” started looking for the combination, and I am certain called several people who might have the combination, but to no avail----apparently the combination had been lost.

Apparently we were not the first to “have fooled’ with the vault door, as Donald Horter an eight grade student---who had probably ‘cleaned’ the Library many times before,(as he was much smarter than I)----slid a metal finger nail file under the door with the instructions that if I would take the cover plate off of the back of the combination, I could set the tumblers and allow the door to be opened. I still do not know to this day whether or not he had ever had the back plate off of the door, but I would guess that he had. I fumbled around in the dark for several minutes, and was able to remove the back plate---and after awhile got the tumblers set so that the door could be opened.

When I came out of the vault, I noted that ‘Doc’ Hoppes the shop teacher had the bottled gas and oxygen and the cutting torch in the room, and would have in a few minutes began to cut the hinges from the vault door. We had gone to the Library about 9:15 A. M., and shortly after I came out, Mr. Stump suggested that we three boys go the the lunch room to eat lunch with the rest of the class.----which we did.

This little incident made the local newspaper as “Local Boy Gets Locked in Vault”----but much to our relief and surprise, very little was ever said about it by Mr. Stump, Mr. Simpson or our families. I suppose that they were relieved that no one was hurt, and that we had learned a valuable lesson---which we did. However, the lack of being chastised, did not keep me from feeling that we had “let Mr. Stump down” ---he had put his trust in us and we failed to meet that expectation.