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The story
Jack Woods wrote about skunks brought a chuckle. I well remember some
students coming to school with that smell. Boys did not always have a
change of clothes for each time they needed it.
One teacher who was particularly offended by the skunk smell was Mrs.
Cook. She was a barber's wife and lived in Holdenville. Eleven miles was a
long commute in those days, but since there was a car pool of teachers
from there, she taught at Moss. A hundred and forty-five dollars a month
was too good to pass up.
Being a 'city girl' she could not tolerate the smell of skunk in her
class room. She always had the offending student sit at the rear of the
class to keep him as far from her as possible.
After one student repeatedly came to class with the smell of skunk on
his overalls, she sent a note to his mother. She had read of a sure fire
remedy for clothes with the smell of skunk and wanted to pass the cure
along. The offending overalls were to be buried approximately ten inches
deep and left for forty-eight hours.
A few days later, Mrs. Cook asked the student if his mother had tried
the remedy.
"Yeah", he answered.
"You mean 'yes'", she corrected.
"Yes".
"Well...did it work?", she asked.
"Yeah".
"You mean 'yes' " she again corrected.
"Yes", he replied. "It worked just fine for two days, but when we dug
it up, they still smelled like skunk."
When a teaching job in Holdenville became available to her, she took
it without hesitation. I guess the boys from Holdenville did not hunt
skunks.
Clayton Adair, Class of 1954 (Clayton attended Moss 1942-53 and
graduated from Holdenville - 1954) |